60 



Canadian Forestry Journal, May- June, 1912. 



around the camp. As it was desired 

 to have the inside dimensions sixteen 

 by twenty feet this meant that the 

 logs must be nineteen and twenty 

 three feet in length, allowing a foot 

 and a half projection at the corners. 

 Straight, sound fir logs were foi- the 

 most i)art chosen, varying in size 

 from ten to fourteen inches in diam- 

 eter at breast-height. A few straight 

 and over-mature popple were cut and 

 all trees were marked before cutting 

 so that too heavy a thinning might 

 not be made in any one place. About 

 fifty trees were required in all, and 

 every man was found eager to fell 

 trees but not so eager to clean up the 

 tops and pile brush afterwards. In 

 pursuance with good forestry regula- 

 tions it was insisted upon that the 

 crews cut off and pile all branches 

 before taking another tree — a decided 

 innovation to those used to the ordi- 

 nary lumbering methods in New 

 Brunswick. This lesson will no doubt 

 be a valuable one for all classes of 

 students and will give them an idea 

 of how the woods should look after 

 lumbering in a conservative manner, 

 with proper slash disposal. 



Most of the New Brunswick boys, 

 engineers as well as foresters, have 

 been raised near the woods and are 

 excellent axemen, felling their trees 

 to a nicety and 'sampsoning' them 

 over with a short pole to the desired 

 spot, when necessary, with the skill of 

 veterans. Many haggled stumps be- 

 tokened the work of the inexperienced 

 but these men hung to the task, de- 

 spite blistered hands, until their trees 

 were either down or comfortably sup- 

 ported by four or five others. 



After felling came the sawing up 

 into proper lengths, and several were 

 initiated into the mystery of cross- 

 cutting with the saw without causing 

 the other man excruciating agony. 

 Crews were then put to peeling the 

 logs which, in knotty timber, is no 

 easy task until the proper kink is 

 learned. 



The work of felling and peeling 

 proceeded for a few Saturdays with 



a crew of men varying in number 

 from fifteen to thirty, from all de- 

 partments. Some logs w^ere then car- 

 ried on the shoulders of the men 

 across the brook and up the slope — 

 no easy task with green, balsam- 

 covered logs. Three of the men, who 

 had seen lumber camps erected, began 

 notching the corners and putting the 

 fii'st logs in place. As the logs were 

 quite large and had considerable 

 taper, in order to keep the walls level, 

 some had to be notched very deeply, 

 and in many cases small drop logs 

 had to be let in between. The work 

 was carried on at intervals until, at 

 Thanksgiving, the camp was three or 

 four logs high. 



During this short vacation it was 

 decided to push the w^ork more rapid- 

 ly and three men went out and made 

 a temporary camp across the brook, 

 putting up the usual 'lean-to' tent 

 used by the guides and lumbermen. 



The camp outfit was taken out by 

 pack-horse in true western fashion, 

 with the famous 'diamond hitch' 

 (learned from a New Brunswick 

 guide) over all to advertise the fact 

 that we were not ' tenderf eet, ' even if 

 we had never been west of the 100th 

 meridian. The pack-saddle, by econo- 

 mizing with canvas girths and using 

 straps of moose-hide, was construct- 

 ed for us by the same guide at, a cost 

 of less than $10.00 and serves every 

 purpose of the higher priced article 

 for short trips. There are two ropes 

 which accompany it, one about one- 

 quarter of an inch in diameter and 

 thirty feet long, and the other, used 

 for the final hitch, a half-inch rope 

 about 36 feet long (which seems of 

 ample length the first time you use 

 it). 



With only three or four men work- 

 ing on the camp during this short 

 vacation it was found impossible to 

 carry big logs over the brook, al- 

 though we found they grew percep- 

 tibly lighter after being peeled for a 

 week or more. T he ingenuity of the 

 boys overcame this difficulty in short 

 order. The broad girth of the pack- 



