Life In The Camp

Most logging operations were done in the winter months, mainly for convenience in hauling the logs out of the "woods." In the winter it was possible to pour water on the trails and use sleds to carry enormous loads of logs when wheeled carts would have collapsed under the weight. Therefore, most of the lumberjacks were farmers who could work their farms most of the summer and enter the camp in the late fall to spend the winter. Since the men worked twelve hours a day, six days a week, few ever went home or saw their families for the entire winter. Thus, the camp was home.

The first to rise in the dark of night was the cook and his helper who was called "Cookie." They brewed the tea (very little coffee was consumed) and quietly wakened the teamsters who had to feed and harness their horses before they or anyone else were allowed to eat. The Cookie would cry out to the sleeping men, "Daylight in the swamp." There was no repeat. If you failed to rise you were on your way home. Most of the men didn't need to dress as they slept in their clothes. They simply pulled on their 'hob-nailed" boots and maybe -- just maybe -- splashed a little water on their wiskered faces.

In the cook shanty, only the cook was allowed to talk. This was so he could shout orders to the "Cookie" and get the food served in minimal time. After all, the cook's job was to see that the men didn't waste time in non-profitable pursuits like eating! The fare usually consisted of tea, biscuits and salt pork. Sometimes this was altered with flapjacks, but rarely ever eggs; storage and availability being major problem in the isolated area of the camp. After breakfast the loggers went to the woods and worked until mid-day (no coffee breaks here) when the Cookie would pull a sled of hot food out into the woods where the men would eat rapidly and return to work. At dark the men would file quietly into the cook shanty and consume mountains of food before retiring to their bunks without any prompting. Sunday was their day of rest and the time to relax, wash clothes (maybe) and, if they were lucky, someone in camp played the fiddle or the mouth harp to pass away the time.