Life In A North Woods Lumber Camp

Long before Thomas O¿Donnell entered school he had chewed tobacco and pitched horseshoes with lumberjacks at his father¿s camp. He witnessed the felling of the tallest trees and watched wide-eyed as the lumberjacks rode the logs through swift waters. He sat at the table when they arm wrestled and was a spectator at axe throwing competitions. Life in a North Woods Lumber Camp is O¿Donnell¿s personal story of his life growing up in a lumber camp, vivid recollections that lay dormant for fifty years following his death. William J. O¿Hern has brought this lost treasure to light in a lavishly illustrated book with dozens of period photographs.

When his Jewish parents send him to a Minnesota logging camp to escape the influenza epidemic of 1918, ten-year-old Marven finds a special friend.

Every American has heard of the lumberjack hero Paul Bunyan and his big blue ox. For 100 years his exploits filled cartoons, magazines, short stories, and children's books, and his name advertised everything from pancake breakfasts to construction supplies. By 1950 Bunyan was a ubiquitous icon of America's strength and ingenuity. Until now, no one knew where he came from—and the extent to which this mythical hero is rooted in Wisconsin. Out of the Northwoods presents the culture of nineteenth-century lumberjacks in their own words. It includes eyewitness accounts of how the first Bunyan stories were shared on frigid winter nights, around logging camp stoves, in the Wisconsin pinery. It describes where the tales began, how they moved out of the forest and into print, and why publication changed them forever. Part bibliographic mystery and part social history, Out of the Northwoods explains for the first time why we all know and love Paul Bunyan.

The classic chronicle of life and self-reliance in the great Northern Forest, reissued for its many fans “Cache Lake Country is a gem for many reasons—a simple narrative, the ways in which it conveys the work-a-day joys and exertions of life in the wilderness, the woodscraft techniques it illustrates, and the slow and pleasurable way in which the soul of a serene man is revealed.” —The New York Times Over half a century ago, John Rowlands set out by canoe into the wilds of Canada to survey land for a timber company. After paddling alone for several days, he came upon "the lake of my boyhood dreams," which he named Cache Lake because there was stored the best that the north had to offer?timber for a cabin; fish, game, and berries to live on; and the peace and contentment he felt he could not live without. This is his story, containing both folklore and philosophy, with wisdom about the woods and the demand therein for inventiveness. It includes directions for making moccasins, stoves, shelters, outdoor ovens, canoes, and hundreds of other ingenious and useful gadgets.

The St. Croix River, the free-flowing boundary between Wisconsin and Minnesota, is a federally protected National Scenic Riverway. The area’s first recorded human inhabitants were the Dakota Indians, whose lands were transformed by fur trade empires and the loggers who called it the “river of pine.” A patchwork of farms, cultivated by immigrants from many countries, followed the cutover forests. Today, the St. Croix River Valley is a tourist haven in the land of sky-blue waters and a peaceful escape for residents of the bustling Minneapolis–St. Paul metropolitan region. North Woods River is a thoughtful biography of the river over the course of more than three hundred years. Eileen McMahon and Theodore Karamanski track the river’s social and environmental transformation as newcomers changed the river basin and, in turn, were changed by it. The history of the St. Croix revealed here offers larger lessons about the future management of beautiful and fragile wild waters.

Describes the kind of life lumberjacks led in logging camps before the turn of the century.

Being a game warden in Maine is not just a job, it’s a way of life. This honest and entertaining book by a twenty-two-year veteran of the service tells the story of America’s oldest game warden service. The stories told cover the risks wardens face dealing with poachers, rogue wildlife, and the elements, as well as the drama that surrounds every search and rescue operation.