Logging Days in Blind River

miles you will to the town of Blind River here is located one of the largest Sawmills in Canada the town is at the mouth of the Mogi River on the North channel of Lake huran the road to this great Pinery leads northwesterly through Iron Bridge to Tunnel Dam then to Camp 4 near which is found the French Coop and Camp 41 with numerous jobbers who are cutting logs in that great area on the North 91 Mi is the ainad Depot and many other camps logs by the million have floated down this wed to end up as homes as a pine producer this is soggy River and it shows the mountainous country in the wintertime here you will find some of the finest Pine that is left in the North America dadong Depot this is the headquarters camp for the JJ mcfaden Lumber Company and from here many of the supplies are taken to jobbers and other camps in this region right near the depot there is a little road turns off to renie Desha's Camp he is a jobber and some Wag has dubbed his sausage Ville this is typical of The Lumberjacks of the area here we see reeny deshaw himself the jobber and Reen's Man Mark Crysta who is an oldtime Lumberjack in this region Mark is the wood foran for re early in the morning soon after light these boys go into the woods and start chopping the notch in the Big Pine trees this is called fitting the tree once this Notch has been chopped into the great Pine they take a hand saw and start sawing the tree down this operation does not take very long you see them sawing the tree here some someone asked how long it takes I think on the average 15 or 20 minutes would get this tree down there she crashes perhaps the speed with which they cut these trees down and cut them up is due to the fact that they are working at peace work after the tree is down the first thing which is done is to trim the butt all logs must be cut off evenly and all trees must be cut up whether they are good or bad here you see them measuring the tree they're measured to 16t lengths up to a 9 in minimum diameter nothing below 9 in is taken out of the woods because this is Timber that is used for lumber someone said these boys look as if they're sawing pretty fast they are sawing pretty fast they're working for themselves and the faster the saw the more they get some of these pine trees by the way will run six 16t pieces to the tree that's a 96 ft tree pretty good sized Pine the pine in this area is quite old some of it runs as much as 400 years of age after these uh logs are cut and broken out here the next operation is the skidding out of the logs they come in here and skid them out of the woods with horses notice them coming down these very steep grades here in the mountains the horse is slipping although they're rough shod the log sometimes comes up on their heels once in a while they break a leg note them coming down this grade here pulling these logs both horses and Men become very clever in avoiding these logs they know just when to go fast and when to go slow now watch these horses slip sometimes they kick each other they may break a leg they may fall down hot them slip in spite of the very finest care sometimes horses are injured here they are scaling the logs or measuring them to see how much Lumber there is in each log and marking the log for both the jobber and also for the lumber company this is called decking they pull the logs up here in great piles and then these logs are eventually pushed into the river [Music] good back first thing they do of course is to measure this log cut out the 16t lengths before they start sawing [Music] [Music] it how the scaler comes along he wants to know how many feet there are in this log 460 lineal feet it says in the book so this log is scaled accordingly a chain is fastened around it and the horses pull it away and off toward the banking ground the banking ground is on the abadon river in this case and it's only about 2 or 300 ft away now this log if you look closely you'll see some bad spots in the log it's still good enough for lumber but Tom Nash is pointing out the bad spots this boy is holding up his axe to show you which way this tree is going to fall this is chainsaw [Music] cutting just happens that in this case these boys are trying to earn themselves a farm and they go into the woods and cut these trees and cut them very rapidly and saw them up one man handles the whole operation another other man skids him out to the riverbank Clifford Horton the cook rning ringing the dinner triangle in the woods and believe me they're hungry just a moment we'll go inside the cook Shack here and see what's going on Clifford Haron here the cook is pouring tea and soup and in just a moment you'll get a glance at the tables Laden with food see the food on these tables no talking remember you come into this cook check eat and leave they collecting the water here in these big tanks to ice the road late in the day as the sun Fades these roads are iced for many miles here you see the great tank of water going along here pulled by horses to the end of this strip that's being iced and they don't turn the tank around the horses are hooked on the other end of the tank and they pull it back in this particular case they iced 5 miles of Road part of this is done at night the sun is behind the hills in this case and they've already started to ice this piece of road here this is a Jammer loading a truck and you get a good picture of the Jammer itself there a sort of a tripod with a pulley attached and operated by a team of horses see how they hook the place the hooks on these logs and the Jammer lifts them up on the load the man who loads steers the log into place rather tricky business you have to know what you're doing you wouldn't want to set a log like that down on your toes if you value your toes this is a rather dangerous operation here the pulling the logs out of the pile watch this log come down here now you don't think it's going to hit this fell well it didn't but sometimes a person pulling those logs out may be caught in the jam or a log May roll over sideways and hit him we keep piling on the truck and piling on until the driver of the truck is satisfied that he has a load he's paid by the number of logs hauls so he wants to take as many logs as he can here again we have peace work truck moves rather slowly out of this Woods Road and on of the Ice Road here sanded on the curves sometimes they look as if they're going to tip over there's a red flag to tell the truckman not to drive so fast on that curve here we are on the bank of the Mogi River a typical load of logs watch how they break out these loads they have these chain Hooks and they pound those out jump back to keep the logs from falling on them sometimes they come off all at once like there and they roll them out on the skids on the Missi log after log in this case 75,000 or more logs came out of the lafo creek and Lao Lake [Music] area [Music] [Music] in some places these logs are piled 25 or 30 ft high this is one of their High piles out on the mississagi just a short distance from this Camp is Camp 41 and this is a very cold morning sunrise 10 or 12 below zero which is not unusual in that country this is the main Camp 41 in a beautiful Valley setting just over the hill is a nice little Lake the foreman of this Camp is uh Larry Moren there he is right there on the left Larry's an Oldtimer up here he's been in a good many Lumber drives and a good many Lumber camps the bulldo are going out to work sometimes they break out the piles of logs with a bulldozer in many of the lumber camps the the call to eat is handled with a triangle but sometimes a cook might happen to have a horn in this case Cho Moren was the cook and he had this big long brass horn little try to toot it see what we can do with it this is Larry Moren coming up to direct traffic on a big hill just a short distance from Camp 41 the loaded Slavs are coming up here on the hill to have the cable of the crazy wheel attached and we'll show you a closeup of how they attach this crazy wheel to the slaves kind of an interesting process they pull this cable up here and lock it onto the sleigh just like fastening a big lock on in this way they can snub the sleigh as it goes down the hill there he is tightening up the lock there it goes there's the crazy wheel at work holding the load back I will go down to the foot of the hill in a moment get a view of that sleigh and see what it looks like coming down the hill when you're down below from the top it doesn't look like much of a hill but when you look up at it if you were sitting on top of that load of logs you might feel kind of funny when the load started to come over that Hill even if you did have a cable attached to you now here they are bringing out these slaves from the yarding area down to the Mogi River five or 6 miles here and you'll notice that this load of slays or this truck rather has eight slays back of it probably 350 or 400 logs in that load holling them down the ice Road you may wonder what would happen in case one of those slaves jumped the track well I guess they have had one or two of them jump the track and it generally shoves the truck out into the woods and wrecks it they have hauled as many as 13 slays back of one truck up there but the usual load runs from 6 to 8 note that there are quite a lot of logs out there in the ice some of the logs that were rolled in a little bit earlier they're pulling us down to the area where they unload in other words the dump they call it it's started to snow in this picture now watch how they come down on the ice of the river 91 mil North Blind River onario you come to the White Pine in this part of the North American continent here you see one of those giant pine trees found on the banks of the abadon and just a short distance away you see the rollways where they are breaking outs which have accumulated during the winter you may see a little pop of dynamite which breaks the ice and throws these logs into the river and I want you to especially watch the left rollway here because pretty soon you'll see a great big old pine log come tumbling down it'll have a white spot on the left side of it and you'll notice it when it falls into the river it's part of a giant tree cut up there there it is right there the second log or the a log similar here breaks when it hits a stump that quite often happens and the timber is ruined this is a closeup where they're rolling logs off a a low rollway which is right along the bank look at the size of that Timber it's beautiful Timber these men here are what they call the river Hogs they get out and work in the water roll these logs off of the shallow Banks here get them out of the brush and start them on their way to the mill now here they're knocking the ice out from under these logs big chunks of ice still frozen in here where the logs of jam they finally get the log out and push it into the water takes a good size crew of men to roll heavy logs like that you can see how high the water is because it's all up over the brush here and it's quite a job to work on these jams and push the logs out into the fast flooring of bad River they usually a pike pole there some of them have peeves others Pike poles there they are out on some floating logs while we were in here we were visited by a a group of men uh from uh the states who were up uh looking at this logging operation there was a retailer and a wholesaler in the group and in just a moment you'll see right there the gentleman of the brown jacket is on a floating log and that's dick fry and he had with him a wholesaler by the name of Mr Dean coopis from Flint Michigan and in a moment uh Mr coopis Right Here attempts to join him now watch him watch him he's going to step off the log and go right down to his neck there he goes goodbye Dean now you notice he has that pee in his hand and you'll soon see what happens to that PE he tries to bolster himself up with it as unsuccessful P Here Come The Lumberjacks to pull him out now be careful be careful there hang on to that man watch out he's going to fall there he goes all right had a tough time remember this water is ice cold The Lumberjacks pass a Peavey over to him these logs are all floating they finally get ready to uh build a bridge here with Pike poles so that the man can crawl up here and now they get him up they get him out of the water they lucky they saved him that gives you an idea that it's quite a dangerous business to walk on floating logs unless you know exactly what you're doing even if you are a wholesaler now we're going on in the this man needs some dry clothes and it's the end of the day and so we're going on up the a very steep bank here and on up for supper and uh you might be interested to know that the gentleman didn't suffer any bad effects but uh when we did arrive at the camp the uh Lumberjacks here decided to present this gentleman with a uh big sucker this is Bud Gillespie of the mcfaden company it was a lot of fun that is afterward is really the beginning of the drive the cookery tent here stove is being taken down and loaded on the boat because they'll have to do a little cooking as they go down the river down the Steep bank here and on the boat fire is still going in the stove you notice how they loaded on this pointer it drops into place and those handles uh come off off they put the stove pipe up here tie it to a stick other supplies are carried in boxes and placed on the boat it takes a lot of cooking for a River Drive 65 men are employed during this River Drive you notice they already have some of the items on the stove the beans are being cooked the potatoes are ready when this boat gets down the river to the mouth of the ainong they'll have to have a hot lunch dishes here comes the meat takes a lot of food for 65 men the cook Clifford Horton was cooking the entire Drive these are his helpers here all kinds of silverware supplies of every conceivable kind loaded on the boat eggs flour cups here they are carrying the duffel down to load the duffel on the boat 65 men have a lot of duffel all kinds of bags and suitcases duffel bags of a great variety are loaded onto this boat and then on top of this uh all these uh blankets and things they pile the tents and poles and everything that they need to Camp along the river here they are bailing out the boat this is a fire pump they carry firefighting equipment right along with them they can use it for several purposes and here the cookery boat finally gets underway it's important to get the cookery boat on down the river as soon as possible there's the cookie sing in the boat with the cook and so you can see the smoke coming out of the stove there the top of the stove pipe as the cookery boat moves off into the main part of the stream I don't know whether you can see the steam coming out there or not but he's saling the meat here getting ready for lunch and away they go in snow and rain just happened to be a very bad day here's the boat with the tents and the duffel moving out into the misogi and down toward the mouth of the abadon here they are at the mouth of the abadon it's raining a wee bit here quite chilly cook is standing by the stove here and uh watching the potatoes here looks like they're pretty near done you'll notice it's raining in the background see the water on the rain drops on the water the beans there big pot of coffee in the background here the men come in to eat hot food is being served as you can see here and notice these uh boys put on a pretty good load that's uh that meat that they're taking out there is uh beef lots of potatoes beans good heavy food for hardworking men the first drive of the abadon has reached the Mogi a gentle rain is falling as the men are served this lunch I want you to particularly note uh that some of these men like potatoes uh you see that gentleman in the background he just putting five potatoes on he's an Irishman That's Mike Gorman you saw him a little earlier apparent apparently the Irish like Irish potatoes Mike did some of the same men year after year follow these drives here we are now coming down Way Beyond the badong near 40 m Rapids you see Joe Boer here rowing the boat down the Mogi River he's also known as Joe buer you can see how fast the water is here many logs in the Rapids the boats come zooming down here they're in the upper Rapids as you see them here this is the cookery boat young gentleman there waving his hand his cookie Camp Bell they pass on through the upper Rapids and come into the lower Rapids and bounce around here as they approach and see how rough it is and how low to the water that boat is they made it through here all right didn't seem to hit anything sometimes the boat gets sideways in the Rapids very difficult to handle in the fast water and in the lower Rapids you're going to get a pretty good view of the hell you are it looks like they're pretty near swamped here the water is so rough these boats are are heavily loaded but two men can handle the both but they need to be strong men they successful they got through very rough water you see an occasional log bobbing along there now here's the boat that uh didn't have such good luck they're coming into the upper Rapids all right he managed to get through those you see how rough the water is here they go in there rather slow head for the lower Rapids when they got into the lower Rapids they weren't quite as successful in getting through here they come you watch them kind of close now you'll notice that they Bob along here and suddenly they hit a rock in the the Rapids here and the boat it swings around it's turning they're trying to hold it but they can't hold it the boat swings and crosses the river and piles up against the Log Jam and sinks everything is wet there they swing against the jam and of course as soon as they touch the jam while the boat filled with water the two men crawled out on the jam here these telephoto shots across the river will'll show you they're taking the various articles out of the boat as rapidly as they can to try to keep them from being wet man running this boat they're taking the van out here the so-called van has all the supplies there cigarettes and gloves and all of the things that they may want to use during the drive dry socks everything that the men will want to buy during this River Drive contained in the van the van's about 3/4 full of water see the boat's filling here or is full of water this young man who's uh picking those cans out there they call him Bobby Soxs he's a very good Boatman notice how this bulldozer backs up as the cable Titans here the logs are pulled out of the rollway and go floating down the river it's necessary for someone to get out on those logs and retrieve the cable here's what happens to logs after those in front are pulled out they go crashing into the river cable is picked up and taken back up to the rollway again you see the man in the water there working with a pike pole to retrieve the cable or perhaps I should say the end of the cable which contains the hook he jumps ashore and the cable is carried on down to the rollway again fasten around the logs this goes on as they break the rollway and the logs are put into the water bumber jaacks uh affectionately refer to the bulldozzer as The Bull the bull has a lot of power as you will notice when they pull out this particular rollway here they fasten that cable out there and look at the number of logs that are moving out there it's almost as many logs as Paul bun would pull out at one simple yank all kinds of logs here you see the Backwater of the huge tunnel Dam the pp wood is being ponded here as it is brought into the Chute and put over a 240 ft head it comes into the Chute here and passes down about 1,000 ft as you see it coming here splashes into the tunnel below and the pine takes the same course and it's followed by the pulp the large pine logs you saw in the previous picture take this same route down over this great dam you see the pp at the bottom there is it hits the water and jumps into the air sometimes 25 or 30 ft now uh we're breaking a jam here above the big slate Falls you notice the logs moving into the Rapids here just above the big slate Falls the men are off of the logs and here they come piling on down through the fast water of course it isn't as simple as that many of them jam and get tied up in the rocks just a moment you'll see the men working on these logs trying to pry them loose from the Rocks get them on down the river here's a log here giving him some trouble sometimes one or two logs jammed into the Rocks like that make it very difficult to remove the rest of the logs they have a crew of men pulling on this rope once they fasten it on they try to shake it Loose here get it down down through this little piece of Rapids isn't as easy as it lookss you don't want to pull loose here they are working in the water below that little slide eventually they manage to get the log loose and on its way however sometimes logs have to be abandoned they can't can't be pried loose in a reasonable length of time they have to be left until higher water will sweep them on down the river it may be the next year however before they arrive big slate Falls is a very large uh waterfall located quite near a little back road has many visitors at certain times of year this is a picture of the big slate the logs going over the waterfall you can hear its Mighty Roar for 2 or 3 miles on a good Ste night see the logs down below the Slate as they come into that fast water now we're at the Red Rock Falls that's down the river a ways yet they're out here working on this Jam trying to get the logs out a few of them are pushed out float into the Red Rock Falls here's a big log that's being pulled out of the jam but this is also a bad jam and will need to be blasted we'll have to have the powder man it goes that log and so more logs go tumbling into the river Log Jam begins to break the logs hit fast water and away they go on their ride to the [Music] mill there are many sand bars in the lower sections of the Mogi River and here you see the log jams on some of these sandb bars in this area the men and horses are able to get out in the water and pull these great logs off of The Sandbar however they must have a rather healthy disregard for getting wet they generally get wet in the morning and stay wet all all day as they work these logs into the lower misogi and we're getting closer and closer to the great Sawmill at Blind River here is the mill at Blind River you can see the logs here boomed up that's the ponding area where the logs are held until they are sawed up in this great Mill of the JJ mcfaden Lumber Company this is a very large Mill I believe the largest Pine Mill in Canada and the general manager of that Mill will be on hand in just a moment that's another view of the mill taken from one of the docks the general manager on the right here Mr Ted Smith and the superintendent Mr Kaufman this is a close-up picture of Mr Smith here they have great lumbering operations in this country and you'll see some of the logs here as they are being brought into the mill from the pond actually the pond is a part of the north channel of Lake huran the logs are shoved into a ladder here by these men we'll have to go up above and look down to see just what's taking place cuz they're on the way to the saws they're given a high pressure shower bath to clean the sand off as they ride up this ladder all the loose bark is knocked off also they're moving in toward the great saws and in a matter of a very short time will be converted into Lumber we'll take you inside of the mill in just a moment and you'll have an opportunity to see how those saws work and how fast they work you see the logs are skinned up a bit by their ride they're still in pretty good condition inside the mill a man rides a carriage and that log is sawed squared up here the slab's taken off and he controls flips the log around by automatic pressure Machinery the saw sits way off to the left perhaps you can just see the top of his head it's rather dark in that Mill we had a combination of daylight and artificial light here it was a difficult picture to make after the timber is squared up it's sawed up into the type of boards that are needed there are two types of uh saws in this great Mill one of them is this uh large Dan saw which is used with a carriage here you notice the logs move onto the carriage they're clamped down slabs are taken off two slabs in that case the log is flipped around here by the Sawyer to get the right location to saw the log to the best Advantage all handled by levers in the hands of the Sawyer he also has that chap up there on the carriage to look after this Carriage goes back and forth very rapidly and so at last the pine is converted to Lumber now here you see gang saws working six great Pine logs at one time come through and are cut into boards slide out here and go over on conveyor belts they're sorted out come on out of the mill down these great conveyors and through that tank where they are treated so they will not be eaten by insects or ruined by mold here the boards are piled up as they come out on these conveyors in the lumber yard and great carriers pick them up and carry them off either to be dried outside or to be kill and dried depending on the type of lumber which is used and see how these carriers work we'll go over and take a look at the lumber which is piled out of doors for drying haul away here may go quarter of a mile or a half a mile out into the yard the yard must be well protected here against fire hydrants all over electric circuits so that they can run this Machinery this this is a piling machine two men going up on top of the pile here riding the Machinery up you'll see how this works they Place boards on the lower part of that traveling equipment there and they are carried up to the two men working on Top This Man leaves a load of lumber for them these men are doing pieace work here you notice how rapidly they work boards are placed on the machinery and up they go on up over the pilot up the top down the other side and as they come down they're picked off by the young men you saw in the picture and you notice how rapidly they place them on the pile those aprons are to prevent them from being injured by that rough lumber now we're going to take a pile of lumber over to the shed where some of the better Lumber is taken for finishing and here the great crank up a whole truckload of lumber at one movement Lumber is carried around in various parts of the shed and here it is at the finishing is done this company will convert Lumber into almost any type of wood needed from Little sticks of lumber which go into Shades to the largest type of Timbers here you see them Machining the lumber piling it up from here it's here's a very neat little piece of wood that's being cut up the operators work here and pil it up it's loaded directly on cars and shipped out to all parts of the United States there goes a chain load of lumber huge Freighters like you see in this picture here pull into the docks of the JJ mcfadin Lumber Company at Blind River and pick up this Pine Timber the mcfaden company is one of the largest producers of white pine in the North American continent you can see the timber here being picked up by the boat's large Crane and there's a lifting machine machine there it helps to load the pine you can see here the lumber is being piled on and they carry huge [Music] [Applause] [Music] loads [Music]

Channel: Timber Village Museum

Views: 71,046

Keywords:

Id: 2id1JExGmiY

Length: 45min 31sec (2731 seconds)

Published: Thu May 02 2024