The Marvelous Exploits of Paul Bunyan: As Told in the Camps of the White Pine Lumbermen for Generations During Which Time the Loggers Have Pioneered the Way Through the North Woods From Maine to California. Collected from Various Sources and Embellished for Publication — John Shaqi
The Marvelous Exploits of Paul Bunyan: As Told in the Camps of the White Pine Lumbermen for Generations During Which Time the Loggers Have Pioneered the Way Through the North Woods From Maine to California. Collected from Various Sources and Embellished for PublicationLaughead, William B.
General
The Marvelous Exploits of Paul Bunyan: As Told in the Camps of the White Pine Lumbermen for Generations During Which Time the Loggers Have Pioneered the Way Through the North Woods From Maine to California. Collected from Various Sources and Embellished for Publication
Laughead, William B.
Bunyan, Paul (Legendary character)
Like other artists, cooks are temperamental and some of them are full of
cussedness but the only ones who could sass Paul Bunyan and get away
with it were the stars like Big Joe and Sourdough Sam. The lunch
sled,--mostpopular institution in the lumber industry! Its arrival at, the
noon rendezvous has been hailed with joy by hungry men on every logging
job since Paul invented it. What if the warm food freezes on your tin
plate, the keen cold air has sharpened your appetite to enjoy it. The
crew that toted lunch for Paul Bunyan had so far to travel and so many
to feed they hauled a complete kitchen on the lunch sled, cooks and all.
When Paul invented logging he had to invent all the tools and figure out
all his own methods. There were no precedents. At the start his outfit
consisted of Babe and his big axe.
No two logging jobs can be handled exactly the same way so Paul adapted
his operations to local conditions. In the mountains he used Babe to
pull the kinks out of the crooked logging roads; on the Big Onion he
began the system of hauling a section of land at a time to the landings
and in North Dakota he used the Seven Axemen.
At that time marking logs was not thought of, Paul had no need for
identification when there were no logs but his own. About the time he
started the Atlantic Ocean drive others had come into the industry and
although their combined cut was insignificant compared to Paul's, there
was danger of confusion, and Paul had most to lose.
At first Paul marked his logs by pinching a piece out of each log. When
his cut grew so large that the marking had to be detailed to the crews,
the "scalp" on each log was put on with an axe, for even in those days
not every man could nip out the chunk with his fingers.
The Grindstone was invented by Paul the winter he logged off North
Dakota. Before that Paul's axemen had to sharpen their axes by rolling
rocks down hill and running along side of them. When they got to "Big
Dick," as the lumberjacks called Dakota, hills and rocks were so hard to
find that Paul rigged up the revolving rock.
This was much appreciated by the Seven Axemen as it enabled them to
grind an axe in a week, but the grindstone was not much of a hit with
the Little Chore Boy whose job it was to turn it. The first stone was so
big that working at full speed, every time it turned around once it was
payday.
The Little Chore Boy led a strenuous life. He was only a kid and like
all youngsters putting in their first winter in the woods, he was put
over the jumps by the oldtimers. His regular work was heavy enough,
splitting all the wood for the camp, carrying water and packing lunch to
the men, but his hazers sent him on all kinds of wild goose errands to
all parts of the works, looking for a "left-handed peavy" or a "bundle
of cross-hauls."
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