Allison Logging - Coastal Logging in the early 20th Century

you I'm Angus Allison grandson 2ap Allison I'm a graduate Forester and I will be providing comments to the film segments you will be viewing this large Sitka spruce is being felled in the Queen Charlotte Island the fallers having chopped out the undercut with axes then established the back cut with a long crosscut saw steel wedges driven in with sledgehammers tip the tree over completing the falling process once felled the trees were cut or bucked into manageable lengths appropriate for cutting in a Vancouver sawmill I don't care and I don't miss my swish but the girl I'm telling you about is Mississippi Miss sunbonnet sue when I said goodbye the wood scanner tallies the volume of timber felled by each falling set as the father's were paid by volume rather than by the hour prior to the arrival of logging trucks logs were often transported to Tidewater by rail cart the roadbed necessary for the construction of a logging railroad was built using a steam-powered grade shovel I'm never in the springtime Sun was shining down beneath the red Sun the crews surveying the railroads location would identify areas where ballast material or gravel could be easily excavated the key to AP's successful railroad construction in the charlotte's was the establishment of a sound rail bed the ground was extremely wet and the scarce ballast often had to be moved great distances in the wet swampy areas aap had a gang of men go ahead on the roughed out rail bed where they would cut hemlock boughs and layer them on the rail bed up to two feet thick when the ballast was applied over this mat it was prevented from mixing with the rail bed material this crude form of geotextile minimized the amount of ballast required to build the logging railroad using this method aap drove a logging railway from cumshaw Inlet up past mosquito Lake due to the soft nature of the soils in the coastal valley floors the heavy steam shovels often had to work off mats these mats were made of small logs lashed together with steel cables the shovel by swinging each mat around itself in turn could provide its own portable solid footing allowing it to move over otherwise unpassable ground I'm Chris my name's AJ always starts at it you're a baby now she don't start nose bubble she don't raise no case when she starts to do herself a couple don't break it Jane I'm pretty but lazy day I prayed about Nancy Jane always course love is your major hit baby now she don't have no girlfriend she don't run around when she start to do her stuff she may come you kids table down I'm pretty by lazy day are faced by Nancy James always love is your baby the roadbed for the logging railroad was made sound by placing a layer of ballast on the road bed and between the railroad ties suitable material preferably broken rock was excavated and placed in the gravel car the bottom of the gravel car was opened up allowing the ballast to be spread evenly between the ties we tell you no story we tell you no tale when she start to do her stuff you make that railroad ties in the charlotte's were hand hewn from the weed species hemlock ties made from old-growth understory hemlock with a 10 to 12 inch face could weigh up to 200 pounds each you don't go on toll riding she don't take no chance when you go out with that gal you got whereas mr. horses we use to move the heavy ties ap was heard to say on more than one occasion logging is a good life for women and Doug's but just hell on men and horses here we see the ballast being spread using a railroad tie as a blade spar trees were made from the taller straighter trees in a stand I know a gal it's awful sweet I'm telling you she can't beat me Oh Bertie ball with lots of faces when he is laughing emoticons in Oh Bertie ball she's looking for a sweetie and thinks she picked on me ride my best getaway much but let me be he's galas care more about are gonna stand right up and shout get Bertie these trees one stop were then rigged with steel cables to allow the felled trees within a thousand feet or so to be yarded or pulled to the spar trees with steel cables called chokers this far tree is being topped at over a hundred and twenty feet timber adjacent to the ocean could be yarded to Tidewater using a main line which was elevated on a floating a-frame in order to achieve adequate lift the steam pot was mounted on the a-frame float and the logs were yarded directly into the water now you should see this how she still would look at her and more you will owe but lots of these will many of those involve all those critical Oh Bertie over I never kiss her more than once unless you just demanded and when she hold me closer here I like it but I can't stand it took me ridin and her too she made my heart go polluters all Bertie over by reading a blog effectively a huge pulley at the top of the spire tree and running the pulling line the main lines through it the cables used to move the logs gain significant lift this allows the logs win fold to clear the stumps and other obstacles which might otherwise prevent efficient yarding of the log in this case logs are being yarded to a spar tree on a hill overlooking Tidewater the logs once yarded to the spar tree are then unhooked from the spar tree ring and hooked up to the a-frame main line these logs can then be swung off the hill into the ocean using the a frame my father Arthur Allison at age 15 is the whistle Punk seen here the whistle Punk sent signals to the yarding engineer or donkey puncher using a long electric cable the steam whistle signals could be heard over the racket of an operating steam pot blowing whistles was for many years the prime entry-level job for those pursuing a career in coastal logging by the steam-powered yarding machines are steam pots consumed large quantities of wood in order to fire their boilers the firewood had to be cut from straight not free logs wood logs next to the steam pot could be bucked using a powered Gregg saw this firewood cutter is producing fuel for the steam shovel without a steam-powered drag saw he would have to buck and split all the firewood by hand like the other loggers he was paid two dollars and fifty cents per day and was in turn charged one dollar and 25 cents per day for room and board AP was known to say hired two men if they're wearing belts yet for this man has his pants held up with a belt and he seems to be doing just fine beyond you let's go you here we see a log hung up during yarding the logger sets a roll on the log with the choker when the main line pulls on the choker the roll will spin the log out from behind the stump - something you three and every day while I'm away I get a feeling spooling me now walking when I walk out who gives you that I live got the yellow these loggers are swinging spruce logs from a cold deck pile this pile was created as a result of yarding a very heavily timbered stand to the spar tree these logs can be reordered or swung to Tidewater or to another spar tree adjacent to the railroad where they can be loaded onto railway cars AP's logging contract with the pol river company called for Alison logging to deliver merchantable spruce logs to Vancouver for $8 per thousand board feet without inflation that contract stood from 1936 to 1942 the North Bend yarding system being used here multiplies the yarding power of the steam pot the powered of steam and the size of these logs dictates the use of inch-and-a-quarter chokers for this yard and swing operation you with eight yarding sides five locomotives and 200 men allison logging produced 70 million board feet of logs annually for the powell river company between 1936 and 1942 this is early bulldozer our cat logging in the Douglas fir cedar country of Butte Inlet this was new and very modern and a newfangled way of doing things in 1934 we get a quick glimpse of another called here we are building a trail with the bulldozer equipped with a blade so that the yarding Katan arch can get through and yard out the felled logs this early bowled over had neither rollover protection or even a rain hood my loading rail cars in Bude inlet with a duplex loader the lines from the tongs are fastened to to winch drums of the same diameter by applying power to one or both of the drums a loader operator can lift the yarded logs onto the rail cars I'm gonna be a cowboy sweetheart if the logs were too big for the tongs or in the case of soft cedar steel straps were hung on the tongue points in order to cradle lift these logs you it is noted that the loggers of 1933 practice their own form of retention logging some would call it high grading it would be most interesting to visit these old logging sites today and see what the stand would look like 70 years after this initial logging took place and see the new forests established without the benefit of tree planting all over mom McIntosh is not this train is transporting you Tim acceded to Tidewater on the old for water kids got big brown eyes and B to man what agree to the same degree she's my love you only here the rail cars are having their loads lifted off and dropped into Tidewater for booming and towing to Vancouver I'll say degree she's mouth off you only boys got oboz and the Navy's got Marines now when she started Malvo cheese on Finland roads old me waste our love of God I'll burn my Macintosh here the loggers are building a floor of the Davis raft which was necessary in those days to move logs over the rough waters of the open ocean when the floor our base was assembled and knit together with chains and heavy steel cables many more logs could then be piled on this floating mat to create a large sausage shaped item of log this was then a Davis rap suitable for towing logs between the Queen Charlotte Islands and the sawmills of Vancouver the spruce logs with the double spots marked by the scanner on the highest grade of log then recognized with coastal logging in big timber in remote locations production then as now is the name of the game sayings like don't walk don't run but fly and if you must fall fall towards the rigging have been passed on from father to son from rigging slinger to choker Minh I remember being told my first day on the rigging the graves the place to rest these expressions conveyed the work ethic and the pride of those wrestling logs out of the coastal forests so when you're warm and safe inside on a wet West Coast rainy day and the wind is blowing southeast raise your glass and drink a toast to the wave a log and the beastly coast now you must pay I'm glad that you're sorry now

Channel: Crown Isle

Views: 1,032,818

Rating: 4.7963777 out of 5

Keywords: Coastal Logging, Allison Logging, Vancouver Island Logging, Logging, Forestry, Canada

Id: I0K5XwmGmuw

Length: 29min 44sec (1784 seconds)

Published: Wed Jan 11 2012