Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 70, No. 434, December, 1851

The pine tracts ascertained, the quality of the trees examined, the distance the timber will have to be hauled duly calculated, and the ground inspected, through which logging roads must be cut, the exploring party retrace their steps to the place where they left their boat. Foot-sore with their forest roamings, they gladly look forward to the quick, gliding passage down stream. A grievous disappointment sometimes awaits them. In the fall of the year, the black bear is seized with a violent longing for pitch and resinous substances, and frequently strips fir trees of their bark for the sake of the exudations. Occasionally he stumbles over a timber-hunter's bateau, and tears it to pieces in the course of the rough process he employs to extract the tar from its planks. If it is injured beyond possibility of repair, the unlucky pioneers have to perform their homeward journey on foot, unless indeed they are so fortunate as to fall in with some Indian trapper, whose canoe they can charter for a portion of the way. Once at home, the next step is to obtain permits from the State or proprietors, securing, at a stipulated price of so much per thousand feet, the exclusive right to cut timber within certain bounds. Then comes haymaking – a most important part of the loggers' duty; for on nothing does the success of the wood-cutting campaign depend more than on the good working condition of the sturdy teams of oxen which drag the logs from the snow-covered forest to the river's brink. Hard by the forest extensive strips of meadow-land are commonly found, covered with a heavy growth of grass, and thither large bands of men repair to make and stalk the hay for the ensuing winter's consumption. The labour of haymaking in these upland meadows of Maine is rendered intolerably painful by the assaults of flies and mosquitoes, and especially by the insidious attacks of millions of midges, so small as to be scarcely perceptible to the naked eye, and which get between the clothes and the skin, causing a smarting and irritation so great as to impede the progress of the work. The torment of these insect attacks is hardly compensated by the pastimes and adventures incidental to the occupation. Now and then a shot is to be had at a stray deer; the streams swarm with beautiful trout and pickerel; skirmishes with black bears are of frequent occurrence. Mr Springer's volume abounds with stories of encounters with bears, wolves, and "Indian devils" – a formidable species of catamount, of which the Indians stand in particular dread. Although the bear rarely shows himself pugnacious unless assailed, his meddlesome, thievish propensities render him particularly obnoxious to the hay-makers and wood-cutters; and when they meet him, they never can abstain from the aggressive, however civilly Bruin may be disposed to pass them by.

"On one occasion," says Mr Springer, "two men, crossing a small lake in skiff, on their return from putting up hay, discovered a bear swimming from a point of land for the opposite shore. As usual in such cases, temptation silenced prudence – they changed their course, and gave chase. The craft being light, they gained fast upon the bear, who exerted himself to the utmost to gain the shore; but, finding himself an unequal match in the race, he turned upon his pursuers, and swam to meet them. One of the men, a short, thick-set, dare-devil fellow, seized an axe, and, the moment the bear came up, inflicted a blow upon his head. It seemed to make but a slight impression, and before it could be repeated the bear clambered into the boat. He instantly grappled the man who struck him, firmly setting his teeth in his thigh; then, settling back upon his haunches, he raised his victim in the air, and shook him as a dog would a wood-chuck. The man at the helm stood for a moment in amazement, without knowing how to act, and fearing that the bear might spring overboard and drown his companion; but, recollecting the effect of a blow upon the end of a bear's snout, he struck him with a short setting-pole. The bear dropped his victim into the bottom of the boat, sallied and fell overboard, and swam again for the shore. The man bled freely from the bite, and, as the wound proved too serious to allow a renewal of the encounter, they made for the shore. But one thing saved them from being upset: the water proved sufficiently shoal to admit of the bear's getting bottom, from which he sprang into the boat. Had the water been deep, the consequences might have been more serious."

From its first to its last stage, the logger's occupation is one of severe toil and frequent peril. When the pioneer's duty is accomplished, and when the hay is made, there is still hard work to be done before he can begin to level the forest giants. No kind of labour, Mr Springer assures us, tests a man's physical abilities and powers of endurance more than boating supplies up river. The wood-cutters come to a fall, and have to land their implements and provisions, and to carry them past it. Their boats, too, must be carried, and that over rocks and fallen trees, through thickets and pathless swamps. Then they come to rapids, up which they have to pole their heavy-laden bateaux. For this work, prodigious skill, nerve, and strength are requisite. Then come the long portages from lake to lake, and the danger of being swamped, when traversing these, by sudden gusts of wind lashing the lake, in a few minutes' time, into foaming waves, in which the deeply-loaded boats could not for a moment live.

"Our frail skiff was about eighteen feet long, and four feet across the top of the gunwale amidships, tapering to a point at either end, constructed of thin slips of pine boards, nailed to some half-dozen pair of slender knees, about two inches in diameter. On board were fifteen hundred pounds of provisions, with seven men, which pressed her into the water nearly to the gunwale; three inches from the position of a level, and she would fill with water."

In such an overburthened cockle-shell as this did Mr Springer once find himself in company with a drunken man, who was only withheld from capsizing the boat by the threat of having his skull split with a paddle; for an inordinate addiction to rum is the loggers' chief vice, a vice palliated by the hardship and exposure they endure. Drinking, however, is on the decline amongst them of late years, since "it has been fully demonstrated that men can endure the chilling hardships of river-driving quite as well, and indeed far better, without the stimulus of ardent spirits, and perform more and better-directed labour." Black pepper tea is drunk on cold nights when camping in the open air, and is found a warming and comfortable beverage. Both in drink and diet the loggers look more to strength than to delicacy. Salt pork, ship bread, and molasses, compose the staple of their consumption. The drippings from a slice of pork, roasted before the fire, are allowed to fall on the bread, which is then dignified by the name of buttered toast. Sometimes the salt pork is eaten raw, dipped in molasses, – a mixture unequalled for nastiness, we should imagine, excepting by that of oysters and brown sugar. "The recital may cause," says honest Springer in his comical English, "in delicate and pampered stomachs some qualms, yet we can assure the uninitiated that, from these gross samples, the hungry woodsman makes many a delicious meal." An assurance which gives us a most exalted idea of the appetite and digestion of the loggers of Maine.

Once in the forest with their stores, the woodmen carefully select a suitable spot, clear the ground, build their "camp" and "hovel," and commence their winter's work. The "camp" and "hovel" are two log-houses, the former being for the men, the latter for the oxen. In some respects the beasts are better treated than their masters, for their hovel is floored with small poles, a luxury unknown in the camp, where the men sleep on branches strewn upon the bare earth. "Having completed our winter residences, next in order comes the business of looking out and cutting the 'main' and some of the principal 'branch roads.' These roads, like the veins in the human body, ramify the wilderness to all the principal 'clumps' and 'groves' of pine embraced in the permit." Mr Springer expatiates on the graceful curves of the roads, whose inequalities soon become filled with snow, and their surface hard-beaten and glassy, polished by the sled and logs which are continually passing over it, whilst overhead the trees interlace their spreading branches. "Along this roadside, on the way to the landing, runs a serpentine path for the 'knight of the goad,' whose deviations are marked now outside this tree, then behind that 'windfall,' now again intercepting the main road, skipping along like a dog at one's side." The teamster, if he does his duty, works harder than any man in camp. Under a good teamster, the oxen receive care almost as tender as though they were race-horses with thousands depending on their health and condition. With proper attention and management, they should be in as good flesh in the spring as when they began hauling early in winter.

"The last thing at night before 'turning in,' the teamster lights his lantern and repairs to the ox-hovel. In the morning, by peep of day, and often before, his visits are repeated, to hay and provender, and card, and yoke up. While the rest of the hands are sitting or lounging around the liberal fire, shifting for their comfort, after exposure to the winter frosts through the day, he must repeatedly go out to look after the comfort of the sturdy, faithful ox. And then, for an hour or two in the morning again, whilst all, save the cook, are closing up the sweet and unbroken slumbers of the night, so welcome and necessary to the labourer, he is out amid the early frost with, I had almost said, the care of a mother, to see if 'old Turk' is not loose, whether 'Bright' favours the near fore-foot, (which felt a little hot the day before,) as he stands up on the hard floor, and then to inspect 'Swan's' provender-trough, to see if he has eaten his meal, for it was carefully noted that at the 'watering-place' last night he drank but little; whilst at the further end of the 'tie-up' he thinks he hears a little clattering noise, and presently 'little Star' is having his shins gently rapped, as a token of his master's wish to raise his foot to see if some nail has not given way in the loosened shoe; and this not for once, but every day, with numberless other cares connected with his charge."

The oxen are taken out to the forest by the last detachment of wood-cutters, when winter fairly sets in. This is the hardest trip of any. Both man and beast experience much inconvenience from the cold. Often, when driving a boat up rapids, ice forms upon the poles in the men's hands, which are already so cold and stiff that they can scarcely retain their grasp; yet an instant's cessation of exertion would be fraught with imminent peril to life and goods. The oxen, attached to long lightly-loaded sleds, are driven over rough miry tracks. "In crossing large streams, we unyoke the oxen and swim them over. If we have no boat, a raft is constructed, upon which our effects are transported, when we reyoke and pursue our route as before. Our cattle are often very reluctant to enter the water whilst the anchor-ice runs, and the cold has already begun to congeal its surface." Lakes are crossed upon the ice, which not unfrequently breaks in. Mr Springer gives an account of a journey he made, when this misfortune happened, and ten oxen at one time were struggling in the chilling waters of Baskahegan Lake. They were all got out, he tells us, although rescue under such circumstances would appear almost hopeless.

"Standing upon the edge of the ice, a man was placed by the side of each ox to keep his head out of the water. We unyoked one at a time, and throwing a rope round the roots of his horns, the warp was carried forward and attached to the little oxen, (a pair that had not broken in,) whose services on this occasion were very necessary. A strong man was placed on the ice at the edge, so that, lifting the ox by his horns, he was able to press the ice down and raise his shoulder up on the edge, when the warp-oxen would pull them out. For half-an-hour we had a lively time of it, and in an almost incredibly short time we had them all safely out, and drove them back upon the point nearly a mile. It was now very dark. We left our sleds in the water with the hay, pulling out a few armsful, which we carried to the shore to rub the oxen down with. Poor fellows! they seemed nearly chilled to death, and shook as if they would fall to pieces."

So great is the labour of taking oxen to the forest every Fall – often to a distance of two hundred miles into the interior – that the wood-cutters sometimes leave them, when they go down stream in the spring to get their own living in the wilderness, and hunt them up again in autumn. They thrive finely in the interval, and get very wild and difficult to catch; but when at last subjugated, they evidently recognise their masters, and are pleased to see them. Occasionally they disappear in the course of the summer, and are heard of no more; they are then supposed to have got "mired or cast," or to have been devoured by wolves – or by bears, which also are known to attack oxen.

"An individual who owned a very fine 'six-ox team' turned them into the woods to brouse, in a new region of country. Late in the evening, his attention was arrested by the bellowing of one of them. It continued for an hour or two, then ceased altogether. The night was very dark, and as the ox was supposed to be more than a mile distant, it was thought not advisable to venture in search of him until morning. As soon as daylight appeared, the owner started, in company with another man, to investigate the cause of the uproar. Passing on about a mile, he found one of his best oxen prostrate, and, on examination, there was found a hole eaten into the thickest part of his hind quarter nearly as large as a hat; not less than six or eight pounds of flesh were gone. He had bled profusely. The ground was torn up for rods around where the encounter occurred; the tracks indicated the assailant to be a very large bear, who had probably worried the ox out, and then satiated his ravenous appetite, feasting upon him while yet alive. A road was bushed out to the spot where the poor creature lay, and he was got upon a sled and hauled home by a yoke of his companions, where the wound was dressed. It never, however, entirely healed, though it was so far improved as to allow of its being fattened, after which he was slaughtered for food."

In cold weather in those forests the bears and wolves are exceedingly audacious. The latter have a curious habit of accompanying the teams on their journeys between the forest and the river to which they drag the logs. This has only occurred of late years, and the manner in which they thus volunteer their services as assistant drivers is exceedingly curious.

"Three teams," says Springer, "in the winter of 1844, all in the same neighbourhood, were beset with these ravenous animals. They were of unusually large size, manifesting a most singular boldness, and even familiarity, without the usual appearance of ferocity so characteristic of the animal. Sometimes one, and in another instance three, in a most unwelcome manner, volunteered their attendance, accompanying the teamster a long distance on his way. They would even jump on the log and ride, and approach very near the oxen. One of them actually jumped upon the sled, and down between the bars, while the sled was in motion. Some of the teamsters were much alarmed, keeping close to the oxen, and driving on as fast as possible. Others, more courageous, would run forward and strike at them with their goad-sticks; but the wolves sprang out of the way in an instant. But, although they seemed to act without a motive, there was something so cool and impudent in their conduct that it was trying to the nerves – even more so than an active encounter. For some time after this, firearms were a constant part of the teamster's equipage."

The distant howling and screaming of the wolves, compared by an old Yankee hunter to the screeching of forty pair of old cart-wheels, is particularly ominous and disagreeable. Springer has collected a number of curious anecdotes concerning them. One night a pack of the prowling marauders were seen trailing down Mattawamkeag River on the ice. The dwellers in a log-house hard by soaked some meat in poison and threw it out. Next morning the meat was gone, and six wolves lay dead, all within sight of each other. "Every one of them had dug a hole down through the snow into the frozen earth, in which they had thrust their noses, either for water to quench the burning thirst produced by the poison, or to snuff some antidote to the fatal drug. A bounty was obtained on each of ten dollars, besides their hides, making a fair job of it, as well as ridding the neighbourhood of an annoying enemy." Several of Mr Springer's logging and lumbering friends have contributed to his book the results of their experience, and narratives of their adventures, some of which he gives in their own words. Amongst these is an ill-written, but yet a very exciting, account of a wolf-chase, or we should perhaps rather say a man-chase, the wolves in this instance being the pursuers, and Springer's neighbour the pursued. The person in question was passionately fond of skating, and one night he left a friend's house to skate a short distance up the frozen Kennebeck, which flowed before the door. It was a bright still evening; the new moon silvered the frosty pines. After gliding a couple of miles up the river, the skater turned off into a little tributary stream, over which fir and hemlock twined their evergreen branches. The archway beneath was dark, but he fearlessly entered it, unsuspicious of peril, with a joyous laugh and hurra – an involuntary expression of exhilaration, elicited by the bracing crispness of the atmosphere, and glow of pleasant exercise. What followed is worth extracting.

"All of a sudden a sound arose, it seemed from the very ice beneath my feet. It was loud and tremendous at first, until it ended in one long yell. I was appalled. Never before had such a noise met my ears. I thought it more than mortal – so fierce, and amid such an unbroken solitude, that it seemed a fiend from hell had blown a blast from an infernal trumpet. Presently I heard the twigs on the shore snap as if from the tread of some animal, and the blood rushed back to my forehead with a bound that made my skin burn. My energies returned, and I looked around me for some means of defence. The moon shone through the opening by which I had entered the forest, and, considering this the best means of escape, I darted towards it like an arrow. It was hardly a hundred yards distant, and the swallow could scarcely outstrip my desperate flight; yet as I turned my eyes to the shore, I could see two dark objects dashing through the underbrush at a pace nearly double mine. By their great speed, and the short yells which they occasionally gave, I knew at once that they were the much dreaded grey wolf."

Here Springer interposes a vignette of a wolf – a most formidable and unwholesome-looking quadruped – grinning over the well-picked bone of some unlucky victim. The logger's pages are enlivened by a number of illustrations – woodcuts of course – rough enough in execution, but giving an excellent notion of the scenery, animals, and logging operations spoken of in the text. Grey wolves are of untameable fierceness, great strength and speed, and pursue their prey to the death with frightful tenacity, unwearyingly following the trail —

"With their long gallop, which can tireThe hounds' deep hate, the hunter's fire."

A more dangerous foe a benighted traveller could hardly fall in with.

"The bushes that skirted the shore," continues the hunted of wolves, "flew past with the velocity of light as I dashed on in my flight. The outlet was nearly gained; one second more and I should be comparatively safe; when my pursuers appeared on the bank, directly above me, which rose to the height of some ten feet. There was no time for thought; I bent my head, and dashed wildly forward. The wolves sprang, but, miscalculating my speed, sprang behind, whilst their intended prey glided out into the river.

"Nature turned me towards home. The light flakes of snow spun from the iron of my skates, and I was now some distance from my pursuers, when their fierce howl told me that I was again the fugitive. I did not look back; I did not feel sorry or glad; one thought of home, of the bright faces awaiting my return, of their tears if they should never see me again, and then every energy of body and mind was exerted for my escape. I was perfectly at home on the ice. Many were the days I spent on my skates, never thinking that at one time they would be my only means of safety. Every half minute an alternate yelp from my pursuers made me but too certain they were close at my heels. Nearer and nearer they came; I heard their feet pattering on the ice nearer still, until I fancied I could hear their deep breathing. Every nerve and muscle in my frame was stretched to the utmost tension. The trees along the shore seemed to dance in the uncertain light, and my brain turned with my own breathless speed, when an involuntary motion turned me out of my course. The wolves close behind, unable to stop and as unable to turn, slipped, fell, still going on far ahead, their tongues lolling out, their white tusks gleaming from their bloody mouths, their dark shaggy breasts freckled with foam; and as they passed me their eyes glared, and they howled with rage and fury. The thought flashed on my mind that by this means I could avoid them – viz., by turning aside whenever they came too near; for they, by the formation of their feet, are unable to run on ice except in a right line.

"I immediately acted on this plan. The wolves, having regained their feet, sprang directly towards me. The race was renewed for twenty yards up the stream; they were already close on my back, when I glided round and dashed past them. A fierce howl greeted my evolution, and the wolves slipped upon their haunches, and sailed onward, presenting a perfect picture of helplessness and baffled rage. Thus I gained nearly a hundred yards each turning. This was repeated two or three times, every moment the wolves getting more excited and baffled, until, coming opposite the house, a couple of staghounds, aroused by the noise, bayed furiously from their kennels. The wolves, taking the hint, stopped in their mad career, and, after a moment's consideration, turned and fled. I watched them till their dusky forms disappeared over a neighbouring hill; then, taking off my skates, I wended my way to the house."

From some unassigned reason, wolves have increased of late years in the wild forests of north-eastern Maine. Up to 1840, Mr Springer, who had been much in that district, logging in winter and clearing land in summer, never saw one. Since then they have frequently been seen in numerous parties, and of most formidable size. There would not seem to be much to choose, as far as the pleasure of the thing goes, between an encounter with one of these ravenous brutes and a tussle with a catamount. Springer, however, who must be competent to judge, considers the catamount the worse customer. He tells an ugly story, which may serve as a pendant to that of the bear's breakfast on live beef, of what happened to a logger named Smith, when on his way to join a timbering party in the woods. He had nearly reached camp, when he fell in with a catamount, or "Indian devil." Retreat was impossible; for reflection there was no time: arms he had none. Acting from impulse, he sprang up a small tree – perhaps as sensible a thing as he could have done. He had scarcely ascended his length, when the creature, fierce from hunger, made a bound and caught him by the heel. Although badly bitten, Smith managed to get his foot out of the shoe, in which the tiger-cat's teeth were firmly set, and shoe and savage fell together to the ground. What then ensued is so horrible and extraordinary that we should suspect our wood-cutting friend of imaginative decoration, but for the assurance he gives us in his preface, that "the incidents he has related are real, and that in no case is the truth sacrificed to fancy or embellishment." He shall finish his yarn himself.

"The moment he was disengaged, Smith sprang for a more secure position, and the animal at the same time leaped to another large tree, about ten feet distant, up which he ascended to an elevation equal to that of his victim, from which he threw himself upon him, firmly fixing his teeth in the calf of his leg. Hanging suspended thus until the flesh, insufficient to sustain the weight, gave way, he dropped again to the ground, carrying a portion of flesh in his mouth. Having greedily devoured this morsel, he bounded again up the opposite tree, and from thence upon Smith, in this manner renewing his attacks, and tearing away the flesh in mouthfuls from his legs. During this agonising operation, Smith contrived to cut a limb from the tree, to which he managed to bind his jack-knife, with which he could now assail his enemy at every leap. He succeeded thus in wounding him so badly that at length his attacks were discontinued, and he disappeared in the dense forest."