220 IN THE LUMBER WOODS 



effectual heating is thus simply obtained. Daylight is admitted 

 by one small window. A small rough deal door grating on wooden 

 hinges is the only means of entrance. Down the middle of the 

 room runs a narrow table formed of two or three planks supported 

 by rough stakes driven into the floor, surrounded by benches 

 constructed in a similar fashion. Facing the fire is a long low 

 bench called 'the deacon's seat', made of a spruce log split in 

 halves with three or four stout limbs left on each side for supports 

 which it is plain can never get loose. Here the lumberers smoke 

 their evening pipes, sing their forest ' chanties ', and blithe songs, 

 spin long yarns, as sailors do, and play for small stakes with well- 

 thumbed cards. 



No wonder that the social side of the lumber camp appeals 

 to many a lonely youth eating out his heart in the grim solitude 

 of some backwoods farm. The camp becomes his club. Nowhere 

 are there happier faces to be seen than among the jolly loggers of 

 the Canadian lumber camps. Yet their lives would be considered 

 hard even by many a day labourer. For instance, consider the 

 bed where they take their rest after their day's labour with the 

 axe in the frosty air. The sleeping bunk is a mere oblong box 

 where they are obliged to lie packed like sardines in their tins. It has 

 been filled six inches deep with the tips of fir branches once fragrant 

 and aromatic but quickly reduced to red withered fragments of 

 brittle twigs. Here the men huddle together at night and sleep 

 heavily enough, as the camp visitor finds often to his sorrow. When 

 some stertorous breather arouses the ' boss ' of the camp, he gives 

 the word ' heave ', and the sleepers all change from the left side to 

 the right, or vice versa, at the command, as promptly as a company 

 of soldiers obeying an order to ' right about face ' . 



The cook of a lumber camp is an important and responsible 

 personage. It is his duty to ply the fire with fresh fagots during 

 the night, and woe betide him if he omits throwing on a fresh log 

 at the right moment. The cook invariably wears a hunted and 

 tired look, for he is made the butt of all the coarse jests of the 

 camp ; nor are his duties light. He has to provide four meals a 

 day for men whose appetites are sharpened by the bright and 

 bracing atmosphere of the keen forest air. If he does not ring 

 sufficient changes on his limited stores of eatables he comes in 

 for hearty abuse. To do him justice it is simply marvellous to 

 witness his skill in the making of piping hot ' riz ' buckwheat cakes 

 served up with molasses. His ' Johnny cake ' is a revelation. 

 So also are his ' potater ' pies, also his hot breakfast ' rolls ', white 

 as ^the driven snow, and of almost* equaHeathery texture. Strange 

 diet^for such stalwart axemen. 



