Camp 13: Working in the Lumber Woods

by Byron White

  “Is that you, Alb?” It was Stan’s voice.

  “Yes, it’s me,” Alb replied, a note of relief registering in his voice.

  When Alb had been late returning, Stan had become concerned. He was now heading out the road to see if all was well. Alb was relieved but tired. Stan took the rope from Alb’s hands and led the horses along. Soon the welcoming lantern lights could be seen shining through the camp windows. Uncle Walt Cooper and a couple of the men were called. In short order the horses were watered, tethered in their stalls, and fed. Alb headed off to the warmth of the cookhouse for a hot meal. He was a happy man; it was good to be home.

  CHAPTER 23

  ON THURSDAY MORNING STAN awoke to the sound of freezing rain hitting against the windowpane in the forepeak. He lit a match to check the time. It was 4:45 a.m. Stan lay back in the sleeping bag for a few minutes longer.

  Yesterday, they had finished hauling the wood out to the small brook. Approximately 500 cords was all that remained of Camp 13’s cut. Five hundred cords of wood to go! This wood was piled down near the Southwest Gander River opposite the camp. Stan had cut the wood on the hills and knobs close to the river for a reason.

  For the last two winters the weather had turned mild and no work could be done. Jingoes, this year he was going to be ready! If the weather turned mild, the men were not going to be sitting around in the bunkhouse or sent home early. That would be bad for the men, bad for Camp 13, and bad for Bowater’s Glenwood Woods Division. No. If there was anything Stan could do about it, a mild spell would not close down operations. And there was something he could do about it! He was determined.

  So this fall Stan had scouted the banks of the Southwest Gander again. Back here on Camp 13’s contract area the river was surrounded by cliffs and hills. Here it was not a gentle river. But it was along this stretch of river, among the rolling hills, that Stan saw an opportunity. The forest grew thick along the slopes and stretched back into the countryside. Just back from the river, several thousand cords of wood lay within a few hundred feet of its banks. The terrain was rough and hilly here, but if the wood were cut it could be dragged to the river with or without snow lying on the ground.

  Last fall he had taken some of the men he had at camp and put them to work along the river. He had gotten Billy Ginn, Albert Oake, Art Brenton, and a few other fellows to cut short trails leading back from the river at distances ranging from 500 to 1,000 feet. These men had cut trails back into the forest and stacked the pulpwood. Then Stan had gotten the road crew—men like Ron Ginn, Levi Ginn, Otto Ginn, Heber Hurley, and Uncle Charlie Ginn—to stump and level the road. These roads and trails would be used for tail-dragging the wood to the river.

  Out by the river a section of the forest was cut from the slope. The slope here was not gentle. Instead, it ran steeply down to the water’s edge. Here, too, the river was deep and fast-flowing. At the base of the slope, parallel to the river, Stan determined that a retaining wall would be built. Uncle Ben Mills and Uncle Walt Cooper were the chief architects. Great logs were cut and hauled to the area.

  Along the edge of the river, at the base of the slope, a large pier-like wall was constructed. These logs, this wooden retaining structure, were locally referred to as “cribbin’.” Large rocks and small boulders were placed into this cribbing. The cribbing confined the rocks and boulders to the area, which in turn weighed down the cribbing and held it in place. These pier-like retaining structures ran parallel to the banks and were built high enough so their tops stood several feet above the river’s surface. These structures were a key component in Stan’s plan.

  The wood cut in the area would be pulled and dragged on a single sled. Horses would go down these steep slopes hauling only one cord of pulpwood at a time. At the bottom of the slopes, the horses would turn and go out along these cribbed-in retaining walls. There the pulpwood would be thrown directly into the river. With the wood unloaded the horses would turn and climb up the steep return trail. It would be a struggle for the men and horses, but with just one empty front sled to pull back up, it could be done. This was Stan’s plan and he thought it would work.

  While half of the men were at the river’s edge working on the pier-like wall, the other half were put to work cutting pulpwood from the slope near the river and the small hills and knobs close by. In all, 500 cords were harvested and piled for scaling. Next year, Stan planned to double this amount. With more wood piled close to the river, more men could be gainfully employed during periods of mild weather. If it were humanly or horsely possible, Stan’s wood would be delivered.

  THE FREEZING RAIN THAT had been hitting the forepeak window around 5: 00 a.m. had now turned to a steady drizzle. The snow underfoot was becoming soft and wet. Mild weather had definitely arrived. How long this mild weather would last was anybody’s guess. At this point Stan was not too worried. He already had most of his wood out of the country. This remaining wood could be hauled out even in mild weather. He had half-expected the mild weather to hit earlier, as it had the past two winters. Now it had arrived, not in the middle of Camp 13’s haul-off, but rather toward the end. Well, no matter, he was prepared. Nothing would stop him now.

  Once again, Stan should have been happy; he should have been elated. But he was not. Maybe it was his strict Methodist upbringing. He wondered. Again he remembered Brigadier Hickman’s remarks about the Whites getting so much enjoyment out of feeling miserable! Well, maybe the brigadier had been right, but there was no point in getting too excited. It was unseemly somehow. And anyway, there was still that black cloud hanging in the dark recesses of Stan’s mind.

  Stan’s thoughts once again returned to the high landing. There were 5,000 cords of wood sitting in the gorge upriver from the camp. The wood had risen perhaps a hundred feet or more up the cliffs and it had congealed and frozen into one solid mass. Lester Shea had said that the wood would not move, that the wood would not reach Gander Lake, that it would not get on the train or get to the Bowater’s Pulp and Paper Mill in Corner Brook. Stan was beginning to think that Lester was right.

  If those 5,000 cords of pulpwood did not move, it could prove to be disastrous. All the planning and hard work would have been for naught. Stan remembered Lester’s threat. “If it plugs, I’ll see to it that you won’t get one red cent for your wood!”

  If the wood in the gorge stayed in place, there would be a battle ahead. It was a battle with the company that Stan was not sure he could win.

  THE SKY HAD LIGHTENED grudgingly on this dark, overcast Thursday morning in February. It seemed as if the day itself had been reluctant to crawl out of its own wintry sleeping bag. But the day had arrived, and the light had come, and the men were at the river waiting in the predawn mist.

  Only the best horses were to be used here on the steep hills. Stan had selected the eight horses himself. The eight best horses and the eight best teamsters would do all the hauling. Stan had chosen strong, steady horses capable of pulling hard. These horses had hauled a lot of wood all winter, but they had been well cared for by their users. They had not been trotted or ill used, and they were still in reasonably good condition.

  These horses, too, were chosen for their temperament. Here on the steep slopes the work could be dangerous, even treacherous. This was no place for an animal given to wild mood swings. The horses working here had to be quiet, not easily frightened. In addition, the horses had to be trusting. There had to be a two-way bond between the teamster and his horse. The bond had to be strong and the horse had to trust the man and be willing to obey his commands. This trust would have arisen out of mutual respect, and this respect would have developed and deepened over the long winter. Stan knew the horses and he knew the men: he had chosen the best.

  Today, starting off, Stan had brought only five teams to the river. These teams would get the operation under way. They would break the trails and make the initial runs. Tomorrow, three more teams would be brought in. To get things started this Thursday, Stan had chosen Herb Baker and Joe, Alb
Oake and Paddy, Ben Critch and Kit, Gerald Head and Scott, and Art Brenton and Jim.

  Yes, Art and Jim were among the top five chosen! Stan had thought long and hard before deciding. He had consulted with Allan and had talked to Art and Albert. For Stan, Art was not the question mark: Art was young, but he was a good man, hard-working and steady. No. It was Jim that was the unknown factor. But this year Jim had settled in and become more steady. This was especially true if he were hauling behind Paddy. This was the plan now. When hauling on the steep river slopes, Alb and Paddy would lead off and Art and Jim would follow. Both Alb and Art were under strict orders: if Jim acted up and got out of control going down the steep grade to the river, both men were to look to their own safety and get out of the way. If Jim plunged into the river, that was one thing, but the men . . .

  This work by its nature was dangerous and treacherous, and still sometimes Stan lay awake at night dreading some misfortune might befall the men. Sometimes he would be fatalistic: if something were going to happen it would happen and there was nothing he could do about it. That’s just how life was. In the end, he would pray for the men’s safety and drift off into the welcoming embrace of soothing sleep.

  At the end of the first day on the slopes, the five horses had pulled seventy-eight cords of wood to the river. A poor start, Stan thought. Tomorrow, with eight horses pulling, he wanted to see 160 cords of pulpwood off! The men doubted that this could be done, but Stan thought that it could. Today everyone had gone back up to camp for lunch. Tomorrow they would bring their lunches. Stan would bring some canvas and a makeshift shelter would be set up. The men would eat here by the river. Also, the wood was all close by. The maximum one-way distance while hauling was less than 1,000 feet, and this was all downslope. True, they were tail-dragging and only hauling one cord per trip, but at that distance Stan thought the goal could be reached.

  Stan figured that each team could make twenty round trips per day. All of Camp 13’s men would be engaged. There would be a crew upslope to help with the loading, a crew along the trail, and a crew down by the river helping dump the wood into the water. Today was only the beginning, a trial run. Tomorrow the real work would begin.

  On Friday morning, Ben Critch and Kit were the first down the slopes. Stan had wanted another horse to lead off before Paddy and Jim descended. Alb and Paddy and Art and Jim were not far behind Ben and Kit. Soon a continuous trail of horses was going to and from the Southwest Gander River.

  A few hundred feet upslope, a horse would pull up to a brow of pulpwood. Several men would work together to quickly load the single cord of wood. Then the horse would head downslope to the river. Another horse would pull into the spot vacated and soon it, too, would be loaded and heading out. Because of the short hauling distance, three loading crews were busily employed. Teamsters and horses were always somewhere in the circle. Either they were loading, moving downslope, unloading atop the river retaining wall, or they were heading back up. Though there was constant movement, there was one place on the circle’s circumference where the movement was strictly controlled: the downhill section!

  Stan stood on this section directing traffic. On this Friday morning, there were eight teams in the loop. Stan wanted a lot of wood moved, but if things were done in a haphazard fashion there could be trouble.

  Here, within a few hundred feet of the river, the slope was steep. Within a couple hundred feet the slope dropped off at a treacherous angle and plunged to the river below. It was under these conditions that the eight teamsters and their horses worked. To keep the teams from plunging into the river, the retaining wall-road had been built. Here, too, the wood trail was modified; it did not go downslope at a right angle to the river. Rather, the last section of trail turned and cut across the final slope. The horses leaving this final section were propelled out along the retaining wall and came to a wild and exhilarating stop.

  Because of the steepness of the area, normal wood sleds could not be used, and here, only small amounts of pulpwood, one cord, could be hauled. Under these conditions the pulpwood was tail-dragged using what the men referred to as a “go-devil.” When tail-dragging, only a single bunk sled was attached to the horse. Two sturdy logs were cut and one end of each was made fast to the bunk sled. The other ends of the two logs were tapered and dragged along the ground. To keep this go-devil, the correct spacing for pulpwood placement, a crosspiece was nailed or bolted to the trailing logs. At both ends of each log, horns, or vertical sticks, were erected to contain the load of pulpwood. Finally, the pulpwood loaded, a chain was wrapped around the bundle and attached to the bunk sled.

  To further ensure safe passage, one other modification was employed. The “drug” chains were taken off the storage nails in the barn and brought down to the slopes. These “drugs” or “drags” were placed under the forward runner of the bunk sleds and used as a brake for slowing the forward movement. Stan had had these made up at the forge down in Glenwood. Ed Jones was the smithy there and he was skilled in the use of iron. Ed lived in a house by the railroad track and he made chains for sleds, drugs, and boom chains. Ed heated and bent and pounded iron, fashioning whatever the camp operators required.

  Stan watched as Albert Oake and the men finalized loading Paddy. Gerald Head and Scott and Ben Critch and Kit had gone downslope a few minutes earlier. Uncle Ben Mills had just given the signal that they were ready to receive the next horse down by the river. Stan waved for Albert to proceed.

  Albert tapped the reins lightly against Paddy’s back. The horse was facing across the slope now. Paddy moved forward to turn and head downhill.

  “Whoa!” Albert shouted as he moved to fasten the drug chain around the forward runner of the go-devil. Again, Alb touched the reins on Paddy’s back and the big horse moved forward.

  Alb walked beside the loaded pulpwood with the horse’s reins pulled tightly. As Paddy headed down toward the river, the slope became steeper.

  “Easy. Easy, Paddy b’y!” Alb said. He was pulling back firmly on the horse’s reins now. It was critical that the horse not gain too much speed or the momentum of the load would drive the animal forward too quickly.

  “Easy, Paddy,” Alb repeated. Up until now the drug chains and the back of the go-devil dragging along the ground behind were helping to slow the forward momentum. Paddy braked with his powerful legs, making sure that three were firmly planted before the fourth was raised to step forward. The horse moved cautiously downslope.

  “Good. Good, Paddy,” Stan said encouragingly as the team passed his location.

  The horse and teamster continued on down the slope. They were nearing the final section now—log barriers reinforced the turn where the road angled down toward the river. Here the slope dropped suddenly and plunged down to the retaining wall along the river.

  “Easy, b’y!” Alb called. But the slope was too steep and Paddy was being driven forward by the weight of the trailing load! Alb gave a quick tug on the reins and held on. Paddy braced his forward legs, bent his rear legs, and sat back on his haunches. In this fashion the horse and pulpwood went like the devil down the final slope. Paddy’s outstretched front hooves acted like skis helping to control direction of movement.

  “Now, Paddy!” Alb shouted as the load of wood reached the retaining platform. With a great heave, Paddy rose off his haunches and moved quickly forward to avoid being run over by the loaded go-devil coming behind him. A short distance along the platform, Uncle Walt Cooper and Allan grabbed the horse’s bridle and slowed him to a stop.

  Paddy gave a couple of loud snorts and shook his head from side to side. His adrenaline had been pumping. Great clouds of breath shot out of his nose and mouth.

  “I know how you feel, Paddy b’y! I know how you feel,” Allan said. “By jarge that was quite a ride!”

  Les Peckford had already pulled a few loose pieces of pulpwood from the bundle and tossed them into the river. Uncle Ben Mills moved to unhook the chain that circled and held the pulpwood in place. In short order the wood
was unloaded and Alb and Paddy struggled back up the bank to the return trail. They were off to pick up another load.

  Uncle Ben headed off to signal Stan that they were ready for the next horse. On the way back he paused to tap down his tobacco and light his pipe. Uncle Ben had managed to effect repairs!

  Following the treacherous happenings on the small brook where his trusty pipe had come close to ruin, Uncle Ben had pondered a solution. Back at camp, he had consulted with Hedley and acquired tools from Uncle Walt. In the end, he had gotten a small tin of sausages from the cookhouse storeroom, which he had shared with Uncle Walt, acquired a few tools, and retired to the vacant saw filing shack. There Uncle Ben had cut and bent the sausage can cover into a small, elongated circular tube. This metal tube was about half the length of a cigarette and of smaller diameter.

  The pipe had snapped where the handle joined the pipestem. Uncle Ben inserted one end of the metal tube into the pipe handle and the other end into the opening leading to the pipe bowl. Next he forced the two pieces of the pipe together. It was a perfect fit and the insert held the pieces firmly in place. Uncle Ben fired up some tobacco and took a few long, luxurious puffs. He declared the whole contraption a marvellous affair! A thing of great beauty!

  This morning, Uncle Ben headed back along the river wall puffing away contentedly. It was a great comfort to have a good pipe and plenty of baccy.

  “Ben!” It was Allan again. “Put that old stinky thing away.” It was a dialogue that had already been repeated many times this morning. Doubtless, it would reoccur many more times before the day would end. It was friendly banter and gentle chiding from an old friend. Uncle Ben would light his pipe and take a few puffs. Allan would chastise him mildly for his transgressions. Uncle Ben would smile and puff again. Finally, he would tap his pipe and put it in his pocket. This small ongoing drama was part of the routine, part of the fabric, part of the dance of life here at Camp 13.