John Bell
South Tweedside, Experiences in Lumber CampsOne lumber camp that I worked at was three miles in the woods. We had to walk to get there and stayed all week. On the weekend, we would walk out again.
This was an old camp that while in your bunk you could look out through the cracks at the stars. This proved to be very breezy. The cookhouse and bunkhouse were all in one building.
There were close to twenty men at this camp. We peeled pulp, approximately 1000 cord, then swamped a road for a yard horse out to a yard. At the yard, there was a saw, driven by a Model T Ford engine, that sawed 40 cords a day. This sawn lumber was later hauled out by horse and sleds to railroad cars. The men had to unload and pile the lumber into the railroad cars. When finished, they had to walk eight miles back to the camp. They nearly froze as they sweated while working and their clothes would freeze on them.
The next camp was across the Oromocto Lake. Upon arriving at the camp site, we had to sleep outdoors until the camp was erected. A bunkhouse and cook shack with a dingle between them was quickly erected. A dingle was an enclosed storage area for wood and food supplies. It connected the bunkhouse and cook shack.
Our mattresses were fresh boughs with a blanket over them; our coats were our pillows. No one undressed except for their shoes.
This lumber was cut into logs and hauled to the ice of the lake where "boom" logs and chains kept them encircled. When the lake thawed, these booms were taken down the lake to the Oromocto Stream. From here they were later taken downstream to Oromocto by a Stream Drive. The men had to keep the drifting logs from lodging on the banks of the river. This drive took two weeks.
A wangon raft preceded the drive. This raft carried the; cook and supplies. It was set up and dismantled each day. A tent was set up each night for a sleeping. Everyone went to bed wet, but clean!
Every camp owned a Wangon Box that provided the men with tobacco and papers, matches, fly dope, and gloves, etc. The cost, of course, was taken out of their pay at the end of the season.
In the spring, the black flies and mosquitoes were really bad. The favourite fly dope for these was citronella and pine tar.
When darkness fell, oil lamps and lanterns lit the way, inside and out. These lamps needed cleaning and filling every day.
The food was good with lots of it. The camps were manned by a cook and a cookee. They had a slick way of drying the cutlery. All the cutlery was dumped into a pillowcase which the cook or cookee then shook. Dishtowels were made out of flour bags.
All the pulp and logs were sawn with a cross-cut saw which involved a man on each end. If you had a good man on the other end, you could do a good day's work. With the cross-cut saws, you seldom had accidents like you do with today's powered chain saws.
At the log yard, a parbuckle, which was a pulley device, was used to get the logs piled high.
Dinner, out in the woods, was usually eaten by a fire. Water for tea was heated in a boiling can. This boiling can, which was a tall tin can or a kettle, was hung on a tripod over the fire. Tea made like this had a taste all of its own. Of course, there were a few cinders of the fire floating in it.
Our clothes were always stiff with pitch from the trees.
Evenings were spent playing cards. However, most evenings were short as nearly all the camps had lights out at an early hour so that everyone would be rested for another hard day.