LUMBERING. 267 



rafts, and either floated down by the stream or towed by 

 steam tug down to the sea. The rivers in Canada have a 

 lively appearance in the months of May and June ; hardly 

 has the last of the ice disappeared when the logs commence 

 to run. From daybreak in the morning until dark the 

 stream drivers are at work, some in the water, some walking 

 on the slippery floating logs as only a lumberman can, 

 others paddling about in their canoes, pushing off their logs 

 from the bank, guiding them through the broken water, 

 and finally making them into rafts. This is a period of very 

 hard and severe work for the men, who are highly paid, and 

 of great anxiety to the lumberer. A sudden fall of water, 

 an error in judgment in neglecting to seize the proper 

 moment to launch his logs into the river, or a want of 

 hands to help him, may be the means of leaving his logs 

 high and dry on the shore, and of keeping him out of his 

 hardly-earned money for a twelvemonth. 



If a log could speak it would tell of many an hour's 

 hard toil spent on it from the day it was first marked for 

 cutting in the heart of the forest to the day it was shipped 

 at Quebec. It would also bear testimony to the honesty 

 of the Canadian people. The lumber is cast away in all 

 sorts of strange places by the freshet, in meadows, in fields, 

 in creeks, and gullies far from the banks of the river, 

 where it lies sometimes for months unsought and un- 

 claimed, but rarely if ever is a stick of timber stolen in 

 Canada. 



Only the square timber is exported, the logs are manu- 

 factured at home. A first-rate sawmill at work is one of 

 the sights best worth seeing in Canada. The timber is 

 drawn by machinery out of the water into one end of the 



