g6 Up the Ottawa. 



peculiar to Canada, Maine, and New Brunswick. In the 

 depth of winter their work in the backwoods begins. It is 

 then they set forth to fell the huge white and red pines, which 

 are drawn out of the snow by oxen and piled on or by the 

 side of the frozen rivers, till the return of spring gives thepi 

 an opportunity of floating them down in rafts and masses 

 which fill all the surface of the streams in May for miles and 

 miles. By hauling the pine logs over cliffs and dragging 

 them down ravines the lumberers before the thaw sets in 

 manage to collect along the banks of the various tributaries 

 of the Ottawa and St. Lawrence some millions of cubic feet 

 of timber, and when the ice-bound streams are free once 

 more, their more arduous and dangerous labour recommences. 

 Loosely joined together in huge, rough, uncouth rafts, the 

 logs are set adrift, and with a few poles and misshapen oars 

 to guide them, the lumberer goes in charge down currents 

 and rapids of deep rivers, swollen and flowing fiercely with 

 the waters from the melting snow. As long as the logs hold 

 together all is well, but hurried and tumbled over rapids 

 they often break up, and woe betide the unhappy lumberers* 

 who are on them when the great logs come rolling in fierce 

 confusion one over the other, and go smashing down the 

 rapids from rock to rock till they are all cast adrift in some 

 open reach. When such accidents occur, as they do fre- 

 quently, it sometimes happens that the logs get so wedged 

 and bound together on the brow of some strong rapid that 

 they remain immovable, and all the miles of logs which are 

 following them are stopped at once. It then becomes neces- 

 sary to cut the obstructing logs or " timber jam," as it is 

 called, with axes. Only the bravest, coolest, and most ex- 

 perienced of the lumberers can attempt this most dangerous 

 of all their tasks, for when once the logs which bar the passage 

 are half cut through the might of the press behind breaks 

 them like straws, and some 10,000 trunks of trees come 

 plunging down with a rush and confusion that but too often 



