My dad was a logger and loggers were always at the house or out in the yard. Logging stories and lore filled the air to mix with cigarette smoke and chain saw exhaust. Dirty trucks full of tools, oil and choker cables were the norm. Tables full of booze, full ashtrays and playing cards were standard issue in every house we visited.
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| My dad, Ken Pearson after a days work as a tree faller |
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| The entire Jackson Bros falling crew on the back of the photo signed "Dis was loggin' Da boys of 86" Might as well say"Butch Cassidy and the Hole in the Wall Gang" Jorn Skytte, Paul Tingley, Ken Pearson, Tom Hemstalk, Owen Edmonds, Doug Wooten, Neil Mulligan, and Boney Wellburn |
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| Loggers at the gate, Bob Edwardson, my dad and bull- bucker Art Wayment |
I spent only a couple years in the logging business when I was a kid, working for FAB Logging ( Frank, Andy, Bill ) The best job that I had in the bush was driving a log skidder and rigging trees for sky-line logging. I got the job, when no one else volunteered and I was too dumb to say no thanks.
Rigging a tree is when you climb up a tree with belt and spurs to attach steel cables and huge blocks (pulleys) so that the yarding machine can lift the logs clear of the ground. The set up looks just like an industrial version of a clothesline. I would climb and rig two a day. Usually a professional faller would come out a drop the tree when it was done. Sometimes I fell it myself, but it really wasn't something I liked. Then it was my job to pull the gear off the fallen tree and move it all to the next one. When I wasn't busy scampering up trees, then I ran the skidder and pulled logs into the landing for the hydraulic log loader to pick up and sort . For extra fun, every once in a while I had to pull a heavily loaded logging truck up the hill from the landing . These are the only photos I have of those days. The area being logged is in Halfmoon Bay BC and you'll be pleased to know that it is very lush and green today
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| New tires on the Detroit Diesel powered Mountain Logger |
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| Thunderbird mini-tower and log loader, the trees that I rigged on this setting were in the back |
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| 1980 or so, Ron Casey in the truck, Wilfred Hansen in the log loader and Wally Smith in the yarder |
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| coming down the trail with logs dragging behind |
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| LeTourneau diesel/electric drive log skidder at Vic Walter's property in Porpoise Bay BC. |
Original poem by MP
A Loggers Life
The legends of the forest,
The workers and machines fading, as the old timers pass and the iron rusts back into the earth. The logging days gone by, as simple as they seem now, were full of life altering dangers and the hovering possibility of going broke at every turn. Those who made fortunes and kingdoms and those who made it, only to have the world take it all back. Those who's fame rose from physical triumph and gut level daring. Loggers and machines turning trees into money.
Stories as big as the men and the trees. Daredevil acts high atop spar trees, or jumping from boom stick to boom stick.
Embellished tales of machines,
Gutless or all powerful
With or with out brakes
runaways and rollovers
steam to diesel
tire sizes and gear ratios
logging truck loads
Jake brakes and truck drivers
Truck drivers
Winding down the mountains steep sides
Whistling a nervous tune
only to turn back up
And enjoy it all over again
All for the love of the roar of the trucks
The trucks
Pacific, Hayes, Kenworth, Mack and Pete
Engines and gearboxes
Size and weight
All fuel for noisy debate
Spilled warm beer
Overflowing ashtrays
Open cans of tobacco
And rolling paper artists
Rolling with one hand
And steering with the other
Wrangling a load to the dump
The dump
Where the entire load is
Pushed, heaved, lifted or carried
onto water, ground or bunks
Sort, cut, bundle, stack
For transport out by truck or waves
In all seasons and all weather
All weather
Rain, light rain,
Heavy rain,
Freezing sideways rain
Stinging rain that drives out the desire to take another step
Roads washing away,
Mountain sides coming down
Trees uprooted and twisted
To snow
A light dusting
On to slippery sliding muck
Too much snow
And the year is over
Come back in the spring
I hope you saved your money
But I know you didn't
You spent it all
We all did
And we'll do it again and count the days
The days
On the mountainside
The sun is out
The sky is blue
A light breeze shuffles through
For a moment everything is perfect
Magical views of tree lined valleys
Serpentine roads winding along
The smell of cut fir logs, red cedar and yellow
Diesel, gear-dope and chain saw gas
Over heated brakes and friction clutches
Stand on a stump and have a good look
The market is great
And they buy every stick
Every payday is Christmas
Every challenge is met
With wits and leverage
and if all else fails then
Dynamite
Dynamite, brute force multiplied. Any problem that can't be fixed with the proper application of dynamite and Amex, is God's way of saying it can't be done. Blasting cap adventures with missing fingers or worse. Packing powder and caps up the hill. Load it just right, not too much, not too little. Oh, but on a really good screw up, really good, legendary like.....The rocks get launched as high and fast as any rocket, high into the afternoon sky. Smaller rocks and dust rushing up behind. Shock waves pushing on the trees. Oh yes, oh yes. That one rock like it had eyes and a brain, searches and adjusts. Then it drops with punishing force on the most valuable piece of man's creation it can find.
A logging truck window
The hood of a Cat D-8
Maybe the yarder
Better yet........ the bull-bucker's truck
That big fella who was in a bad mood this morning, yelling at everyone, for any reason. Somebody forgot their boots, another was late, but that was then and this is now.
The bull-buckers truck is wearing a new granite rock hood ornament, twisted and perforated metal with oozing fluids. The only hope is that he blows a vein in mid-screaming rage. Neck muscles as taut as a steel cable.
Steel cable
Strawline, haulback, mainline, extension, bundle straps and guy lines. If it wasn't for steel cable, nothing in the logging business would ever move.
No way rope is going to do it,
Too much weight
Too much strain
Too much torque
And too much money standing out on those green hills
Jaggers, little broken strands of wire that stab into your skin, through the gloves, pants and shirts. Maybe tear a chunk out of you, or drag you to a nasty beating or worse, in to the machine gears or sheaves.
Sheaves
Blocks, huge steel pulleys that carry and re-diect the the steel cables. Eighty to one hundred pounds, carried on a man's shoulder through the felled and bucked timber. Out a thousand feet, with ten thousand chances to trip.
Up side hills and across ravines
Risking twisted ankles and broken legs
or some other carnage
To deliver a block and a strap to a stump
So that the diesel powered Goliath can start yarding
Yarding
Done by horse, steam and steel monsters, Bigger wood, steeper hills, pulling farther and faster. The logger needs to operate and repair the monstrosities out in the forests, the most robust and productive survive. Only in the the whiskey soaked dreams of the old timers would logs actually fly out of the bush under multi- thousand horse power Skycrane and Chinook helicopters. But from bridled horses to Madill towers, some one still has to go out and set chokers.
Set chokers
Sling beads, the intimate connection between logger and log. Seemingly simple, needing only strength and speed. Wrestling with a twisted steel cable and a metal knock out punch at the end. Set the choker from skyline or winch, make up a bridle if the log is too big. Dig under the log to get the end through, Curling back like an angry rattle snake.
Give the signal
Wave the arm
Blow the horn
And run to get clear
Get hit by a blind and uncaring log and end your time here.
Your time here
Death in logging comes too often
Injuries and bust ups a regular event
Death in the forest is often ugly, messy and slow
Remote locations and steep terrain
Some workers out on their own
Others dance among machines
That can't feel or know that they are crushing the life out
After the service, they all go back out and put on their boots, hard hats and gloves. They climb into the cabs, trucks and boats, they walk the fallen trees and step back into the loggers life
The loggers life
Beautiful mountain views
Clear cold creeks
Rain gear and mosquitoes
Steel cables and hard hats
lung busting side hills
Jumper cables and starting fluid
Rubber tires and steel tracks
Jakes brakes and dynamite
The morning sun
Tug boats and helicopters
And the legends
The biggest and fastest
tallest, toughest
Heaviest, drunkest
Choker holes and left handed wrenches
Soaked from sweat
Soaked from rain
Rock slides and ocean waves
beer and cigarettes
Pick up trucks and tidy tanks
And the names and faces long since gone
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