FORESTRY 



EDITED BY DR. B. E. FERNOW, 



Director of the New York School of Forestry, Cornell University, assisted by Dr, John C. Gifford, of same 



institution. 



RIVER DRIVING. 



FLORENCE WILKINSON. 



We had seen the woodsmen at their 

 trees, the sawyers, the gutters, the swamp- 

 ers, at work. We had lived in a lumber 

 camp, with the icicles in a chaste lambre- 

 quin about the low windows, and had 

 watched the men as they came out and 

 went, from creamy dawn in the evergreen 

 forest to purple night creeping along the 

 crystal hills. 



We had explored the tote roads with the 

 snow 4 feet deep, whipped up between the 

 hoof tracks. We had seen the loading at 

 the skidways, and the unloading at the 

 dump. One spectacle, one experience, re- 

 mained for our unenlightened curiosity, 

 the river driving of the early spring, when 

 the logs are floated down the creeks and 

 into the rivers with the spring freshets and 

 so to their final destination at the saw- 

 mills. 



As appropriate preparation for this ex- 

 perience, we had listened to the tales of 

 lumbermen, in the log room in the long 

 evenings. We had artfully encouraged the 

 reminiscences of the grizzly boss of many 

 a lumber camp. We had held our breath 

 in suspense over accounts of the perils and 

 excitement that accompany a river driver's 

 work; the nimble toeing of the logs as 

 they roll and reel beneath the spiked boots 

 of the drivers; the infinite dexterity with 

 which the men handle their poles and cart 

 hooks as they guide the logs down stream, 

 riding atop of them; the log jams that pile 

 up around the sharp bend or against a rock 

 midstream; the thrilling moment when the 

 jam is broken, either by dynamite, from 

 which the men must flee in an instant after 

 the fuse is lighted, or by pole and hook 

 from the river boats; and, when the key 

 log is loosened, the scurry for shore, to 

 escape the doom of the tumbling, tumultu- 

 ous logs. With all such information were 

 we primed, and such pictures as would fitly 

 illustrate Bowery melodrama floated be- 

 fore our eyes as we set out in pursuit of 

 the spectacle. 



Our first difficulty was to ascertain the 

 exact time when the drives would be on. 

 With New York as a point of departure, 

 reliable information from local authority in 

 the mountains was not obtainable. Lum- 

 bermen friends who were to keep us posted 

 on the drives wrote vaguely of drives they 

 had heard were beginning on inaccessible 

 streams. The more keenly our desire be- 



came manifest to see said drives, the more 

 remote and inaccessible became said 

 streams, and the more indefinite and un- 

 satisfactory all knowledge of their condi- 

 tion. Finally, armed only with a vast in- 

 quisitiveness and a layman's docility, we 

 set out for the headquarters of our chosen 

 lumber company in the North Woods. It 

 was the middle of May, and we had noted 

 in the New York papers that the ice was 

 breaking up in the headwaters of the Hud- 

 son. We were not longer to be trifled 

 with. 



But river driving does not thus easily 

 lend itself to the tourist's observation. It 

 is as elusive as the pursuit of the nightin- 

 gale's song in England, which the English 

 friend informs one was heard "the night 

 before in this very spot," or a "mile from 

 here, as plenty as blackberries," but which, 

 somehow or other, one never really hears, 

 following always the vanishing record of it, 

 like a will-o'-the-wisp. It was with the 

 river drives as with the Queen's jam in 

 Alice in Wonderland. One is furnished 

 with it every other day, yesterday and to- 

 morrow; but never to-day. 



Arrived at Beaver river, the drives were 

 over there, but the next week they would 

 sluice the logs on Fulton chain. 



Arrived at Racquette river, the creek 

 driving was over, except for the rear of 

 the logs on Cold brook. They would be 

 brought down soon. Except for a few 

 logs lodged along the rapids, there was 

 nothing to be seen of the skilful manip- 

 ulation of the logs in the swift current. 

 There was only still water floating, and 

 that could be seen any day on the river. 

 What day? They could not exactly tell. 

 Where on the river? They could not ex- 

 actly tell. 



We doggedly persisted, and took a boat 

 to row up and down the placid Raquette, 

 thinking at least to see the miles-long jams 

 which we were told obstructed the river 

 from a point below to Tupper lake, and 

 from a point above to Raquette rapids. 

 That particular below and above were 

 never reached. Our boatman meandered 

 about among the sloughs (local pronuncia- 

 tion sloos) that insulate the real river, and 

 failed to arrive even at the modest spec- 

 tacle of a still water jam. We had, how- 

 ever, a pleasant row among the trees of the 

 plowed lands, heard the drumming of the 

 ruffed grouse from the hillsides, like min- 

 iature thunder, and watched the quain!. 



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