Life of an Old Woodsman

Life in the Winter Wood Camps

By the age of four or five I was walking beside my dad, four miles into the woods to cut three to four cords of wood a day. We’d both be on the end of a crosscut saw, cutting four-foot length.

When it was time to yard the wood dad would use the bucksaw and I would ride on his horses back in the woods, hock up the log and take it out to the yard. When all that was cut had been haled dad would tie the horse up to a tree and feed them. That was a time when dad let me rest as he continues to work.

Wintertime was wood working time so there was always a fire to keep going to keep us warm. When a days work was done and night was coming upon us, we would take the horses to the lien-too. Dad would take their harnesses off and clean them up, put a horse blanket over them for warmth, and feed and water them up for the night. And then we’d make for camp. Dad would light the lantern, then warm up the beans and biscuits up on the old wood stove. When eating was done Dad would take the lantern and go down to the stream to get a bucket of water, he would then put in the kettle over the stove to heat up for dishes.

Dad would then sit in his chair; light up his pipe and tell me stories till I had fallen asleep on the fur bow bed on the floor.

One of the stories I remember was of dad working at age 14 rolling logs down the river. When the ice on the river melted it was time for log rolling. The logs had been pilled by the riverbanks all winter long and it was time to put them in the river to send down stream. Daddy didn’t know how to swim so it was a good thing there were so many logs that the chance of falling was slim. Each group of men was in charge of a section making sure the logs didn’t jam up. The supervisors rolled around in a flat bottom boat checking for jam-ups. Dad did fall in once but with all the wood in the river he was able to grab two logs and get himself up again.