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Tous les autres exemplaires originaux sont fiimds en commenpant par la premidre page qui comporte une empreinte d'impression ou d'illustration et en terminant par la d srnidre page qui comporte une telle empreinte. Un des symboles suivants apparaitra sur la dernidre image de cheque microfiche, selon le cas: le symbole — »> signifie "A SUiVRE", le symbole V signifie "FIN". Les cartes, planches, tableaux, etc., peuvont dtre filmds d des taux de reduction diff^rents. Lorsque le document est trop grand pour dtre reprodult en un seul clich6, il est filmd d partir de Tangle supdrieur gauche, de gauche d droite. et de haut en bas, en prenant le nombre d'images n^cessaire. Les diagrammes suivants illustrent la mdthode. 1 2 3 1 - :^ l:..^ 3 4 5 6 f ItlFE OFWlyMBERMAN ■> ,= ■ « € i Photo hy W. Notman 6f Son, Montreal, taken in iHSo. rs ^ o s'.g^j UP TO DATE OR THE LIFE OF A LUMBERMAN CHAPTER I. ABOUT MYSELF. The name I have been known by since I came to Canada is George S. Thompson ; what my right name is I am not quite sure. I will tell the reader all I do know about it, and ke will then know as much as I do, and can call me by any name that may suit his or her fancy. I will be satisfied. If the reader is or not, it will make no differ- ence to me. I was born in India in or about the year 1848, or perhaps earlier, or may be later ; I have no sure data to draw upon. My first recollection of anythmg is seeing a number of men who wore red coats, my lather being among the number. My next recollection is being on board a large ship on which there were also a number of men dressed in the same way. We were a long time on board the ship and left it at what I now think must have been the town of Portsmouth, England, and we journeyed some distance before we landed m a town or city, the name of which I do not remember. When I say we, I mean my father and a lady who acted as my governess ; my father called the lady by the name of Annie ; what her surname was I do not know. Annie told me my mother died in giving birth to me her first born. Annie usually called my father Captain. I will not give the name because I have certain reasons at present for not making it public. I do not think Annie was in any way related to us. My father and Annie called me by the name of Sidney. During our stay in England we but seldom saw my father, but occa onally he would visit us for a few days, and on several occasions he took Annie and I travel- ling with him, and we used to stay at some very large houses — especially do I remember staying at mansions where there were beautiful gardens and grounds. My father, about this time, appeared to be nearly always in bad humor when alone with Annie and I, There were frequent A UP TO DATE ; OR, THE LIFE OF A LUMBERMAN ^vl quarrels between them, and at these times I would hear my father tell Annie it was all her fault — that he would not have got into trouble only for lier. What he meant by the expression I do not know. He used to often say he would sell out and go to some foreign country and leave us all for ever. This kmd of thing went on for a long time until finally my father told Annie there was going to be a war in America, and he would go out and take part in it. Soon afterwards the three of us were on board a ship, and in due time we arrived in New Orleans. We took lodgings in the city and my father would be absent for days at a time. Annie used to teach me my lessons, and also instruct me in my religious duties, for she was a devout Roman Catholic, and took me to church with her almost daily. My father seldom if ever came with us, so I do not know if he was a Roman Catholic or not. The time did not appear long to me after our arrival in New Orleans until there were most exciting times — crowds of people gathering on the street corners ; men and boys drilling —myself among the number ; every where there was hurry and excitement. My father told us he was drilling men and getting ready for the wat that soon would be on. I noticed that Annie and others called my father by a different name after we came to New Orleans. I spoke to Annie about the change, and she told me to ask no questions ; that my father would be angry if I did. Annie said my father knew wh?t he was doing, and also what would be best for us all. I was easily satisfied ; anyhow I was too young to be inquisitive, and therefore took no more interest in the matter. To proceed with my story : the roar of cannon was soon heard down the river below New Orleans, and ipy father told us it was the Yankee men of warships bombarding the forts, and it was only a short time after the firing commenced until my father rushed into the house and told us the Yankee ships had silenced the forts and were on their way up the river to take the city. All the soldiers, my father said, were leaving the city, and he was going with them, and was going to take me with him. Aanie cried, and wanted my father to leave me with her, but he refused. He said there were numbers of boys no larger than I was who were going to fight, and I would take my chances with the rest. Anyhow niy father said we would soon return and drive, the Yankees out of the city ; but in that he was mistaken, for he never saw the city again, or Annie either, for my father was soon afterwards killed in one of the big engagements or battles, and I could not return ; neither did I want to return to the city. I threw in my lot with the Southern army, and drifted around with them until the close of the war. My experience of that war was just the same as thousands of others alive to-day ; many have written all about it, so that there is now nothing left for me to say, so I will not inflict any of my war experience on the reader — not in this book at least— but will proceed with my story. At the close of the v/ar I returned ^■^' UP TO DATE; OR, THE LIFE OF A LUMBERMAN 7 to New Orleans to see if I could find Annie, for I had heard no tidings of her :;ince my father and I had seen her last together at the beginning of the war. I diligently searched the city but not a trace of her could I find or get the least clue to her whereabouts. 1 thought probably she had gone br.ck to England, so I concluded to go over myself and see if I could find her or any of my father's or mother's relatives. I managed, after considerable suflfermg and difficulty, to work my passage over, and on my arrivai in England commenced my search, but I might as well have been searching for a needle in a hay stack. In the first place, I did not know what Annie's surname was, neither was I certain of my father's, so I wandered nearly all over Eng- land, Scotland and Ireland, and although I am certain I sav/ some of the fine old mansions I Lad visited with n>y father and Annie, when I would attempt to go up to one of them the servants would drive me away. I did get some of the servants to listen to my story, but they only laughed at me and said if they told what I said to their master I would be put in jail as an importer. So aftei considerable time spent in futile attempts, I finally concluded to give it up and return to America, and about the year 1869 ^ t^ok ship at Liverpool for Quebec. S. ! i VP TO DATE ; OR, THE UFE OF A LUMBERMA.; •- CHAPTER II. ; ; I SAIL FOR CANADA. On my voyage out I fell in with a youth who, like myself, was travel- ling alone. He told me his name was George Thompson, and he was going out to a brother who was living in Haliburtnn, county of Peterborough, Ontario. He told me his brother haJ sent him money to pay his passage out, and in retiirn theiefor he had agreed to work lor his brother one year to repay him. George did not appe?r to relish the idea of that part of the bargain ; or he did not like to part from a young lady with whom he hid become acqnainted on the voyage out ; the young lady was en-route for Chicago— the same city that I was booked for. I suggested to George (in a joke) that we make an exchange of tickets ; he took my joke in earnest, and for several days would scarcely talk of anything else. I got him to tell me all he could or would about his family in England, but it was little he appeared to know about them. He had not seen the brother he was on his way out to join since their .""ather's death, which oc- curred when he, George, was about five years of age,and he said the last tinfiC he had setn him was when he was home shortly after the death of their fathe;, and then only for a short time. So he said if we made the exchange there was no danger of detection, for he had no other re- latives in America. \ considered the matter over and finally concluded to make ^he ex- change. I thought, perhaps, it might turn out to be a good thi ng for me, , for I was heartily sick of being aione in the world, and when George ap- peared so willing to give up his relatives I thought I might as well take his place with them, so I got him to tell nxe again and again all he could about his mother and »amily and their history, all of which I carefully noted down, and also had him give me a specimen of his hand writing, for he said he had promised to write to his mother, of whom he appeared to be very fond. I also agreed to write to one of his sisters— Jennie — who was married to a man named William Brian, He said his mother could neither read or write, also that he had never written but few if any letters to any one, so he said my writing would not give me away, and before we reached Port Hope we had everything arranged for the exchange. I gave him my ticket to Chicago and I took his, which was good to Peter- borough. We a'co exchanged clothes, but it was a scanty supply either of us possessed. He had a vohmteer uniform in his outfit, whi-h I took with me. I had more cash than he. so 1 gave him all I had with the UP TO DATE ; OR, THE LIFE OF A LOMHF.RMAN e>:ception of about one dollar, for I thought George being a greenhorn, would need it worse tiian I ; anyhow, by the time we reached Poit Hope on the Grand Trunic Railway I had seen enough of Canada to tell me that I would have no trouble in getting a ^ood living in so fair a country as I had so far seen. So at Port Hope George and I parted, and I have never seen or heard any tidings of him since, and I rather think he must have perished in the great fire that devastated the city of Chicago a few years later. If he is alive and should happen to read this book I will be glad to hear from him.'-* I arrived iii Peterborough one fine day in the month of August, and I was directed to the Royal Oak Hotel, kept by a man named Wilson — and old pensioner — and after taking dinner I boarded the Royal mail stage for Bobcaygeon, distance 24 miles from Peterborough. George's bro'.her had written him instructions as to the route. Of course be gave me the letter, which I thought it best to use as a kind of credental, and so disarm any suspicion that might have arisen. In the letter G2orge was instructed on his arrival in liobcaygeon to put up at Mr. Orr's Temperance House, and If short of cash to show Mr. Orr the letter. On my arrival in Bobcaygeon I did as the letter directed, and got a warm welcome from Mr. Orr. I found I would have to rtmain over for a day, as there was only a tr-iweekly stage to Minden, a distance of 30 miles. I spent a very pleasant day in Bobcaygeon. It is both a pretty and interest" ng village. Some of the best fishing in Canada is to be had thf re, and the inhabitants are very sociable and kind-hearted. I found Mr. Orr and his family very hospitable and kiud-hearted, a more honorable and sincere christian man than Mr. Orr never lived ; he was of Scotch decent, extremely sharp and canny, but strickly honest, though close in making a bargain. He had accumulated considerable wealth, and at the time I am writing was just laying the foundation of a large temperance house ana store, which he was having built of stone, and up to date it is one of the largest and finest building in the county. Mr. Orr did not live long after the building was completed, but I am certain he now occupies a much grander mansion in Heaven. Mr. Orr, on that first trip of mine, also on subsecjuent occasions, always gave me some good sound advise A goed many persons have been liberal in giviug me advise, and that is about the only thing i ever did get free. It costs the giver nothing, and usually is worth less to the receiver. But Mr. Orr's advice was.alwdys above the average quality, and also e.xtreme'y brief, perhaps that was the reason I thought his advise so good, I liked Peterborough and Bobcaygeon so well I was half inclined to go no further. Bt^ides, the nearer I got to my adopted brother the more doubts and misgivings arose in nr.y mind as to how the course I was pursuing would end. I gleaned from Mr. Orr all ihe information lo UP XO DATE ; OR, THE LIPE OV A LUMBERMAN about George's brother that he could tell me. He gave him a gocl name, said he 'vas fairly well to do and was a great " hustler." His wife, Mr. Orr said, was a good woman, and that I was going to a good home. Next morning I boarded the stage for Minden. One of my fellow passengers was Mr. C. E. Stewart, the present proprietor and editor of the Bobcaygeon Independent newspaper. A few years later M. W. Bro. Stewart assisted at my initaiion into the Ancient Order of Free and Ac- cepted Masons, in Verulam Lodge, at a meeting held in the village of Bobcaygeon. Charlie, as Mr. Stewart is familiarly called by nearly every one ac- quainted withhim, went right through to Kaliburton with me that day, . and he took advantage of the occasion and of my innocence to legale or " stuff" me with all sorts and kinds of stories that are usually trotted out for a new arrival's benefit I did not mind Charlie taking a few •' rises " out of me, for he did it in an inncffensive way, for he is a perfect gentle- man, and a good hearted, genial fellow. I could also afford to put up with ChaLvYic's jokes, for at quite a nnmber of stopping places he set up the beer in good style. The Bobcaygeon road appeared to me on that trip to be one long drawn out tavern, for nearly every other house along it sold whiskey or beer, and without a license at that. The Bobcaygeon road is celebrated the world over as being one of the roughest of roads. " Uncle Jim Welsh," a well known character in Peterborough and district who used to buy furs, swap horses or make most any kind of a trade, once told me that he was one time travelling over the Rocky Mountains, and was stting on a stage— on the front seat of one of those celebrated stage coaches. Uncle Jim said just as they were travelling over a most infernally rough and dangerous stretch of ror.d, he remarked to the driver that it was a very rough road that they were then driving over. The driver replied that it was nothing to a road he had at one time driven a stage on in Canada. Uncle Jim inquired of the driver the name of that road ; the driver answered it was called the Bobcaygeon road. I certainly thought my toe nails would be shaken off in that first trip of mine. The settlers along the road, Mr, Stewart told me, were nearly all old soldiers — pensioners, whom the government had given grants of land to for past good conduct and service. This news settled me from ever wanting to be a British soldier, for I thought if that was the way they rewarded those who had merited reward for good conduct I wondered what the fate of those could be who had bad conduct served up against them. I need scarcely explain what little soil there is along the road is largely composed of sand and the balance rock — that is if rock can be called soil. I afterwards used to hear those old pensioners say that they v.'ished they had brought some of the old cannon captured in the Crimea war with them, so they might shoot the seed into the ground, for they '■»,: The Late Norman Barnhart UP to t)AtE ; OR, trtE LlFt: Of A LUMBEI^MAM It said that was the only way they knew the seed would be successfully planted in that kind of soil. It was along this Eobcaygeon road that a farmer, when pointing out the good features of his farm, probably to some stranger with a view of selling it, would always claim that the back fifty was splendid farming land ; of course the settler conld not help but admit that the front fifty was a little rough and rocky, for the stranger could usually see that for himself. This "back" fifty racket got to be a well known remark, and it has often provoked a smile from parties who were not so green as they looked. To explain so that any one will understand the joke, I may say for the benefit of those who do not know, that free grant lands in the province of Ontario are usually surveyed out in on one hundred acre parcels or lots. The country along the Bobcaygeon road was at one time heavily timbered with the very best quality of white pine; the pensioners, when clear- ing the land, made fires which burned and destroyed the forests of pine, causing a loss to the people of Ontario of millions of dollars, so the poor old soldiers took their revenge on an ungrateful country. Of course they had no idea or revenge m their minds when they set fires, but it acted that way all the same. Most of the clearings made by those early settlers have long smce been deserted, and arc now growing up with useless t ush instead of being replanted with young pine or other valuable trees. To proceed on my journey : the stage arrived in Minden at noon. Mr. Stewart pointed out George's brothjsr to me ; he happened to be about the first man we saw as the stage rattled down the hill into the village. He was standing in front of the post office, no u mbt awaiting the arrival of the stage. George had told me that his brother carried the mail from Minden to Haliburton, a distance of 20 miles. I saw at a glance that he bore no resemblance to me. Mr. Stewart introduced us, and I received a most affectionate greeting, and the first ordeal was over. Not a doubt crossed his mind but that I was the" Simon pure " George. He took me over to the Buck Hotel, and I got a good dinner. Steve, as I will now call him, was a fine looking specimen of manhood ; he had a sharp, piercing black eyes black hair and long bushy whiskers. Altogether he was what any one would call a good looking man. Nearly all the ladies said he was handsome, and they usually are good judges. Steve appeared to be a universal favorite, everybody called him Steve, I of course did the same. After an hour spent in Minden we boarded Steve's stage which took us to the foot of Kushog Lake, a distance of four miles, where Steve had a skiff row boat to take us sixteen miles up the lake to the village of Haliburton, where we arrived just about dusk. Steve introduced me to his wife and family — a little two year old girl and a baby boy. Mrs. Steve was born inCanada, so I had no difficulty in answering any of her questions. Steve was also easily satisfied — in fact ^^ 12 UP to fiAtP. ; Oft, THE LlPE OP A LtTMTtERMAN he did not appear to know much about his own people. From what I had learned from George, Steve had rambled a lot, and had travelled nearly all over the world, and they had heard little about him, and after their father's death the family had scattered, and so lost track of each other to a great extent. Steve was a poor scholar, and did not care to write, and would only write to his mother about once a year. So I had plain sailing with Steve and his family, for as I have already said, he knew little of the family history and I knew less, and neither of us appeared to be overly anxious to talk on the subject. It soon got to be a topic seldom mentioned. Work was what Steve wanted from me, and at four o'clock next morning I was called to breakfast. Mr. Orr had told me that Steve was a hustler, and that Mrs. Steve was most kind-hearted, but as 1 arose that first morning I could not help thinking that Mrs. Steve was rather over doing hospitality when calling me to eat again so soon after the hearty supper 1 had taken about nine the previous evening, and I was more than surprised when, as I sat down to the table, she remarked that breakfast that morning was rather later than usual with them. She said she thought that after my long journey I would be tired and need a little rest, so she had delayed the breakfast. That news fairly took my breath away, so that I was unable to thank her for her consideration. I took a quick glance at both their faces to see if it was only a little joke, but I saw by the expression on their countenances it v/as dead straight business. Steve noticed my surprised look and he gave a little cough and at once proceeded to ask a blessing. I was to much astonished to join in or even say amen, for about that time I felt that I was not suffering with hunger, and I am afraid I was not as grateful for it as I otherwise might have been. I soon found out that early breakfasts were no novelty in Steve's family, and I had not been long with them till half the time I could not be sure whether it was supper or breakfast I was eating. There was always plenty of well cooked, coarse food ; Mrs. Steve was always scrupulously clean, so I fared well enough, she was kind to me, and I liked her very much. I am sure I could not have thought more of her if she had really been my own sister. By our early rising we would take advantage of the calm nights to row the freight boat down to the store- house at the foot of Lake Kashog, sixteen miles, before the wind would rise, so that on our up trip we would have the fair west wind mostly prevalent in the summer months in that section, so we often used to run the round trip of thirty-two miles and be back to Haliburton and unload our cargo before noon. The round trip would have been considered a good day's work by most men ; not so with Steve, for in the afternoon we would put in another day's wark logging or cleaning up land on Steve's village lots. He used to tell me that it would keep us from getting stiff. The mail a those days was tri-weekly — Tuesdays, Thursdays and )m what I [ travelled and after :k of each t care to So I had , he knew ipeared to lie seldom ur o'clock hat Steve IS I arose as rather after the nd I was irked that em. She tid need a took my ration. I ittle joke, [ straight ough and to join in :ring with ise might in Steve's could not 'here was s always id I liked her if she luld take the store- nd would d mostly sd to run id unload sidered a afternoon land on m getting idays and y ^ -f m N « ■> > c .42 •I i s irr TO DATE ; OR, THE I.IFF. OF A I.UMnKRMAN 13 Saturdays. On miil days we usually ran two boats — a freight boat and a skiff. The freight boat would sail at four a.m., skiff with the mail at 6 a.m. Other mornings the freight boat would sail at two a.m. The crew of the freight boat consisted of three, except mail day, when it was manned by only two, the third man would have to bring the skiff with the mail, which he considered a soft snap, for usually there would be passengers who assisted in rowing who had to pay their passage just the same; Steve did not know what "D. H." meant. The- stage would be waiting at the foot of Kushog lake to convey the mail and passengers over the four miles drive to Minden. Steve mostly went along, but occasionally I would be sent, and then I would get a good dinner at the Buck Hotel. Dan suck, the proprietor, was quite a noied character, and about as fine a fellow as I ever met. He was about the best looking man in the country ; his wife was also one ot the most beautiful of women, and they were both just as good as they looked. The Buck Hotel was far-famed for its good table, but Dm m.ide no profit on the dinners I used to eat there, as the appetite acquired after that twenty mile trip was not easily satisfied. Dan used to wait on me and try to fill me up. I never bothered taking the hides off the potatoes until I had eaten five or six, as I did not have time, ^ was so hungry. Dan used to call me " Haw and Gee," through a story Steve told him. It occurred in this way : One afternoon Steve wanted to do some ploughing on his farm ; the land was very stony and there were too many stumps of trees scattered over it for him to hold the plow and handle the reins, so he took me along to drive the horses. On the occasion referred to, when the animals were hitched ready to start, Steve asked me if I kiiew " haw and gee." I thought he was referring to some individuals, and I innocently asked where they lived. Next day Steve told Dan and that's how he came to call me " Haw and Gee." I I would usually have to walk the four miles too and back from Minden ; the passengers and freight would load the stage. The driver of the stage was a quaker ; he was almost a load in himself, for he weighed nearly four hundred pounds net, not counting tare. His face always put me in mind of the rising sun, or like of the pictures of the man in the moon one sees in Josh Billings' almanac, for his face always wore a broad grin, and the spirit appeared to move him to talk all the time. He was the only (juaker in that section of the couutry, so I guess he must have been a "* bank beaver " quaker. The bearers always put out from among them any that are too lazy to work or are in other ways objectionable to them, then the beaver so put out has to live by himself, so the trappers call them " bank " beavers. Of course I did not for an instant insinuate that this quaker did not like work I II I M UP TO DATE; OR, THE UVE OF A LUMBERMAN — far from it— for he liked work so well he could lie down right beside it and sleep both peacefully and contentedly. Steve, or my brother, as I will now call him, at the time I am speaking of, had a gentleman working for him by the name of Williams, who claimed to be a brother of the celebrated English lawyer, Sir Montague Williams. Mr. Williams was one of the crew of the freight boat ; Steve and myself made up the rest of the crew. Mr. Williams told me that his wife was the daughter of an earl, so here 1 was right among my own class of people, for 1 always had an idea that I must be the son of some son of a gun of large , calibre. Steve, Williams and myself made up the ciews of both boats. Sunday was the only day that we got any rest ; Steve and his wife were good living and God-fearing people, and kept the Sabbath holy as all Christian people should, and on that day would do no work beyond a few chores which any other man except Steve would have called a good day's work ; but all the same twelve o'clock Sunday night Mrs. Steve would jump out of bed— the last stroke of the clock — and commence to get our breakfast ready. I used to fancy she must have lay awake so as not to miss hearing the hour ot twelve strike. The clock was never slow — in fact it had a habit of getting a couple of hours or so ahead of other people's clocks. The first Sunday I spent in Haliburton Steve insisted that I wear the volunteer military uniform that I got from George. I put on the unifonri and went to church— full dress parade. No doubt I created quite a sensation, for Steve said a military uniform had never before been seen in that village, neither do I think there has been one seen there since. We were busy with our boats until the ice put a stop to navigation, about the last of November. Steve made a lot of money with the boats that season, and I expect he has got it all yet, for he seldom gave me an". About all I got of it was ten cents occasionally to put on the collection plate when I would go to church. After navigation closed Steve kept a livery stable in connection with the stage. There was always lots of work, Haliburton at that time bemg a stirring, busy village, "doing lots of business. It had a population of about three or four hundred people. The accompanying cut shows the village as it was in 1878 from a photo taken in that year. The larger of the two houses in the extreme right hand comer was Steve's residence, the smaller one my own ; both were built by Steve The village has changed but little since, and that for the worse. The rocks and stumps are still there, but lumbering is now almost a thing of the past. The first winter I spent in Haliburton, lumbering was in full swing. The early settlers were nearly all English. The settlement was forrucd by an English company who went by the name of " The Canadian Land and Emigration Company," London, England. The company purchased the land from the province of Ontario, ten townships in all, or about one half million acres. The II! UP TO DATE; OR, THE LIFE OF A LUNfBERMAN t5 I company got the land practically free on the understanding that it would bring out emigrants, build roads, saw and grist mills, and settle up the land in a specified number of years. The first manager of the company in Canada was Mr. C, J. Blomfield, son of Bishop Blomficld, of London, England, and the company's agent in Haliburton at the time of my arrival there was Alex. Niven, P. L. S. The land the company got was and is yet of little value. .*nd I used to hear an old hunter and trapper say " it was only fit for darned fools and bears to live on," and I guess he was about right, '^he pine timber on the land at the time the company got it was worth a very large amount of money, but the company or its officials, to judge by their action, did not appear to have been aware of that fact, and the lumbermen were not slow in " catching on " to the company's ignorance as to the value of the pine. There were more "aristocracy" to the acre in and around Haliburton than any place I have ever been in ; nearly all were poor, but they made up for that in pride, and when visiting among them I used to be reminded of the blessing Bobbie Burn's was said to have asked : " Uieland pride and Hieland scab » There Is in this house a plenty And if the Lord has sent me here It surely must have been in his anger." No doubt those scions of English nobility had been sent out to Haliburton by their f-iends in England, thin- ing they could keep them cheaper in Canada than at home. Quite a number of the well-to-do settlers had a Lord's or an Earl's son, or some son of a gun, working for him, doing chores for his board and lodging. So I was on a par wich the rest. Once in a while one of the more fortunate ones would receive a remittance from '* home," every one in the settlement would soon know about it, and then nearly everyone in the community would swoop down on him and bleed him in every way possible — selling him old plugs of horses, borrowmg money — anything to relieve him of his '* remittance.'' The English colony would also help to rob him, but would do it in a more polished way, and would have a jolly time as long as the money lasted, so it was generally either a feast or a famine with most of them. I had a good thing the first winter I was in Haliburton; my mate, Mr. Williams, who I have referred to before, got a windfall of forty thousand pounds sterling, left, to either himself or his wife by some relative in Eng- land. Presto I what a change the money made. Steve, instead of being captain and boss generally, was no longer in it ; Williams spread out bigger than a drum major. Servants were engaged wherever they could be got ; a six footer of a valet was brought up from Toronto to wait on Mr. Williams' son — a kid of about ten years of age — who only a few weeks previously had been running barefoot around the muddy streets of i6 ^: ■■■ ^ ;■ V--' : UP TO DATE; OR, THE LIFE OP A I.UMP.ERMAN H.iliburton with sand cracks in his heels. It was a sight to see the six footer, stiff as starch, marching about ten paces in the rear of the Williams' kid. Open house was the order of the diy ; the Williams' house, was a log structure containing four rooms, not one large enough to swing a cat in ; but t.i.it cut no figure. Mi. Williams' windfall was a (iod-iend to the English colony, and in fact to all of us. I came in for quite a share of the good things, for about all I did that winter was to drive the Williams' famdy or his guests around ; the servants would fniquently slip me a bottle of " good stuff," which I would carefully store away in Steve's stable for future reference, and soon I had a good stock of licjuors laid by, and occasionally I would trot oat a bottle of my best and spend a splendid evening with some of my chums. Mr. Williams moved away down to the Southern States in the spring, and his departure with so much money was preatly regretted by all, myself among the number, but my mate will never be forgoiten by the people uf Halibnrton, for up to date their mouths still water when they think of the good time they had thai winter at Mr. Williams' expense. 1 was driving the stage one day that first spring and was in Haliburton when an incident occurred which is worthy of note. I shall ne ^er forget it, and hope my fair readers will take warning by it. The day I refer to I was passing a farm house, about four miles west of Haliburton, when the farmer came out and handed me some money to purchase some groceries for him and deliver them on my next trip. The farmer was a fine old gentleman, about sixty years of age, and was noted for his piety, or rather his long prayers, which were frequently rather too personal to suit some of his hearers. His prayers were also noted for their brevity. The old gentlem?n was reputed to be wealthy. Anyhow I knew he had the best farm and the best stock in the district ; he also had quite a large fiimily of grown up sons and daughters at home. Just as I was ready to drive away, his wife came to the door and asked him to send lor some sugar. The old fellow glared at his better half in ap- parent amazement for a minute or two. *' What," he said, " do you mean to tell me that the two pounds of sugar I brought hon.a at Christmas is all gone ? " I nearly fell out of the stage, for it was then about the middle of April. ^ . ■ ' • • Writing about Christmas puts me in mind of the the first Christmas day I spent with Steve and hi? family. A few days before Xmas Steve said we would have a Xmas plum pudding ; he said he had not had one since he was married, Mrs. Steve not knowing how to make it. Steve said our mother always made large puddings at Xmas, and the longer any of it was kept the better it tasted. Steve went up to the store and pur- chased ten pounds each of currants and raisins, along with two pounds of lemo I peel and other ingredients which the storekeeper told us were necessary in the make-up of a first class Xmas plum pudding. St»ve and -X* 4t Sku^- 4\hf.'>- **'-1*«. 'itfie,- * ''■t^.' tf Ji" •'f*«i .S •• .^ UP TO DATE ; OR, THE LIFE 07 A LUMBERMAN 17 I brought the outfit home ; he told his wife all he knew about making the pudding. He knew less than I did about it and I knew nothing whatever. Mrs. Steve promised to make the pudding. Steve and myself had to go away the day before Xmas, but managed to return for our Xmas dinner. As we drove up to the house wt were surpricjd to see a big fire burning along side of a pine stump and the big sugar sap kettle hanging over the fire : Mrs. Steve, with a stick was stirring something in the kettle. Steve asked her why in thunder she was washing clothes on Xmas day ; Mrs. Steve replied that she was ni-t washing clothcii— only boiling the Xmas pudding. She went on to say that alter she had mixed up all of the each ten pounds of currants and raisins and ten pounds lemon peel, along wilh about ten pounds of suet and forty pounds or so of flour, she found that no poi would hold it, so she thought she would try the sap ketile. Steve's countenance was a study while listening to the foregoing ; I tried to keep a straight face, for I did not like to hurt Mrs. Steve's feelings, but to look at that puddinrf in the sap kettle and not laugh was more than my make up could stand, but I manaijed, by nearly biting my lips through, to restrain myself. Mrs. Steve was such a dear little woman, and always so earnest in anything she did or said that I did not like to lat'gh, Steve for a while did not appear to know whether to laugh or swear ; finally we both roared out laughing. That settled it ; Mrs. Sieve at once got angry and told us to take oui pudding or whatever we choose to call it, she wotild have no more to do with it, or would she ever make us another ; Steve said he did not think we would need another, for he said the one in the kettle looked large enough to do us the balance of our lives. Steve and I had considerable difficulty in navigating the pudding out of the kettle into the house. It was not bad eating ; in fact we thought it good. It was a little hard on the digestive organ?, but all rich plum puddings are that. One good feature about our puddmg was that after partaking of it we would have to skip the next meal and take pills instead. When navigation opened in spring, which was about the first day of May, Steve went into partnership with a man who had b'lilt a small steamer during the winter. It was the first steamer that ever run on those waters ; the shanting boys named it the Royal Mail Steamship '* Bull of the Woods." She was built on the stem winding stem setting principle, and was modelled ac no other boat was ever before modelled ; so It is difficult to describe her — she had to be seen as well as heard, for the noise sh^ made when in motion could be heard for miles, and the old hunters vowed vengeance on her, for the infernal noise she made frightened all the moose, deer, bears, wolves and other large game out of the country, nor has any fish been caught in those waters ?ini;e, Wc tried to take a photo of her but failed ; the camera refused to work point blank. I did get somewhere near it once. I secured a pot of coal tar a,nd made a ■.■ > I t.. Pi* '^■ ■'^,. ';-:f; i8 UP TO DATE ; OR, THE LIFE OF A LUMBERMAN sketch of her on the side of the postmaster's boathouse, which had just been newly painted with whitewash. I was somewhat in tune with the postmaster's daughter at the time, but when he saw that sketch and found out who the artist was, a coolness sprung up all around, and through that boat I have no doubt I lost the making of r. charming wife. Anyhow the steamer Isfound, was to be a decided improvement on the " armstrong " mode we had in vogue on the freight boat the previous season. .Steve was captain and purser; his partner was chief engineer and fireman I was all the rest of the crew. In those days there were numbers of hunters and trappers in the Haliburton district, and they brought in great quantity of furs — beaver, otter, bear, wolf, martin, mink and muskrat being the principal furs. Occasionally a silver fo.x would be caught ; the country also abounded in such game as moose and red deer, the latter beint plentiful. I have often counted twenty deer playing on the ice, and so tame would ihey bscome towards spring that they would actually come into the yards around the lumber shanties to eat the hay that was thrown out of the stables ; and after I went to work in the lumber woods and got to be superintendent I always had quite a number of pets around rr^y shanties. Those early days a trapper would often realize five hundred dollars for his pack of furs, and sometimes some of them would get close on a thousand dollars. They seldom put in more than two months catching a pack of furs. Haliburton had two great sale days—the 24th of May and the 5th of November— in each year. On these days the hunters and trappers would come to the village for hundreds of miles around to meet the fur buyers who came from New York, Boston, Toronto, Quebec, Peterborough and other cities and towns. Most of the trappers in the Haliburton district were white men, though quite a number were Indians. The village was in quite a commotion on those big sale days, when the trappers were in town ; the proceedings would usually close with a rifle shooting match and a dance ?t night. The hunters and trappers were splendid specimens of manhood, and all jolly good fellows. They were hardy, clever, strong and active ; everybody was glad to see them come to the village. 1 stood away up in their regard— my good shooting did that for me, for in the first 24th of May th^t I was in Haliburton I won first prize at their shooting match ; they were all greatly astonished at my success in beating these old hunters. I won and got first money, and at the very same time I could have given quite a few of their number pointers in bushwacking. My war experience had taught me to be a good shot and to be a bushman as well. • ..--.-■.- Early in the second summer I was in Haliburton smallpox broke out ; some immigrants from England brought it with them. There was no doctor nearer than Minden, where doctor Curry resided, and it was fortunate that such a skillful and kind n^edical man was even that close, N ■a ■Si .5 to O O h4 b o > o c x I >roke was was lose, ^%K UP TO DATE ; OR, THE LIFE OF A LUMBERMAN 19 for ho worked like a trogan night and day to conquer the dread ^courge, I happened to be staying at one of the houses that was infected when it broke out, and so got isolated with the other inmates. I did not contract the disease, and it was fortunate I did not, not only for n\yselt but for the poor creatures that did, for I was one of the few who was able and willing to wait on the sick. There were quite a uumber of deaths, and the suffer- ings of '^e victims was heartrending. The late Capt. John Lucuas then kept hotel in Haliburton, in the same house that his son John now resides. Capt:.in Lucas, being an old sea captain, was, like all true British sailors, bra\fe and courageous and would assist me to put the dead in the rough coffins, and then the two of us would carry them out to the cart, drive up to the cemetery one and a half miles distant, and bury the victims in the g -V- the settlers would dig, but which we would have to fill in. In the Cleaning up I lost all my clothes, including the volunteer uniform I had got from George. Shortly after the smallpox ended m/ year's etigage- ment with Steve was up. I reminded him of the fact, and I told him I guessed I would strike out on my own account, for I concluded by that time I had well repaid him for George's passage money out from Eng- land. George came out in the steerage, so the amount could not have been over twenty dollars. It was the dearest trip I had ever paid for before or since— twelve months good and solid hard work. My hands sho%f:d that there were welts on them that could be pared of a third of an inch thick, and the rowing I done on that infernal " punt " freight boat had pulled and strained me all out of shape. We handled an enor- mous quantity of lumbermen's supplies — barrels of pork, flour, bags of beans and other heavy goods, and I would have to lift on them, loading and unloading, until I would fairly see stars. Our freight boat was not strongly built, and heavy goods had to be handled carefully. Steve asked me what I intended doing, I said I hsA decided to go into the bush and learn the timber and lumbering business, for I had noticed ihat it was a good paying business, and at the time it ■„.'■ '.■^ m- J , (Srtf f&; 20 UP TO DATE : OR, THE LIFE OF A LUMBERMAN Five dollars was not much for a year's work, but I had acquired some- thing that was of more value to me, and that was the friendship of a good family I could call brother and sister, as well as a name that T could use — and more— one that I had came honestly by, for that year's work with Steve I considered gave me a right to the name. Anyhow, outside of the five dollars it was all I got for my first year's work in Canada. CHAPTER III. I COMMENCE LUMBERING. ) I After parting with Steve I went up to the Haliburton hotc and spent "^ a pleasant evening with Capt. Lucas, the proprietor and a few other friends, and I " blew in " the fivf, drinking success to my new name, and celebrating my own christening as it were. Next day I en;^aged with Norman Barnhart, bush superintendent for Mossom Boyd, the lumber king of the Trent River, to go up to one of the shanties in the capacity of shanty clerk. My wages were to be, I think, twenty dollars a month, board, lodging and tobacco free. The shanty I was assigned to was , located m the township of Harburn, fifteen miles north of Haliburton. Mr. Boyd had acquired the right to cut and remove the pine timber from the Er>glish Land Company, and the season I went up was about the first cutting done in that township. My shanty had a crew of at "lut fifty men ; the foreman and the majority of the crew were French Canadians ; the crew were civil, obliging and a hard-working lot. They treated me very kindly, and I soon got to be a great favorite with them, and soon I was , V right at home in ths bush. My duties consisted in keeping the men's • time, and chargmg up to the men such articles as they required, and looking after the supplies, plant, &c., received consumed, or sent away from my shanty. I also had to keep strict account of the number of pieces timber and sawlogs made and hauled to the stream each day. Our crew that winter made both square timber and sawlogs. The two gangs ot timber makers — five men in each gane, went through the bush ahead of the sawlog makers, and selected and cut down the trees suitable for square timber. A timber gang would make about six pieces of timber per day, on an average, equal to about 400 cubic feet. A gang of sawlog cut ers in those days consisted of five men— three to chop the trees down and cut and top the tree square with their axes when felled, and the other two men to saw the tree into lengths required for sawlogs, usually in 12 to lO teet sections, Five logs to the tree was a good average, to ^; ■^' :i:» '•I •;v.; •.^M.'*.? ^^ V Mfl »& '« ' $ rKI^p ^ J ^t ' 'li fe^P 1 1, ;i> A Pine TreeJFalling / £ Hardy Lumber Cds Limits, Pickeral River, Nipissintf District, Ont, {Se. page ai.) ■.*,;. -4; UP TO DATE ; OR, THE LIFE OF A I.UMBFRMAN 21 ■:<;-;*',:;■ jfet from the trees, and 75 logs was a good average day s work for the gang of fiv2 rnen to cut. In those days nothing less than 14 inch diam- eter at top end would pass for a sawlog, and it had to be straight and sound at that. Three knots or more in a log made a cull of it ; even butt logs with a hollow or the least bit of shake had to be cut of and left in the woods to rot. It is needless to say that such a system caused a great waste of wood, for the extent of territory a crew would run over in one season was enormous— only about one third of the standing trees would make such a class of logs, and therefore the balance were left untouchedi probably to be soon afterwards burnt, for the chip's left by the timber makers, and tops of the trees that had been felled, along with brush heaps piled up in making places for railways or skidways and roads which were opened in order to have the timber and logs hauled to the stream, tell the bush lull of inflammable material. The least spark of fire the next summer set the bush in a blaze. In this v-ay millions of dollars worth of pine and other wood have been destroyed. Of course in those days pine trees were cheap, tue supply apparently inexhaustable. But times have changed since then. All see now that a few years more will practi- cally exterminate the pine forests of Canada. No such waste goes on now. Instead of chopping the trees down they are sawed, so the butt is already squared when the tree falls. The first illustration shows just where and how a gang commences when they go to fell a tree, and the second shows the tree in the act of falling. The tree when felled is now sawn up into sections ; crooks, rots, spunks, shakes and knots— every- thing now goes into the sav'ogs, to be disectcJ on its arrival at the saw mill. Nothing is left in the bush— even small trees six inches in diameter are now cut down, which I think is wrong. They should be allowed to grow and be protected from fire until they are at least large enough to make sawlogs of a twelve inch diameter and if larger so much the better. I have already stated how twenty out of our crew of fifty men were employed ; about fifteen more are kept cutting trails or ro?ds, so that the horses and oxen could get to the timber and logs and haul them to the stream or railways. The sawlogs if any distance from the stream would in most cases have to be piled up on skidways or roUways, as shown in illustration, so tha: no time would be lost when the sleighing came in collecting a load and hauling to the stream. The square timber had to be collected together in much the same way. The balance of our crew were teamsters and loaders, with the exception of the cook and his helper, or '.* devil," as he is usually called. The size of our shanty was about forty feet square. The walls were made of large pine logs, notched and dovetailed together, and wei ^ six logs high. On top of the walls from end to end were two enormous stringers or beams to hold up the roof which was also made of pine logs formed of halves of tiees hollowed out, 33 UP TO DATE ; OR, THE LIFE OF A LUMBERMAN \ ' 1 ,1 I ■ /I called scoops •■ V 24 Ul' TO DATK; OR, THK LIFE OF A LUMUtUMAM I I The shantymen now a days fare much better as regards food and lodging than we did in the early days— but the hours of work ar'j just as long. We present an illustration elsewhere of an up to date shanty. It is repro- duced from a photo taken last winter. It is one of William Peter's lumber shanties, on his timber limits in the Parry Sound district. Mr. Hank Martin was the builder of the set of camps and also foreman in the same sharty for the past three seasons, having taken five million feet of pine sawlogs each winter, with still another season's cut frcm the same shanty. The buildings are the best constructed of any set of shanties I have ever seen, and aie comfortable for both men and horses ; i.i fact nothing better could possibly be desired, and the food supplied to the crew, as to quality and variety, is equalled but by few first class hotels. Mr. Wm. Peter is one of the Michagan lumbermen who came over a few years ago and invested in Canada pine. Mr. Peter is a very shrewd man, having accumulated an enormous fortune lumbering in Michigan. He still has as laige interests in Michigan, bi''. unlike most Americans, when he invested in Canada pine and decided to operate them, he engaged all Canadian men, from the bush superintendent, Mr. Ludgate, down, and the success he is meeting with Is an evidence that Canadian shantymen are the best in the world. To go back to my first winter in a lumber shanty : I may say I got to like the life very much. The time v.^^nt by very swiftly ; Xmas seemed to come quickly and l n Xmas day I was sorry we had not some of Mrs. Steve's Xmas pudding, for we had no pudding of any description —but we made out a fairly good feast on the front quarter of an old o.x that had fallen over a rock and broke one of his legs, and in consequence had to be slaughtered. The beef was rather tough, but we bore no ill 'vill to the old ox, on that account. The two front quarters of that ox was all the beef we got that winter ; the twc hind quarters the bush superintendent had sent tc '".ead shanty, or depot shanty. I well reme mber the first Xmas .ver»5";; . spent in a lumber shanty. Our foreman sat up with the crew and to! J us fairy and ghost stories. The crew were very superstitious (most French Canadians are) and for that matter I am myself. That Xmas evening there was a fearful gale blowing, and towards midnight when our foreman was in the middle of one of his blood-curdling and hair-lifting stories, the crew all gathered around him with their eyes fairly bulging out, crash, bang ! down, came right amongst us, a big pine limb which the wind had broken from a huge pjne tree that stood some distance from our shanty ; the wind carried the limb and dropped it down our camboose chimney, and it made a fearful crash when it struck our pots and kettles. A more frightened crev/ I never saw, and I guess we all thought the devil had us. After we recovered a little from our fright the foreman said it was sent as a warning to some one who was neglecting his '1 ' 1 1 UP TO DATE ; OR, THE LIFE OF A LUMBERMAN 35 crew Istitious That lidnight |ng and is fairly )ig pine td some lit down )ur pots Is we all ]ght the [ting his i-II i religious duties, and he 'ooked straight at me when he said it. I retorted by saying that I thought U had been sent to stop him telling such infernal lies. After a hearty laugh we all retired to our beds for the night. I had a pet beaver that winter ; he was very industrious, as all bervers are, and could do almost anythingbut talk. VVecouldtell when we weregoing tohave a soft spell, for my beaver at nights would build a dam across one end of the shanty, using in lis construction the men's boot?, shoepacics or any- thing else lying around loose in the shanty. There was alwrys embers enough in the fireplace to give sufficient light to watch his movements. 1 think a beaver is the most interestmg pet an/ one could possibly have. I have often watched them build their dams, and have receiv \l i^iny good pointers as to selecting a site on which to build a "catch wato ■>r resi- voir dam as wt!' as the kind of a foundation required. Almost man who cin handle an axe can build a dam, but it rec|uires one to have experi- ence and good judgment in selecting a site for a dam, and also to know that the foundation is good before building the superstructure. No one ever heard of or saw a beaver dam taken out or washed away by floods or freshets. The beaver builds his dam on a sure foundation, and he builds it to stay, and never niiikes any mistake about it. It is surprising how (|uicicly a few beavers will build a large dam or repair one that has been partly cut away or destroyed. The lumbermen often have to cut away the dam in oider to secure the water from the large reservoir above. The lumbermen sometimes obtains a big flood of water, which will probably enable him to float his raft out of a stream into deep water. The beavers in either building or repairing a dam are always supervised by a foreman beaver, and he handles his laborers in much the same way that a foreman of a shanty does his men. How the beaver gets his mates to understand I never could make out. When at work the beaver is difficult to approach, though I h3"e sometimes been close enough to get a good idea of their methods, which is systematic and e/idently all figured out ahead. The only visiters we had that winter was a couple of French priests. They are the only ministers who make it their duty to go regularly every winter to the lumber shanties. Often the journeys are attended by many dangers, privations and difficulties, buc nothing ever stops the good fathers. Snow, cold or rain they go all the sains and are always joyfully and heartily received by both Catholics and Protestants alike. Protestant ministers seldom present themselves at a lumber shanty, although they are always made welcome and kindly used. 'i my experience of a quar- ter of a century there never was a Protestant service held by any minister or any one else in any shanty '. was ever in, although a majority of the men were Protestants. I know of no more solemn sight than a crew of lumbermen at prayers. The surroundings are usually awe-inspiring and sublime in their loneliness. The sight, I am sorry to say, is rarely if ever seen in any other shanty than one manned by French Canadians. '■H il I |l! i ^^iii 26 UP TO DATE; OR, THE LIFE OF A LUMBERMAN I was sorry when our shanty closed in the spiing. Any of our crew who were not engajjec' for the " run," were paid off. Quite a number of the men go up to the bush about the first of September when timber making, log cutting, skidding, road making and also stream improvements, such as dams, piers, &c., can all be done cheapest, and to best advantage. This work takes up all the time until sufficent depth of snow comes (about ten inches) to commence to haul the timber and sawlogs to the streams. Very little timber is made or logs cut after Xmas, the snow usually being too deep for the men to do such work to advantage. Anyhow toe hauling of the timber and logs, generally takes up all the time of the foreman and the crew untJ about the middle of the month of March ; then preparations have to be made for the drives — for the streams clear themselves of ice mostly in the month of April, and then the real hard work of the raftsmen or river driver commences, for the timber and logs must be got down the same stream by the spring freshets, or if the flood of water is allowed to run off and get ahead of the drive then the timber and logs will have to remain in the stream until the next spring. That is what lumbermen call " slicking" or " hanging up" a arive, and it is a great loss to the owner as well ss being thought a disgrace to the foreman and crew who worked on it, and a foreman who sticks more than one drive soon loses his repu- tation and gets reduced to the ranks. Occasionally there will be an un- usually dry spring, and the spring freshets are therefore light ; then of course no blame is attached to anyone it th"? drive ^hould happen to be hung up. It is difficult to forsee jus; how a stream that has never been navigated will act the first season it is driven, as well as to decide what improvements are necessary. This is where experience and good judge- ment counts. The objective point for the square timber is Quebec, and the sawlogs on the Ottawa river to the owner's sawmill at Ottawa and ether points on that viver. Sawlogs on the Trent River go to Fenelon Falls, Bobcaygeon, Peterborough an^ Trenton ; on the Georgian Bay, they mostly go to VVauhaushene, Midland, Little Current and many are sawn up at the mills at ihe mouth of Spanish, French, and other rivers tribitutary to the Georgian Day. Since the Americans have came over to Canada enormous numbers of sa vlogs are towed across Lake Huron to Bay City and other points in Michigan. The river driving and rafting takes up all the spring and summer months, and when a man engages for the " run" he is obliged to stay until the timber reaches its destination. In the early days, and even yet, on the Ottawa River the men had to sign an agreement similar to the one the sailors sign when joining a ship, only the one the shantyman signs is more like a chattle mortgage on his life for one year. But fortunately the good laws in force in Ontario overrides objectionable clauses in the agreement, so tne shantymen is protected against any lumberman who would take advantage of him, but as a rule s to N > s ^ o b XT. lip ! M 4 UP TO DATE ; OR, THE LIFE OF A LUMBERMAN 27 t! " ' Canadian lumbermen use their men well in every respect, the old time lumbermen especially so. Those among our crew who were engaged for the run, when our shanty broke up that spring were sent to th?. depot or headquarter shanty, where they could be best employed until navigation opened. The depot shanty, is where all the provisions and all the supplies are forwarded to from the nearest railroad point, and from there are distributed as required to the other shanties ofn the limit. It is where the bush supei ntendent, chief cleik, bush rangers and log scalers make their bead quarters, and where all men leaving are settled with and paid off. The books and ac- counts of the whole operat' >n are kept there, and the clerks in the working shanties m.ike a weekly return to the chief clerk of all work done in their shanties— the company's or concern's head office is probably hundreds of miles distant from the depoi shanty, and as some of the big lumber con- cerns have as many as two thousand men in the bush, scattered perhaps over hundreds of miles of territory, the only feasibe 'vay is to have a bush superintendent for about every five hundred men, and a travelling agent to overlook the whole outfit. The operations must necessarily be scattered along the banks of several streams, as the smaller tributaries to the main rivers would not be able to carry out the enormous output of timber and sawlogs in one season that some of the large operators take out. So that a bush superintendent usually has some ten or fifteen shanties on some stream all by himself, which he oversees from the depot shanty. The bush superintendent is pracaically about the only official the men in woods have any dealings with ; his word is law on everything. He makes all rules and regulations ; ai! have to obev his orders and no appeal can be made against his ruling ; hv'^ engages all his subotdinates, including chief clerk and foreman, and arranges the scale of wages ; he can dismiss all or anyone of the lot at pleasure, and the Czar of Russia is nit a greater autocrat. The site for a depot shanty is selected with great care, as to its natural advantages as a base of supplies, and its easy access by river, lake or road from nearest railroad point ; the buildmgs are greater in num- ber and more substantially constructed, than the ordinary shanty. Large clearings are usually made in order to pasture the horses and cattle dur- ing the summer season. Villages and even towns oken sprung up around these lumber depots. I give a cut of depot taken from a photo. The illustration shown on another page is of Messrs. Gilmour's depot shanty, on their new limit in Muskoka, for which limit they paid nearly one million dollars to the Ontario Government two years ago. It was the biggest price ever paid for one limit to the Ontario Gavernment, and a story is told that it took Mr. P, M. Gunther, the chief bush superintendent of the firm, nearly a week to cart the cash in a wheelbarrow from a bank on King street up to the provincial treasury at the parliament buildings. The streams on r.f. 11 lil^ UK 1 ■■ hm&\ WW 'Mi i j :',!n ^8 UP TO DATE ; OR, THE LIFE OF A LUiMBKRMAN the new limit are all tributaries to the Georgian Bay waters, and as Messrs. Gilmour's sawmill is situated at Trenton, on the Bay of Quinte, Lake Ontario, the pine on their new limit was of no use to them as a feeder for their mills, which are the largest and best equipped of any mills on the continent. They had to devise some means to get the logs over a three mile stretch of land that separated the Georgian Bay stream at the Lake of Bays from the Gull River waters— a tributary of the Trent. The Messrs. Gilmour were equal to the occasion. First they harnessed a water power on the shore of Lake of Bays and thus secured power to raise the logs out of the lake sixty feet almost straij^ht up the side of a mountain ; then they built a slide or sluceway, which takes the logs the first half mile on their journey. The water to supply this slide had also to be pumped up out of the Lake of Bays. The illustration shows the enor- mous pump at work. When the logs leave the slide an endless chain or a tram carries them on nearly another half mile, and then deposits them into a canal which is two miles long, also made by the Gilmour C\)mpany. An alligator steamboat then tows them through the canal to Senoras Lake, where the logs are made up into rafts or drives of about forty thou- sand pieces each, and they are then started on their long journey of over two hundred miles to Trenton. The distance the logs come down the river before reaching the tramway or oortage is over fifiy miles, so it takes two seasons for the logs to reach the mills. About fifteen thousand pieces of logs can be passed over the portage in a lumberman's day (from day- light to dark). The second picture shows the greatP*- part of the slide and tramway in motion, and the third the alligator steamboat and a tow being made up for her in ihe canal. An " alligator," is so named because it can travel on land and water— on land by putting out a steel cable and a snub on a tree or other fastening and then her machinery winds in the cable and pulls her along the road. They are a very useful invention, as in that way they can be transported over portages on rivers where there are rapids that no boat can run. It is much ahead of the old way of towing logs with horses and a capstan, as shown in the illustration on another page. Before horses were introduced the men had to turn the capstan, which operation is similar to sailors weighing anchor. Often I have seen a crew of forty or fifty men " warping " as it is called, for days at a time, sometimes for thirty or forty consecutive hours at a stretch, this being a common occurrence. This ceaseless pushing on the hand bars of a capstan — it is worse than a treadmill in a jail, the constant going round for so long a time often made the men sick. To hold or coil " slack," as the rope came in was another job even worse, for one's hands most of the time it not freezing would be terribly sore. To return to »r»y first spring in a lumber shanty. After our shanty broke up ; my books were inspected by the chief clenrk, everything checkfd off, and the cost of our shanty ascertained. Against this was credited our wm 1^ <' doubting Thomas" was Mr. John Waldey, : ! ''! ^ w: , ■( III 1 1 Ji 1 1 '|n 1 1' 'j ' ■ 32 UP TO DATE ; OR, THE I.IFK OF A LUMBERMAN 1 M. P., for the rest of us did not by look or siR^n Kive Mr. White a hint that we in any way doubted his verasity. But Mr. Waldey afterwards did insinuate thathe did not believe him. Mr.vWhiie instantly olTTered to wager a Sicoo that next morning he could and would carry a barrel each of pork and flour in one load a mile, the distance to be measured off on the ice on the Spanish River. Mr. Waldey, thouj^h reputed to be a millionaire and noted to be fond of making money, declined to accept. Raftsmen take great pride in preforming feats of strength and agil ty. In the early days of lumbering, when Mr. White was a young man, there were moreocxasions of displaying it than now. A strong man in those days was a valuable ma* to have. On the Ottawa river at that time there was no railroad or any other kind of road, to enable the lumbermen to get up to the Upper Ottawa district. Everything had to go up the river in boats or on the ice, after the river had frozen up, m sleighs. Of course a trail would be cut out where there would be rapids, and that was called a portage. Some of these portages were several miles in length, so that when a shanty crew started from Otta^va oi Pembroke in the autumn they would have to take sufficient provisions and supplies to last them at least three or four months. The provisions and supplies have to be carried over the portages, be it lonij or shirt. In addition to this the boats, which they called pointers, would have to be dragged over the portage if the rapid was too swift to allow its being pulled up by rope. Each boat would carry two toils of freight besides the crew, and the trip up to where the shanty was to be built would often take up nearly a month's time. The cook on those trips had a hard time of it, for he had to do the cooking and get the meals ready the b;ist way he could, and we had many diffi- culties to contend with. Seldom did they ever have any tents with them. If the nieht was wet and stormy they turned their boats upside down on shore and crawled underthem.and that was all the shelter they got. Though perhaps late in the month of November, and snow on the ground, the men were always lighthearted and cheerful, and worked with a will and would outvie each other as to who could carry the largest load across the port- age, and when evening came and these hardy voyagers would be sitting around the camp fire the big loads carried would usually be the topic of conversation. Mr. White in his day, and I guess even at the present tiiue, is champion in this particular line, and few if any dispute his title. It they do he is ever ready to back up his claim to the title. In those early days it was considered good work for a crew to reach the Upper Ottawa district from Pembroke with their boats and supplies, and get settled to work in a month's time. - ^ ' •: i?,.-^*- < v '^ ^:«^- ?? The men who follow shanting and river driving are among the heartiest in the world. Of a strong constitution, they require to be supple and active, good swimmers and quick in their movements. I know of no business or calling in which the hardships are so great as that of a river :r a m at lid ig ild kt- »g ;nt It rly |wa 10 Ihe ter ft: ft H ^ ■5! S* C/) C/1 I Ul» TO DATK; Ok, TIIK I, IKK Ol' A l.UMIJKRMAM 33 driver. The cowboy's life is a " picnic " compare4 to that of a river driver, and kss dangerous. A ri- er driver nuisi be lph Caron, Mr. Barron at the same time otVe-ing to take the tield with us. Our services were not acc«p.ed, for the Minister of Militia said thiit he thought the Government had a suSicient number of organized troops a'ready in the field to (luell the rebellion The Mmister, ihroujjh Mr. llrown, thanked us very warmly for the offer. That's how 1 got the title of captain the best way any one cati get a title, for ii the men elect ihei/ own otVuers as we did in the Southern army, better --atisfaction is given all around, and no one wiil dare say that the Southerners were not well officered. Towards the last of the month of April of that first season of mine in the bus?«, the men were divided into four crews of about fifty each, and a foreman and assistant foreman was placed in charge of each crew, and the bus?) supermtendent controlled the lot. We were all put out under canvass, ' i' i! ' \ V V i li '*. I! i ! l\ 36 VV TO DATi: ; OR THK I.IFE OK A LUMBERMAN used to best advantage, dams are built, such as shown in our illustration. Wherever possible a reservoir is made of a lake or even a beaver msadow. When the stoplogs are taken out of the dam the rush of water, if the dam is full, is great, and the flood sends the logs tumbling over the rapids, and the noise they make as they are driven and pounded against the rocks in the rapids and tumbling over the fills often reminded me the thunder of cannon when heard in the dist.>,nce. Orcasionally a stick of timber or — logs running too thick together will cause a jam in the rapids — often in dangerous and diffi:ult places, perhaps where the banks of the stream, the side of which are solid rock mountains high and as straight up as the side of a house. Then the best men "jam crackers ' or white water men, as the boys call them, go on to '* break the jam," or pick out the key log or stick that is holding the rest. Often the key stick or log will have to be cut with an axe, and probably when half cut through the pressure of the mass of bogs behind it cracks the stick and in a second the whole is a seething twisting, curling mass of logs up-ending and turning in every shape, and going at a terrific speed. It is in such places where a river driver's nerve and agility finds play as well as his cool, leve' head ; he has often to spring as quickly as a squirrel in picking his way over the swiftly moving mass — often jumping ten or fifteen feet from one moving stick or log to another before he gets a chance to make his way ashore— that is if he is fortunate enough to get ashore. Often they get caught or struck by a log and badly injured ; or get thrown in the madly foaming rapids, when a desperate battle for life commences, his comrades witnessing the terrible struggle and often utterly possible help him. The sight is a thrilling one, and frequently ends fatality. Once on the Gull River I witnessed such a sight ; my crew of nearly one hundred men lined the banks and rushed out on the logs on the side jams as they saw a poor fellow trying to swim as he was being tossed and thrown about like a cork. In this case the river was wide, and the mad current kept him in the middle of the stream, out of reach of us all. On he went until he came to the brink of a straight falls of nearly thirty feet ; swiftly he approached and over he went and was lost to view for a few seconds, when he bobbed up again we could see he had been badly hurt and was much exhausted, but bravely again he tried to steady himself to go over the next cataract, a couple of hundred yards below, and as he went over that last ten foot falls, we seen him throw up his arms and that was the last we seen of him alive. I in- stantly had the dam closed at the head of the rapids and the water lowered and then we commenced our dismal sear«h. We found his mangled body fully three quarters of a mile below where he had been thrown in by being struck by a piece of timber in a moving jam on which he was working just above the first falls. The poor fellow was only about twenty-four years of age. He was always ventursome and such scenes are of frequent occur- rence ; sometimes a rope is fastened around a man's body and held by o "Z pi a ii i n it ! ^.^ — ^ „ --'*^.,-w >**■.*.,.>*. ^.^..^ .X-''*'2..-- ■V. .-rt •t ft- '•* ^fc**^ ?;a,, i ^ p 1 ' Dp to DAtE ; OR, THE UtE OF A LUMBER^Ar* 37 others on shore, when he is working on the " key stick," chopping it in two ; then if the jam brakes suddenly his comrades pull him ashore-with ropes. It is only in extremely risky cases that a rope is used, because it is seldom that leus than half a dozen men can do anything towards breaking a jam, and sometimes in takes all the crew several days, if a bad one. The unwritten law among river drivers is when a bad jam forms in a danger- ous place the foreman is first to inspect it, then when he has decided where to commence the attack he signals what men he wishes to go and assist him. The men all gather on the bank, but none offer to go on the jam until the foreman calls, for too many men on a jam is ^always source of danger, the jam being liable to go without an instant's warning ; any unnecessary men would only impede others in their run to shore. The foreman is also best judge of who is the most capable men in such a case ; but a foreman, to have or retain th^ respect of the crew, must always be first to the front in a dangerous place, and it is rarely any man refuses to follow his lead ; and when out on the jam the first thing they do is to take a glance to spot the safest apparent looking way for making their run ashore in case of the jam taking a sudden start, for in that case it is every one for himself. We had two stretches of about three miles each of very bad river that spring ; there was not sufficient improvements done on the stream to allow a quick run of the enormous quantity of timber and logs that we had m our drive, so the spring flood got away from us, and we had to leave behind fully one half of our drive, which was a very serious loss to the firm, for logs especially are apt to get badly damaged by worms and decaying sap- wood when " hung up" dry on the streams ; if left afloat in deep water no danger that way is sustained, but logs or timber hung up means a year longer before realizing on them, and piles up the interest account fast. The crew I was with were paid off, myself with the rest, and I was glad of it, for the mosquitoes and black fiies were very bad — no rest night or day could be got— for at night the mosquitoes get in their work and so do another insect which go by the name of *' shantyman's pet ;" the shantyman's shirts and blankets are their favorite breeding place, and anywhere over a shantyman's person is their hunting grounds. They are built somewhat on the principle of a potatoe bug, and an old male one is almost as large. There is a latin name for them, but 1 am no latin scholar, so cannot give it. I am in the same fix in that respect as the Frenchman was who enquired in his broken English " what you call dat thing that have no father, no mother ? " A story goes that a lumberman who lives not a thousand miles from Toronto, and who is fond of a practical joke, once visited his lumber shanty accompanied by his dude bookkeeper from the city. The lumberman " stuffed " the ' bookkeeper with yarns about the insect called the " shantyman's pet," and the bookkeeper, who had never heard of such an insect, thought he would N if !■ y |j 'A ■ ■*! ,i( 38 UP TO DATE; OR, IriE LIFE OF A LUMBERMAN like to bring a few back to the city with him as a curiosity to show his friends. The shanty foreman was requested to have some captured, and he got an old timer to pick a few dozen large specimens oflf his shirt. A few were put m to an envelope and given to the bookkeeper and the other few dozen was dropped " sub rosa " by the foreman down the back of the neck of both the lumberman and his bookkeeper. Both were married men but on their arrival home the shantymen's pets came near causing two separate actions for divorce. f . . ., k , ' , , . ,.,..■,. CHAPTER V. PI I I TAKE A HOLIDAY AND AGAIN REURN TO THE BUSH. ' I had quite a " stake " due me that first spring, and I thought I was rich, for I never had so much money at one time before ; so I concluded it would be a good time to send some to George's mother, for he had lold me she was very poor. I wrote my first letter to her and enclosed her a post office order for two pounds sterling. I got a nice motherly reply, and so every Christmas since until my illness cp.mc on me three years ago I regularly sent her ten dollars. Of course tha old lady imagined it was her own boy who was sending her the money and I never made her the wiser, and as the dear old lady died this last Ftbruaryshe never knew the difference. I was always well repaid, for the lei ters I received from her were full of love and good advice, which, had I heeded, would have done away with the necessity of writing this book. Once a year was as often as I wrote to her. The only other relative of George's who ever wrote me was his married sister, Mrr-. Brian, and I am sure, from the tone of her letters and by the features of her beautiful face, shown in the photo which she sent me, she must be a most charming and lovable lady. But it was only at intervals of three or four years that I heard from her. After settling up that first spring I decided to take a run over and visit some of the American cities, for by that time I was tired of the back- woods. I was afraid if I stayed in the bush too long, that moss might start to grow on my back, and then if it did and I would go to a city some of those "smart Alecks" one always finds in a city would notice it. So I headed for the city of Rochester, N. Y. Of course I took in the sights when I arrived there and I soon blew in all my wealth, for I was not many days in the city until I found myself " dead broke." I then hired with a farmer hj the name ot Harrington, to wotk oo bis UP TO DATE ; OR, THE UFE OF A LtTMBERMAN 39 farm as a laborer, telling- him when I made the engagement that Horace Greely knew less about farming than I did, and that as a homy handed son of the soil I was a huge success. Haraington's farm was up the Genessee valley, about ten miles from the city. I was to get $40 per month, but greenbacks in those days were a bushel to the dollar. Harrington was in the city the day he engaged me, to take out a load of lumber, so we both mounted the load and drove out as far as a place called Brighton, four miles out of the city. Harrington drove the team into the shed of one of the hotels there and went into the barroom, and proceeded to *' bowl up." It was away in the night before we headed the team up the plank road leading to his farm. We had driven about a couple of miles or so when, as we t >> O 1-^ <«■ 73 1 1—1 q ? V ^ « rt s; ,-^ c ;v ^ r ■% >s H :d >^\ O ■N, s 55 ;3. ^1 - ,N, > H O CO >t > ^ Jl «'. ■^ ^N St > '^ rs >(' o % ■M > :^ ^.? ^ td ^3. p) ,'vi > ^1 Sf < ■^-^ > M » ^ > s S .M u^ n n> »» "> FJ !$ SS ^ ■14' I ! l!i I i 3 *• 1 i '^'■1 • '-\ 1 ■! Ill f^inr \ UP TO DATE ; OK, THE LIFE OF A LUMBERMAN 41 ti cook, an Irishman by the name of Mat McCue, and took the bottle into the shanty and asked Mat if he felt like taking a horn of good whiskey. " Try me and see," rephed Mat ; so I poured a good sized geiser into a tea dish and handed it to him, and he downed it without a blush. The foreman and I then went outside of the shanty and hid the bottle in a bush pile, the foreman remarking as we done so that we take a walk to the bush and on our return in an hour or so, if the stuff had not killed Mat, we would finish the bottle. But when we got back just about dark we could not find the bottle. We then went into the shanty and were sur- prised to find it in darkness, no sign of any supper ready for the crew, some of whom were just then coming in There was an awful scuffle going on in one corner of the shanty, which after a while we found out was made by Mat and his "devil." The two were engaged in a deadly strug- gle, Swearing and vowing vengeance on each other for allowing the fire to go out. We afterwards le;irned that the cook's devil happened to be outside when we hid the bottle, and after our departure went in and told Mat what he had seen. That settled it. Mat and the devil were soon out- side all the contents of the bottle, and of course forgot or did not care if there ever was any supper for the crew. When we arrived they had just woke up, and blamed c.irh other for the trouble. Both were too helpless on our arrival on the scene to be able to prepare the supper, so the fore- man and I had to, turn in and get the meal ready and did not even get a smell out of the bottle, for Mat and his devil had drank every drop. The firm had eight or ten shanties, and the total output of timber find logs was very large. In the spring we had trouble with our river driving, and in the month of July we "hung up" at Kinmount, on the Burnt River, That season was known to lumbermen of the Peterborough district as the year of the big jam on the Burnt River. Scarcely any tim- ber or logs were run out of that river and the loss to the firms operating on the Burnt River must have been very large. The jam was the result of pure carelessness and lack of harmony among the different firms. Certainly when the principals of the different ^amber concerns took no interest in matters that concerned them all, by having proper dams and slides built on the main river used by all, neither could any one of the bush supetintendents take any action in improving the river. In fact in those days and even to-day for that matter there was nearly always more or less rivalry between the different firms operating on the one river, and that rivalry often extended not only among the heads of the diflferent firms but the bush superintendents, foremen, and crews were all more or less infected by it. Pig-headed selfishness is the proper Qjime for the feeling that used and probably does yet exist among lumber- men, and often have I seen great loss caused to a rival firm by the mani- pulating of tht reservoir dams. Schemes to " hang up " the drive of a rival are «|uite common, "^nd is done out of pure cuseedness ; the feeling pre- !l i 42 UP TO DATE ; OR, THE LIFE OF A LUMBERMAN vails in every lumberman's breast that he alone should possess the whole earth. The celebrated law case of McLaren v.s, Caldwell, which finally had to be settled by the Privy Council of England, after years of fighting and the expenditure of a fabulous amount in costs and other losses, is a fair sample of the "whole hog" feeling that prevails among all lumbermen. Sir Oliver Mowat's Government never passed a more needed or just law than the Streams Bill, and the money spent by the Ontario Government on streams, building dams and river improvements, gives, I claim, the best returns and results to the people of Ontario in a business point of view. Take this very Burnt River, at the period referred to, was one of the most dreaded and dangerous, as well as expensive rivers in Ontario tq drive timber or logs on. To-day, thanks to the government for the dams, slides and improvements built on it, it is now one of the quickest, cheapest and safest rivers to drive. .■' Superintendent Taylor took me back to the bush with him for the second season for the same firm. I got a raise in my wages, and was pro- moted to be assistant chief scaler. The operations were not so extensive as the previous season, but the same fate awaited our drive, for we hung it up a few miles further down the Burnt River than the first year's drive. Nothing daunted, the firm again sent us back to the bush and again I got promoted to the chief clerkship, this time at a salary of forty dollars per month. The chief clerk, next to the superintendent whose chief assistant he really is, has the best birth of in the bush, the best quarters and board, light, easy work, and lots of time to do it in. The superintendent alone is his suf 'ior, and in the superintendent's absence he acts as his deputy. The chiei v-lerk has no direct dealing with the firm, and if they want to get at him they have to do it through the superintendent, who is respon- sible for his actions. I will describv'i superintendent Taylor, as he had a great influence over me, and materially nicirked my future. He was about forty years of age at the time I speak of, and was a bachelor. He was a big, manly looking fellow, well built and handsome, was brainy and clever, and brave as a lion. He was quiet and unassuming, an infidel, and believed in nothing but gold, which was his God. Marriage, he said, was a farce ; free love was the doctrine he preached. What was more, he openly practised what he preached, and he had no use for, or would ever talk to, any woman that he found did not belive in the same doctrine, and he ap- peared to have converted quite a number of girls and women. I know he never missed a chance of making a convert. He would often go long dis- tances doing missionary business. Distance, time or money was no ob- stacle if a convert could be gained. Of course this only applies to women converts. Men, he said, did not need converting, ior he claimed that UP TO DATE ; OR, THE UfE OP A LUMREKMAN 4) ninety-nine out of every hundred who were physically all right practised it any how, and the reason why the remaining one did not was for want of opportunity. Certainly, he said married men did not preach it to their own wives, preferring to teach it to other men's wives. We had only just started the season's operations when Taylor told me our firm wished me to do all the log measuring or scaling for all the firm's shanties, as well as being chief clerk — in fact fill both positions, which always before had ^tcn filled by two men, and is so filled in every large concern. I replied ti.at it would be an utter impossibility for me or any one else to satisfactorily fill the bill ; no one could do so much work. Taylor said he would assist me in measuring the logs. I gave him an incredulous smile. Taylor replied that we would measure and scale the logs right here in the office, where we could do it in a way that would be much more satisfactory to our firm than it could be done by walking through the bush. I asked him how about the English Land Company? He replied that that part had already been fixed. The Land Company had agr«! id to ac- cept my measuring. The two previous years the Land Company and one firm had mutually agreed upon the man to do the measuring, each party paying half the men's wages. This particular season they had selected me. Taylor said my wages was to be sixty dollars per month, but he said of course the Land Company understood that my time would all be de- voted to the log scaling ; so if I filled both positions I would draw seventy dollars instead of sixty permonth, and the LandCompany would be none the wiser. In plain English, it was a scheme by which 1 was to be used as the means of robbing the Land Company, and also make the Land Com- pany pay me for doing it. In a previous chapter I referred to the English Land Company's valuable pine which was worth a fabulous amount. The Coiipany were not aware of the kind of timber which they possessed— in fact it apparently looked on the pine in the very opposite way, and a story is told that one of the Land Company's officials claimed it would be a good thing to get the lumbermen on mostly any terms, " don't you know " to cut and remove "those large pine trees" that were sodifficult forthe settlers to cut down and burn. The official thought the land would sell better after " those large pines " were removed. I guess that official had no trouble in getting num- bers of lumbermen to agree with him, though, strange to relate, the lumber- man appear to have been the only ones to agree with this remarkable theory, for now when all those large pine trees have been cut and removed, no one appears to want to buy the lar.d or rather rock. The greater por- tion of the territory is still unsold. The Land Company had, a year or two previous to my arrival in Haliburton, given leases or licenses to several of the promiient lumber firms of the Ottawa and Trent Rivers to cut and remove "those pine trees." The licenses covered about all the Land Company's territory, and ( ■ ?:1 i; .. I 44 UP TO DATE; OR, THE LJFE OF A LUMBERMAKf ' •• •• f were good for ten years and were also transferable, for bonus or cash was paid at time of granting the licenses, but dues at the rate of $i.t)0 per thousand board measure was to be paid by the lumberer to the Land Company as the pine was cut and removed on a scale or measurement made by a scaler and culler who was mutually agreed upon — each party to pay half salary of the scaler. Now to one not familiar with the ways of lumbermen and their smart little business transactions, no doubt the bargain would appear to be both a fair and good one, and so it was, if honestly carried out, which in many cases it was not, for the following reasons — first, as I have already stated, the lumbermen had no funds to put up, so they had no capital ''nvested ; next, if not closely watched they would run through and select only the very choicest trees or the best por- tion of the tree, and leave to rot millions of feet of pine which they claim- ed would not pay them to take, either through it being too crooked, knotty or some other defect, which probably would only effect a very small part or portion of the tree. Anyhow no man, or woman either, would take skim milk when they can get cream for the same price, by simply doing a little " kicking " or a little smart business. Of course the Lumber Company were guided by the lumbermen as to who would get the job of scaling, as it is called, or measuring. Thus practically, the lumberman had every- thmg in his own hands, the Land Company not knowing anything about the business, the coast was clear. The experience of the English Land Company is similar to that of the Grand Trunk Railway shareholders. A board of directors in London, England, sends a man out to manage a Canadian concern. The official so dispatched, though probably a good business man at home, must learn the ways Oi the country when he arrives here, and somebody iii to pay while he acquires this knowledge, as well as take chances of " ever-learning." No doubt the Land Company, to a certain extent, followed the ex- ample of the Ontario Govemment in disposing of their pine, with this difference : the Government usually disposes of it by public auction to the highest bidder, and thereby obtains a large bonus at the time of sale ; they also collect dues, when the lumberman cuts the pine in addition to the bonus. The dues the Ontario Government were collecting at the time the Land Company disposed of its pine, was 75 cts per thousand feet board measure, so no doubt the Land Company though if they got $1.50 they were making a good sale, and it would more than ofTset the bonus they were missing by not putting their pine up to public auction, same as the government did, and as I have before stated, if the lumberman had dealt squarely the Land Company was all right. In my opinion both the Ontario Government and the Land Comyany's plan or methods of disposing of pine is not as good as that of the State of Michigan. In that state a lumberman has to buy the land ^s well as the ti v* •n V) > ^ ^ ^ r <^ o r/5 13 •s n >>• r< fll ^ r^ > •i r <-i •x) r> t-< << s TJ 5- T3 '^ -^ *- "« ' 1-^ <^ •fi ^ 75 •^ ■?> .^ •^ o b; s^ ^ » fcH n H o X H lit HI P {! fl v, i 1 !*•- -VSi.^,. UP TO DATE ; OR, THE LIFE OF A LUMBERMAN 45 pine, and in forty acre sections. Ot course he could purchasi as many sections as he chooses as long as he has the money to pay for them, and the price charged for it is $i per acre, including both land and pine. By this plan the. ire no afier-dues to collect, hence no army of well paid govern- ment officials are needed to see to the measurement and to collect the dues, or can the government be defrauded by wrong measurements or losses through not cutting the timber clean as they go, or in other ways destroying or wasting the pine. Then the lumberman makes the very best kind of an immigration agent, for he must dispose of the land or pay taxes on it, so he goes to work and builds railroads into his land and booms his property and soon towns and manufac uries spring up and he thereby not only enriches himself but his country at the same time. By the Ontario plan the lumberman only buys an interest in the standitig pine. The government retains an interest in to the extent of $i per thousand feet, which just about carries the fire r- k, for the lumberman virtually owns the land as well as the pine, though he pays no taxes— only a nominal ground rent (a few cents per square mile —practically nothing.) Though the lumberman may own five million dollars worth of standmg pine, not a cent of taxes can be collected on that property, because the government owns the land, and also nominally owns the pine until it is cut by the lumberman — so that the lumberman escapes paying taxes. What's the use of being a king if you have to pay taxes like other people } That explains, I presume, how Canadian lumbermen came to be termed kings. The lumberman or speculator practically owns the land as well as the pine. The government cannot force him to cut the pine otTthe lana until he is ready ; if it does and the land is thrown open to settlement, the settlers, in process of cleaning and sometimes wilfully, sets the pine forest on fire and thereby destroys the pine, and the gove. ament wouid hen lose its one dollar dues. So, I claim, the American plan is best for the people, and the Ontario plan is the best for the lumber king. I think the foregoing will give the reader an idea of the scheme superintendent Taylor was putting up on the Land Company. Of course I agreed to assist him to carry it out, for I at the time was a great ad- mirer of Taylor, and all or nearly all, of his doctrines except the infidel busi- ness ; I drew the line at that, but not a very strict one. I had just a happy idea that there was or must be a Supreme Being of some sort, but that was as far as I went I then believed in no form of worship, and scorned and mocked at all kinds of religions, or did I believe in the Bible or any- thing it contained, and seldom read it. My war experience was too vivid in my mir.d, ana I could no; believe a God such as described in the New Testment would have permitted such cruel and horrible things as were peipetrated during the war— father kill- icig son, brother slaying brother, and by who ? wh,- Christians. I argued with myself if that was the teachings of the Bible, I for one wanted none i' li \V: I I l;i ' M Irfi f A d 46 UP TO DATE ; OR, THE LIFE OP A LUMBERMAN of it. About the first thing I saw when I came to Canada, on my arrival in Peterborough, were Christians trying to kill each other in the streets. I enquired the cause of the fray and found out it was a faction flight be- tween Catholics and Protestants. I had my own ideas about it at the time, but kept them to myself, as I saw it was the safest, and I had all the fighting I wanted in the Southern States to satisfy me for the balance of my life ; so of course when Superintendent Taylor made his proposition to help him to put up that liitle job on the Land Company, if be saw no harm in it of course I was not going to allow any scruples of conscience to interfere, or do I remember having any at the time. I would not wish the reader to get the impression that had I not met Taylor I would not have imbibed his free love ideas, for I had believed in them long before I had met him, and could have taught Taylor more about women and their ways than he even ever dreamed about, for he was very illiterate and could scarcely write his own name, and had only come in contact with women who knew about the coarser vices. I was, the time I first met Taylor, already a pastmas'er in the finer arts and vices of that kind, for my education in that respect had been carefully at- tended to by a woman— an unmarried one an that — who had the art down fine, as only a well educated and a beautiful women can, although I was only a boy at the time. I write the above so that the reader will not blame Taylor for teach- ing me any of my evil ways, and thus do him an injustice. I may add that I am not writing a Sunday school tract, or have I the slightest intention of making this a lewd book ; but in the end the lesson and moral will pro- bably do the reader more good and prove more wholesome lesson than those learned from Sunday school tracts. 1 do hold, however, that the Ontario system of dealing with timber limits helped or rather taught me to be unscrupulous in business matters ; by the American system it would have been impossible to put up such a job as Taylor put up on the Land Company — one of which is often prac- tical on the Ontaaio and Quebec Governments by which the people are cheated, and an empty provincial treasury and wealthy lumber kings are the outcome of it all. The system has not only afiforded opportunity for dishonesty but it has helped to make thousands of men and boys unscrupl- ness in business matters, and taught them how to do " smart " httle busi- ness transactions, for quite a number of lumber firms will only employ log scalers who they know will not scruple to make an affidavit to wrongful measurements, and thus wilfully perjure themselves. If a log scaler re- fuses to take the oath his employer has no further, use for him. The lumberman is never required to make oaxh to the correctness of the measurements. He, of course, knows nothing about them even if the logs shonld happen to cut out double the quantity of lumber the bush-scale or measurement showed on which he had paid dues on to the government. UP TO DATE ; OR, THE LIFE OF A LUMBERMAN 47 There is no case on record where any lumber concern even put up any conscience money to the government for any logs over the bush-scale, though frequently the over run turns out to be double the quantity he has paid dues on. I know and can prove of one lumberman and ex-M. P., who used to make his own son — a mere school-boy— swear or make affidavit of the general log returns to the Ontario (Government. The lumberman referred to got his son to do what his bush superintendent refused to do, unless a fair divide of the steal was made. The boy knew nothmg whatever about the bush or log-scaling, and could not make the necessary oath, and at the time had not the slight- est idea or did he care if it was ten or even twenty million feet he was swearing tq.; neither did he know the difference between pine and bass- wood, but he did what his greedy fathei made him do. This same boy's father actually had the gall to apply to have me arrested for perjury. He thought I had committed perjury in alaw suit in which I was witness against him. The same lumberman's own bush supermtendent told me that before the son referred to was old enough to do so, his father and he used to mani» pulate the government log ref.irns in about the following way : The bush superintendent would merely sign his name to the returns, made out on the printed form and the blank affidavits form ; then after the super- intendent was away, a commissioner for taking affidavits would be brought in and the form filled out. The bush superintendent at the time probably was hundreds of miles away, and the chances were he would be engaged in kissing the lips of some pretty women instead of the staunch cover of some old Bible. It also was a practice of some lumberman of the class I have just described to employ "smart " boys or youths to scale logs ; the boys easily learned to swallow the pill, and did not knew enough to claim a share of the steal. Even if they did, after the first affidavits were made the boy is at the lumberman's mercy, for he would be told if he did not keep a close mouth he would be put in jail for perjury, and then if there should happen to be any more noise over the matter, off went the boy's head— or rather he was dismissed as well as disgraced, and the lumberman's conscience was thereby relieved and he went on in the even tenor of his way. To return to my narrative : In a previous chapter I told how I had accepted the position of chief clerk and log-sealer combined. I may say, when the winter's operations were over, Taylor 'and I manipulated or " cooked " the log measurements of the cut-put of our seven or eight shanties so that our firm only had to pay about one half, or even less, dues to the Land Company than they should have paid, and of course the Land Company was thus defrauded out o! thousands of dollars. And that was not the only job Taylor and I put up on the Land Company that same season. We robbed them in another way, in the most barefaced manner. It was done in about this way : Our firm that season had a f 1' 1 ■■ 1 ;> t • 8 ■ i IS Mi i : I 48 UP TO DATE : OR THE LIFE OF A LUMBERMAN saw-log jobber or contractor, taking out logs, and were payinj^ him at the rate of four dollars per thousand feet, board measurement. The same jobber also had a contract from the Laud Company to take out saw- lo>js for the Haliburton mil), and the said logs were to be cut on the Land Company's reserve, in the township of Dudley. The greater part of the reserve was virgin pine. Our firm's boundary line run up to the reserve, but all the good pine on that part of our firm's limits had been cut and removed a season or so previously, but Taylor got the jobber to go o» to that portion of the limit and cut up all the large, rough and rotten trees into saw-loe lengths and to haul them out on the ice on Drag Lake, along side the logs the jobber was taking out for the Haliburton mill. We then made him stamp those worthless logs with the Land Company's mark and we put our firm's mark on the fioe, large, clear and sound logs cut by the jobber on the reserve, or in other words we exchanged our rotten logs for the Land Company's good logs, and even that was not all that was in the steal, for we scaled the rotten logs so that our measure- ments of them made them go about three to make a thousand feet and we scaled the large logs so that it would take about nine of them to make a thousand feet. The object of this was to make the Land Company pay the jobber nearly ail the cost of taking out both lots of logs, as the price the jobber was to get per thousand feet from the Land Company was the same figure that our firm was giving him. We minipulated about seven thousand pieces of logs in this way, so I will leave the reader to work out the problem, and by so doing learn how many thousands of dollars we robbed the Land Company of. The reader may also learn how to compute or find out how many thousand feet, board measurement, of lumber there were in the logs we stole, and also how much they cost our firm. If he cannot solve the problem, on writing me and enclosing one dollar, I will send the correct figures by return mail The Land Company of course had no check on me, or the steal could not have been made, and' they, I presume, never for an instant thought I would allow them to be robbed in any such way. They did not discover the ? .istake that I made until the rotten logs arrived at the Land Company's mill in Haliburton, weeks after the job had been worked and all hands had been paid up in full; so of course the land Company could do nothing, for by that time the jobber had "flew the country," and in his haste to get away it is said he left his visible tracks even on the rocks in Muskoka, in his hurry to reach Algoma territory, where he still resides, and where he still follows the business of saw-log jobber or contractor. This was one of the slickest business transactions I ever had anything t^^ do with. The Land Company made a great fuss at my mistakes and blunders, and could not undsrstand it " don't yoa know," how it came that our firm's seven or eight shanties that season only took out and paid for so few logs, and how such poor OQCfs vene ? ! 1 » j i M ■ 1 J •r 1 '^ 's 1 f ( f i < - ». Jr^ V "^f. ::'^ r. ., 1 *-t UP TO DATE ; OR, THE LIFE OP A LUMBERMAN 49 supplied to the Haliburton mill from a virgin limit. I i^^s blamed for it all, and the Land Company discharged me, and what was more, refused to pay me a dollar of my wages, and of course I dare not enter an action against thorn to recover, so after all, I was only paid the forty dollars per month which our firm had first (igreed to give me for being chief clerk. That little smart business transaction should have been a warning to me to keep clear of all such deals, but it was not, for all through my life I have been making mistakes and blunders, and endin(^' by some one else getting tJie plunder and I the blame and disgrace. I now come to to the season following the one in which I made the blunder of my life, by which our firm was greatly enriched (of course against their will, for they certainly krtew nothing about it—they were perfectly innocent.) The over-run probably agreeably surprised theni) but the surprise was not so alarming as to unnerve or disturb thtir con- science into making a rebate M the Lapd Company— nothing was further from their thoughts; they had not done the stealing; Taylor and 1 had attended to that part of it, but all the same if there had been a small shortage instead of a very large over-run when the logs were sawed, then the matter would have- been different, and the rapidity with which they would have discovered this shortage would have been surprising. Some men have very elastic ideas on such matters; so far as our firm was con- cerned it made no difference how it was got, so long as they could hold the property without putting themselves within the grasp of the law, and the fellows that did the stealing for them can go to Halifax, so far as they care. The lumber market was in a depressed condition. Our firm reduced its operations about one half, and made a cut in all the men's wages in- cluding Taylor's and my own. Taylor took it to heart badly and he vowed vengence. Our operations that next season was on a branch of of the Burnt River which never before hnd been navigated, or either timber or logs driven out of it, and it was Taylor's duty to put on dams, slides, piers, booms and other improvements necessary to make the stream navigatable for timber and logs. Taylor only made a pretence of doing so, knowing full well all the time that with such flimsy structures as he was having built would never get the drive out that season, but probably after a costly and futile attempt it would be "hung up," and Taylor would then be avenged on the firm for reducing his salary. When spring came Taylor resigned and went to Manitoba, and William Martin was put in charge of the drive. The fir . spent ms.ny thousands of dollars trying to take out the drive, but only succeeded in mowing it about ten milw, when it was " hung up" in the stream high and dry. I kiey^^ all the time what the results would be, for Taylor told me all about what he was doing, but I dare not say anything before he left ; if I ii r 50 UP TO DATE ; OR, THE LIFE OF A LUMBERMAN did I would have given him away, and I never had the slightest intention of doing anything of the kind, for I, too, was sore about my wages being cut, especially after the big steal I had made ior the firm the season before, and of course after Taylor had gone I, even then, dare not say anything to the firm about the matter; had I done so 1 would have been discharged, so I did what I was paid for doing — attending to the books — and I kept my secret to myselt. I was more sorry for Martin than I was for the firm, for he was discharged over the head of it, and I was re- warded (like all who keep their mouths closed) for 1 was promoted to bush superintendant. I will not have occasion to again mention Martin in this book, so will end with him by telling a little incident that occurred on that drive. One day Martin wanted a trail or path blazed and cut from the river to the Monk Road, which was a Government colonization road, and runs for many miles parallel with the Burnt River, which runs about due east and west. At some places the road is close to the river, in others it is three miles or so distant. We used the road to waggon our cookeries and camping equipments, and frequently camped on the side of the road when working on that drive. At one of our encampments our tents were pitched on the side ot the road ch, at that particular point was fully three miles dis- tant from the river, and it was through this three miles of bush that Martin wanted the trail cut. The bush was what lumbermen call a "dirty bush " to walk through— swampy and knee-deep with water in many places in the spring of the year. Walking through this three miles of bush with- out a trail caused a lot of dissatisfaction among the crew, for occassionally some of the men would get lost and would then put in a disagreeable night in the bush, so one day, after the crew had taken lunch on the river bank, Martin tailed off an Irishman by the name of Mike Connelly, to take an axe and cut out a trail to our tents, which as 1 have said, we pitched on the edge of the Monck Road, three miles distant from where we were then eating our lunch. Martin instructed Mike to go due north and he would strike the road about where the camp was. He also went on to tell Mike to be sure and keep the sun at his back, and he would make the run all right. Connelly stalked out and cut and blazed away for all he was worth, obeying orders by keeping the sun at his back all the time, until finally the sun went down and darkness came on, and Mike had seen no **monkey" road as he called it ; neither had he the slightest notion when he would see It, for he had not the remotest idea where he was, so he sat down on a fallen tree, lit his pipe, scratched his head and commenced to think over the situation. He had not arrived at any satisfactory conclusion, when he heard a pack of wolves which began to howl, apparently right close to him, Mike made the quickest time on record "up to date," in climbing up a tree. Martin kept the crew that night until after dark before he gave the signal to quit work on the river, and the crew struck out on Connelly's UP TO DATE; OR, THE LIFE OF A LUMBERMAN 51 well-cut trail ; first they walked then trotted and at last run, and after about a two hours chase the leader came to a swamp when they found Connelly up the tree where he was repeating the " Hail Mary," and cros- sing himseU with greater devotion and feverency than he ever done before. He was wishing between prayers and couting beads, that St. Patrick, after driving the snakes out of Ireland, had come over and driven all the wolves out of America. The arrival of the crew did not in any way tend to allay Mike's fears, for the leaders announced that if he dare come down out of that tree they would hang him anyhow, as soon as Martin came up, so that they could hang the two together. The crew spent the night in the woods, and of course without any supper, "Up to date" Martin gets mad if any one mentions anything about keeping the sun at one's back. As I have before stated I was promoted to be bush superintendent, My old friend Barnhart's prophesy had come true, and at the end of my first six years in Canada I found myself in a good position, and drawing a good salary, and the firm I was with was then one of the largest doing business in Canada. That first season that I was bush superintendent our firm had close on 500 men in the bush. I may say that a bush superintendent is the hardest worked man in the lumber business, and a lumber concern looks to the bush superintend- ent to make a success of the business, for if a mess is made of the bush part of the lumber business, then the whole thing is sure to be a dismal failure. To be a good judge of human nature counts a lot in the make-up of a successful lumberman, no matter if he is proprietor, superintendent or foreman. As I have stated a lumber concern's business operations are often very difficult of access, so trusty employees must be secured to transact a very important and costly part of the business, and to do it at the proper time in order to secure the best results. Circumstances often makes it difficult to give advice or instruction from the head office, so the bush super- intendent is left to his own judgment in many very weighty matters. The men from the foreman down, look to the superintendent for everything as to the wages they will receive, and cash advance to send home to their families ; and the foreman of each camps looks to him to have all the provisions and supplies sent to his shanty as they are needed as well as fill up any vacencies that occur by men leaving through sick- ness or other causes; but as a usual thing very few shantymenare troubled with any kind of illness. In the first place Ihey have no time to get sick — they are kept too busy at good, healthy, out-door work, and the aroma of the pine which prevades in the bush where timber and logs are being made, is very healthy and mvigorating ; that along with the noufishing food, will soon strengthen a feeble constitution, and I know of no place where better results could be obtained by those with a delicate system than a couple of months in the pine bush. The months of September and October I I I J I i I I !! il • V, IS; I il * Sa UP TO DATE ; OR, THE LIFE OF A LUMBERMAN are the most delightful months in the bush, and 1 know of no place on earth where I would sooner spend those two months than in the pine forest. Spoit3 of all kinds can be had, and game easily obtained. Partridges are so plentiful and so tame that if md amateur sportsmen does not know how to handle a gun the bird will sit on a limb of a tree and allow him to be knocked off with a stick ; venison can be got almost as easily, for I once actually saw a hewer cut the head off a deer with his broad axe, which he could not drive out of his way when hewing the stick of timber. The lakes and streams abound in speckled trout, and one has only to display a small piece of red rag when the fish pump into your canoe to try to seize it. This last sport is a little dangerous to anyone not a good swimmer, because occasionally the whole shoal of trout may take a notion to spring at the red rag, and either with the result that it is apt to be upset or sink with the weight. The bush superintendent has to be a medical man as well, for he has to doctor either men or horses when they get ill or meet with an accident, and I have no doubt my experimenting in the medical line helped many a man to a peaceful if untimely death. The poor fellows had to take chances — I always did the best 1 knew how under thecircumstantances, and the Lord did the rest, and if the result was fatal I always seen that they got a decent buriel. Medicine is a perplexing study, for I found drugs and- medicine that would cure one fellow, perhaps kill the next stone dead. Surgery is a much easier part, and it the fellow was not smashed up too badly I could usually fix up what was left of him in a very fair way. The first year or so I was superintendent the men used to call me the " kid" Walking Boss — " Walking Boss " being the title given to the superintinendent by the men. Generally the superintendent is a middle- aged, and sometimes an old man, and very few are met under forty years of age. I had a very boyish appearance, and occasionally one of the old timers or others among the men, would impose on me, probably thinking I was too much of a " kid " to resent it ; then I would bring those kind of fellows up with a short but full stop, usually much more to my own than their satisfaction, and they would go away wondering how I did it. In those days 1 weighed about a hundred and eighty pounds, and my muscles were as tough and hard as whipcords. I knew how to use them, and a revolver was a toy most of the men knew I could handle with sure and lightning swiftness, and at times I was careless where I shot or who I shot at. My swell chief clerk was frequently taken as the superintendent by strangers. He was a French-Canadian and had a distinguished appear- ance, his aldermanic proportions and bushy mutton-chop whiskers, along with his tasty attire, gave "Jim" the appearance of a banker or broker. No stranger would take me for the superintendent, especially if "Jim'» happened to be in sight. One day I walked out of the bush when along drove a stranger of > TJ '^ 5< ."^ > ^^ na -^ —4 R ■V r. - o 5 ■*'* Cfl -V — •^ ."* X » s'J 7) '^ :*; V) -»- .•N ,*- 2 'v) '•^ n ._^ ,*• T3 !/l H > i« ft- r V Ilii I ! vr UP TO DATE ; OR, THE LIFE OF A LUMBERMAN 53 very imposing appearance. He drove up to me ; I was standing in front of the stable, wondering who the swell could be, for it was rarely any stranger drove in with such a fine turnout. We were miles away in the bush and far from any settlement, and the road had been made for our own use and ended at our depot, so I knew the stranger, who ever he was, had come to see me, otherwise he would have no business there. He pulled up his pair of horses, got out of the buckboard, handed the reins to me and requested me to put the horses in the stable and to take good care of them, for he .,^id he was going to stay over night with Mr. Thompson. Ac he turned to walk away he handed me a quarter of a dollar, at the same time enquiring if th.it was Mr. Thompson in the oflice door, pointing to where the clerk was standing watching us. I nodded, and he walked away, and 1 soon bad the horses unhitched and put in the stable. The stranger stepped up to the clerk with a " How-do-you-do, Mr. Thompson,' at the same time giving him a hearty shake of the hand. The clerk took in the situatron and laughingly told the stranger he had made a mistake and said that it was Mr. Thompson who was patting away the horses. "What," gasped the stranger, "that boy Mr. Thompson ? Why I mistook him for the stable boy and I actually gave him a quarter," The stranger turned out to be Mr. Thomas Walters, then and now local superintendent of public works for the Ontario Government. Mr. Walters and I have had many a laugh since, over that little incident. I kept his quarter and the m^xt time I met him outside I stood treat and spent many another airing with him since, for he is a fine, geni^ fellow, and very popular, being since elected Mayor of the town of Lindsay thr^e times in succession. He also contested the Riding of South Vic- toria twice for the Dominion Parliament, although unsuccessful on both occasions. I thus lost the only two Reform votes I ever polled. Our firm, the first season I was superintendent, decided not to take out any saw-logs, but instead to get out a large raft of waney and sq^ate timber for the ]Jritish Market. , ^ I may say that saw-logs are sawed up into deals, planks and boards. The terwi "saw-log," means any log from 12 to i^ feet in leng*'., any round log over 18 feet in length goes by the term of "dimension timber," the greater portion of sawlogs are cut 12, 13 and 16 feet in length. The UJOat desirable length is 16 feet, but crooks and other causes in a tree will not allow of all being cut that length. Six inches is also give 1 over these lengths mentioned, to allow for bruises which the ends of logs re- fjeive in running rapids, where the ends often get "broomed" up, and unless a few inches more than the length required is given short lumbe- would be the result when the boards were butted square in the mills The tarm " deal " means a uoard three inches thick ; " plank " a board two inches thick, and anything under two inches goes by the name of " lumber," ' "'•^ ^ I i 54 til* to DAtE; OR, THE LIFE OF' A LUMUERMAN [i II i i 3 I n The deals are forwai-ded from the saw mills by raft, barge or rail, to Montreal or i^>uebec, from where they usually go to Great Britain, where the deals are resawed with an extremely fine saw into any thickness re- quired by the trade. A great quantity of plank and thin boards go to the United States, and our own country also consumes a large quantity of lumber, while a lot more is shipped from Montreal and Quebec to South Americim ports, Australia and in fact all over the world- whereever a market can be found for it The men who work at the sawlogs in the bush dc not get nearly a;> well paid as the men wlio work at waney and square timber. Sawlog cutters wages usually average about twenty-four don-»rs per moRth, timber makcirs about ihuty, teamsters twenty-four, ci>oks forty, and road cutters and others about twenty, and foreman fifty. 1 never liked the sawlog part of the lumber business .is w^ll as the square timber. I could never take the same pleasure oi- pride in a saw- Iv^g t>* -^t I could in a piece of square timber, no matter how large and 'beautjful the pine tree may have been. Once it is felleu and cut into saw- log !«ngthp its i dividuality is lost among the common herd of logs that then surround it. Like Sampson of olc, us bcautv and strength is gone forever. With a stick of square tunber it is dilVerenl ; no matter where the stick is or what its surroundings are, it is like beautiful women, Ihe the more charms they posse s the more they are admired. The men who make sijuare timber have to be skilled workmen, and it often takes years ui patience to make a good limber-maker. Timber is composed of two classes, the best is called "waney" ov " board timber;" as the name " wanvy' implies, the stick is left with a wane on the four corners. Only the best tiee and best section of a tree will make a waney or board stick, for the piece, on its arrival in Great Britain, is sawed up into boards of any thickness desired, and the long, wide, clear, beautiful boards cut out of it alv.iys command a fancy price. The square piece of timber is made from the coarier oi rougher and smaller trees; small knots do not injure its value, but the same, clear ot knots, would cull a board or wa'-ey stick. The four idges ot corners of a square stick are hewn to a shirp or proud edge. The choicest of the square pieces are sawn up for making deck plank for ships; the coarser ones are used in buiLVmgs, bridges, railroad purposes and in docks and piers. Nearly all of the waney and square timber goes to Great Britain, and is usually shipped from Montreal or Quebec. The lumbermen usually take it to those ports in rafts from points where it can be floated down to advantage, but when shipped from Lake Superior or Lake Huron it is usually taken by vessels which discharge their cargo at Kingston, where it is the.n rafted and run down the rapids to Montreal or Quebec. In flie early years of lumbering, when scjuare timber was the principal out-put of the Canadian forest, immense quantities of timber passed down the St. UP TO DATE; ; OR, THK LlflL Ot A LltMUERBlAK s$ I.awrence, but of late years it has fallen off enormously, for since the advent of railways, sawn lumber can be shipped so easily and cheaply, it has (lone away with the square timber part of the business to a great extent. Selecting trees and making them into square or waney timber m the bush was always a great waste, because in hewing and 8(|uaring up the pieces about one fourth of the tree would be cut off in chips in the pro- cess of making it square; moreover, only about one pine tree out of one hundred would make either a stick of waney or square timber large enough to make an average sized raft, many miles of territory would have to be gone over. Then the problem came in : What to do with all the trees* that remained standing that were unfit, through crooks, knots and other defects, to make a stick of timber ? Common sense of course said — cut them down — cut all th it was good in them into sawlogs, take them to a mill and have them saws into lumber. Selecting all the best trees for waney or square tunber is somethmg similar to taking cre;im off bf milk. The class of lumber obtamed from such a class of logs, after beii/g culled for square timber, was much inferior to a virgin cut, and/thc lumbermen in consequence could not realize a good price for his lumber, and as sawmills cost a lot of money to build, and also require^ a lot of logs in a yea.r, quite a few lumbermen thought they may as well take out all their pine and make it all into lumber. In the early diivr of lumber- ing, and even when I first v/cnt into the business, there was a good demand for masts and spars for ships, but iron masts have long since supplanted or taken the place of wooden masts. It would take a " monarch of the forest " to make a good mast. The largest, longest, straightest, and finest tree, and to see one of those mag- nificent trees felled always made me sad, although after it is worked into a stick I used to take as much delight in the process as 1 often had in assisting a lovely and beautiful woman to drci^s. In every raft, (and I have taken many to Quebec) there always is some '• king " or "queen" pi^ce, which, when standing in the forest, towered away above all other trees, and could be seen for miles. Often, perhaps, 1 sat and smoked my pipe, and sometimes slept all night, under its protecting boughs. I always loved to hear the sound of the wind in the pines— to my mind it is delightful music. I never sleep better than when the singing of my beloved pine trees lull me to sleep, and I would never think of leaving Quebec without first going up to the cove where I had left my raft and take one last look at the monarch piece or stick of the raft, and my giief and regret in having to leave it would only be equalled to the feeling I would have a little later when kissing and say- ing adieu to many of the gay and charming and lo"ely madamosellcs and madames for which the port of Quebec is so justly i.elebrated all the world over. So I usually left Quebec with a heavy and sad heart and with a i n — i" !, I f^l I ! I!'. 56 UP TO DATE; OR, THE LIFE OF A LUMBERMAN light purse. The first season that I was bush superintendent my duties kept me hustling. 1 had eight or ten shanties, which were located in the township of Cardiff, Harcouit and Dudly ; part of the pine was on the waters tributary to York branch of the Madawaska River (a tributary of the Ottawa) but we hauled it over to the Burnt River — a tributary of the Trent. I had our shanties built and conducted on somewhat different princi- ples to the old style. I introduced stoves to do the cooking on, and it was in one of my shanties that the first stove manufactured by Mr. Adam Hall, of Peterborough, who makes the now celebrated shanty cook stoves was 6rst tried. I gave him a few suggestions how to build the first one, and it proved a great success, and soon got other orders for them. I found our cooks could do much better and cheaper than cooking on the old cam- boose. I also insisted on giving our men a more varied food, and the firm made a great kick when I introduced dried apples, syrup, rice raisins, beef, onions and a few other necessaries, which were then called luxuries, and the firm told me I had better give my men quail on toast as well, but I carried my point all the same, and the result soon showed that we could feed our men much cheaper, and the men were more con- tented and better satisfied. I also had our shanties built in two compartments — one solely for the men to sleep in, the other for cooking. I had tables put m where the men could sit and e^t comfortably, the same as other people, and soon our shanties were noted for their comfort and good food. As a result of all this it was an easy matter to e.;gage men to work in them, which was a great beneht to the firm, for it gave us the pick of the best men, and we had no trouble with our men jumping or leaving, in fact it was the other way about. In other respects I had the men used as men should be treated, and seen that they got their rights and allowed no bully of a fore- man to abuse them. In return I got better work, for I always found if a man worked willingly and respected his foreman he would do better than by being bullied or driven through fear. My rules were strict but fair, and I said th'it they were carried out by all. As long as a man did a fair day's work, I always seen that he got a good day's pay, but a schemer or loafer 1 had no use for, and he soon knew it. It a bully or a fighter did not behave himself not only towards myself but to his comrades, I soon called him down. Otir firm mei with sc many losses in consequence of the drives being hung up, to wbici { have already referred, that it was said they were heavily involved. U ^vas an anxious time, and the cause of a lot of worry among the heads o» the firm, so much so > " • '^ its members became demented over it and v;as forced tr i »!/i > rHp vo '.rope and go into re- tirement for a year or so. It was an anxi' sri tint irr ar. friends, ^ at kind treatment pulled him through. The m? .^ ic , os »he concern were ^miA C/: 7i W \i. 'i *»:•*» ■^^V,-'^- >-iH'- <■•■■ ■ ■ ■■■ '■ ■•■■ '•■•li. k I I UP TO DATE ; OR, THE LIFE OF A LUMBERMAN 57 ' much concerned about the result of the large raft of timber I was takinsf out, and hoped it would act as a kind of a " redeemer," and so pull them out of their financial difficulties. Being my first year as superintendent the situation was a ticklish one for me, and I knew my reputation was made or ruined, according as I handled that winter's operations. But fortune smiled upon me; my success was phenomenonal, and my first season's work in handling the operation in the bush and on the river gave the firm the best satisfaction. So well pleased were they that they made a present of $ioo to each of my foremen, when we got the drive down the Burnt l^iver as far as Kinmount. That spring the railroad had just reached Kinmount, so we railroaded the timber from that point to Port Hope, where we rafted it up into what is called " drams." The illustration elsewhere will give the readers a fair idea of the way timber is rafted into drams or rafts. A square timber raft, to weather the storms it may encounter on Lake Ontario, iias to be very strongly put together, and the process of makmg them up is both slow and costly. A frame three hundred feet long and fifty feet wide is first made out of the longest pieces of square timber, which are fastened together end to end by a top piece six feet long and ten inches thick. Holes are bored through the top piece and the ends of the stick of timber with a large augur, then a picket made of hard wood is driven through the holes made in the two pieces. The longest timber in the raft is tben selected and placed on lengthwise in the frame, care being taken to interlace the sticks with alternate long and shorter pieces so as to break the joints as much as possible. Then a traverse or round stick titty feet long and at least ten inches in diameter at the top end, is placed crosswise at intervals of ten feet on the top of the sticks in the frame. Each stick is then securely bound by a twisted birch withe to the traverse, as shown in illustration. The process of doing this is very slow, and takes a large number of withes. Then the ten foot space left by the traverses is filled with the timber, put crosswise the width of the dram, care also being taken as to the joint and interlace the pieces same as the bottom. Then the top tier is pulled on, and placed lengthwise on the dram, and the largest and finest pieces are always put on the top tier, so as to make a good appearance of the timber, great care being taken not to allow any defects in a stick being exposed, that being one of the raftsmen tricks of trade. The sticks are pulled up into the cross and top tier, by means of a donkey engine and steel rope. The donkey engine is placed in the cabin on a crib float, the same as one shown in the engraving, so that it can be towed around or moved easily. The three tiers of timber make up the dram ; which draws about four feet of water. Usually about five hundred sticks of timber are put in a dram. A raftsman takes great pride in constructing a dram, and it is a much more difficult feat than one not familiar with rafting would expect. The build and shape ^ fci3>'3»biian«K»N 58 UP TO DATE ; OR THE LIFE OF A LUMBERMAN of the dram has much to do with its ability to weather a storm, and in being able to handle it when running the big rapids in the St. Lawrence River, for if poorly constructed it will be liable to go to pieces in the rapids, and the crew would then probably either be killed or drowned, or both if an Irishism may be allowed. A well constructed dram can also be much more easily handled and steered safely through the rapids, so that it takes experienced men to build a dram of timber, just the same as it does to build a ship. Each piece of timber is measured and numbered as it is placed in the dram, in consecutive order, and an account kept in a book of the number and size and contents in feet of each pie€e. The engraving shown elsewhere will give the reader a fair idea of how rafting is done. It was taken when the last timber was rafted in Toronto harbour, or probably ever will be again, for most of the timber which comes to Lake Ontario is now rafted either at Belleville, Collins' Bay or Garden Island, and the rafting of late years has been done by contract either by the Hiram Calven Comany, of Garden Island, or the Collins' Bay Rafting and Forwarding Company. The former is the pioneer rafting and forwarding company, and has been established for very many years. Ten drams makes a large raft, and a raft of that size, of good average quality timber, would be worth a big pile of money on its arrival at Quebec, at the market price of waney or board timber, to-day (fifty cents per cubic foot.) Say the timber averaged seventy cubic feet per stick, which is not a large average, the raft would be worth one hundred and seventy thousand dollars, or thirty-five dollars a stick, and many a poor settler had many years age in the process of cleaning his land worried and worked himself to death trying to burn hundreds of pine trees that to-day would be worth this figure, for the pine on the frontier townships was much sounder and better than the back country pine. Whatever number of drams a strong tug could handle — usually about six to ten — would be fastened together by means of heavy cable chains, and the trip down the lake commenced. A crew of four men to a dram is all that is needed to go down the lake with the raft, and they seldom have anything to do until the rapids is reached; Once, however, one of our rafts made lots of work for the boys, for it got caught in a storm when fully ten miles out in the lake, and almost in sight of the St. Lawrence River. The foreman of the raft— big Paddy Maher — tells all about the wreck, and to hear him relate it is worth a five dollar bill. The storm came up suddenly in the night, and before they realized what had happened the timber was gomg from under their feet, and there was only one boat on the raft, and it would only carry a quarter of their number, even in calm water. The assistant foreman was also an Irishman by the name of John Montgomery, who was as stiff an Orangeman as Paddy was a devout Catholic, and they say Paddy started to pray while Jack began to swear. f- UP TO DATE ; OR, THE LIFE OF A LUMBERMAN 59 The night was so dark the Captain of the tug could not see b^ck to the raft, neither dare he run his tug back among the wildly tossed timber. All the Captain knew was that the raft was breaking up, and instead of throw- ing off his tow line held right on the windward side, and would soon have put the raft on shore; so the Captain endeavored to hold it off. To un- couple the stern dram was what Montgomery wanted to do, and let her drift ashore, and take chances when she struck of getting oft ; to ramain much longer meant sure death one way or the other, either by beinf crushed to death or drowned. Some of the crew were frantic, and nearly all badly scared, so that Jack could get none of them to help him, and the tug holding on made it worse, for the steel tow line of the tug was made fast on the main cable chain that ran down the center of the raft from stern to stem, so that made it impossible to uncouple it when the strain of the tug was on. Also, to get back to the stern dram was a diffi- cult matter, the cabin the men were in being'on the bow of the anchor or bow dram, but by dint of hard work Montgomery finally got the crew all back, but he had an awful experience in doine so, and when he got them safely there the thing was to cut the chain, which he succeeded in doing with an axe, after hours of toil, the tossing sticks of timber making it dangerous work. The wind drove the dram with the crew ashore just about daylight, but it was on a sand beach, and the men got safely ashore, losing nothing but their clothes. Without a doubt the whole crew would have met their death but for the cool courage and brave determi- nation of Montgomery, for when daylight came the Captain of the tug looked back and not a stick of timber was in sight. For hours he had been only dragging the thousands of feet of cable chains that had bound the raft together. The large lake tug takes the raft as far as Prescott, and the trip down the river is a most enjoyable one, especially through the Thousand Islands. Our raft was usually crowded with the campers. The ladies in these parties were always jolly, and their charming ways soon captivated us all, for these would be the only opportunities ever afforded raftsmen of ming- ling on terms of equality with the " upper tens ; " and the the way the dear charmers would down the pork and beans, along with the " Sunday school " yams I occasionally regaled them with, was pleasing to behold. After s jending a few hours on the raft they usually declared that they never ' njoyed themselves so well before, after which I generally gave them the raftsmen's rules, which provided that every lady that came aboard was to be kissed by all hands. I however let them off after scaring them for a little while by offering as a compromise that my clerk and I would do the kissing. We generally got a few hugs in on the most lovely ones, after we had frightened those away we did not wish to kiss, for we made a pretense of tryjng to catch them first ; of course they would run and then the coast was clear and the remaining blushing beauties were easily i ^' ■U ■ I I; i llJ . in If •i i I Ho UP TO DATE ; OR, THE LIFE OF A LUMB?:RMAN n captured, and often appeared to enjoy the fun as mucli as we did. Ai Lachine we also often had parlies board us to make the run over the rapids, and once I was s6 honored by no less a person than Her Royal Highness the Princess Louise, and the dram we were on got a comer knocked off and came within an ac» of beinjj wrecked. The princess was the coolest and bravest of the party, i did not mention anything about raftmen's rules to her, but I would have been pleased to do so and almost nervedmyself up to the point of telling Jier, and I have been sorry ever since that I did not, for a man rarely gets such a chance as that in a life time. Strong little river tugs takes the raft at Prescott, and tows it down the Galop Rapids to Douglas' Bay. Captain Murphy, of Morrisburg, Was the first pilot to handle rafts in that way though the Galop Rapids. Captain Murphy got two or three tugs specially built for handling rafts between Prescott and Montreal, and no one knows titet stretch of river better than he ; to see him in the pilot-house handling that boat makes- an ordinary man like myself feel insignificant. All the raft pilots and crews between Prescott to Montreal almost worship him, and the Indians at Lachine Rapids obey his word or signal with as much alacrity as they do that of their chief, who always accompany them, usually handling the wheel in turn and following up the raft as it passes through the rapids In case a dram should get smashed and wrecked the tug would be on hand below the rapids to render any assistance necessary. When the raft reaches the head of the Long Sault rapids, at Douglas' Bay then the river pilots and crews come aboard, and many come on as far as Prescott, for it takesthe pilot and thirty men to handle each dram as it runs the twenty miles Sault Rapids, and it keeps them busy at that steering the cimber with them lorjg pars or sweeps. Th e dram, as it rushes along, often at t wenty miles an hour clip down the foaming rapids, gives one a peculiar and thrilling sensation. My first trip was mixed with awe, amazement, admiration, fear, my hair fairly standing straight on end part of the time. To hear the whithes cracking, and the timber grinding and feel the motion under one's feet as the huge sticks are twisted and bobbed up and down, is so thrilling and bewildering that I had no time to think, much loss to do anything. Whoever the man was that first ran those rapids on a raft he must either have been foolhardy or brave, or both. At the foot of the rapids at Smart's Bay, near Cornwall, the drams are again banded togeth^*, the tugs assisting in the process. While this is being done I was kept L:.sy paying off the pilots and their crews. The charge for the run, which t-^ok less than half a day, was $5 for the pilots and $2 for each of the crew, and it had to be spot cash or your raft was " tied up," and you were allowed to go no further. In addition to the pay the men had to have one raealf and as the provision raft is generally a day or two in advance, men's ap- petite is usually keen. So the reader can form an idea of the " pic-nic " ! » o SB 5* w 2 o 2 2! a ^ 55 ?5 t« C/l *< & > ^ e^ 15 * r»" y W ^ > S CO s; 5' ^ 2 ^ !^ ^ .N. JO > r O H O a: > 7) > H X a 90 w H IS % II: f ■" ^%. IMAGE EVALUATION TEST TARGET (MT-3) 1.0 I.I 1.25 2.8 1^ M 2.2 2.0 1.8 U IIIIII.6 ^ ^. Vi 9'Wa J^ '/ Photographic Sciences Corporation 23 WEST MAIN STREET WEBSTER, N.Y. 14S80 (716) 872-4503 ■%S .\^ ;\ \ ». ^ >*'^- '^ '_. ■ 3 '* ^ •_ •M» It ,v ■ ; - ri" '» V ':.ii >** '.- • --^i f^' >K ■■*'.• "f."'" .'*. '. . -';■* ' •• ■ v'r , ■ .^ \ '» ' •- >• •i:^' : " ^.' - i "• w> t ' ' ' •,3 *i" ^'T ^ *^^ » '»»\ • * ■-. /< ?■;■.•» *« . • 1 * ? tP TO DATE; OR, THE LIFE Off A LUMBERMAN 6x V.., we had to feed those men. The cook woiild usualty be frantic, for they would ail make a scramble together, and of course he could not tell how often he served them, for as long as there was any food left on the raft they would ne\fer leave off. Latterly I purchased enough provisions at Prescott for the pilots and their crews who came on for the Long Sault. I piled It on the middle of a dram ;ind let them help themselves, ana fight it out. Each pilots would collect the pay for himself and crew, and if pos- sible try and beat us out of a few dollars by running the dram with a man or two less than contract called for. The Long Sault rapids pilots and crews were mostly of German descent ; the balance were composed of Irish, Scotch, English, Yankee and Indians. They are a jolly lot, but are fond of whiskey and when drunk they occasionally raise "Halifax" on thte raft. A couple of hours after running the Sault we would be all band- ed up and the tug towing us on to Howard's or Coteau Landing, where R, THE LIFE OF A LUMniCRMABf 67 CHAPTER VI. TROUBLE WITH THE MEN. For several years after our firm got control of the Land Company's territory I had a large number of men in the busli stripping the lands tribituary to the Trent River of what pine the other lumbermen, who had previously cut over it, had kft behind, along with a few pieces of virgm tracts. Some seasons I had as many as fifteen shanties in operation, and I had to perform an enormous amount of work, but I was fortunate in always getting good crews— generally the best in the country. Only one season did I encounter serious trouble, when I had the first and only big strike that ever occurred in the bush. * . ' > The strike occurred about this way : lathe months of August and September I had engaged and taken up to the bush some of the best timber makers to be had in Canada, having selected them in Quebec, Ottawa, Peterborough and other points. Timber makers' wages were rating high that season, and as I was going to take out an enormous raft on a virgin limit — the only one that was left on the Land Company's territory — I was more than usually cautious in selectmg the crews, which at the titpe were difficult to ^ ick up. So my rate of wages averaged high, for labour is like any other commodity, if only the best is selected a higher rate must be paid. My rate, however, was no higher than those current among the other large concerns. Besides, putting men in the woods as early as we were doing that season was against our get- ting a low rate, for men do not care to go to the bush so early m the sea- son, usually preferring to enjoy themselves a few weeks in the cities, towns and villiges after commg off the drives. In addition to this, work is gener- ally plentiful outside, and good wages are paid for harvesting or working in a saw mill ; and then again the days are long and warm in the bush at that time of the year. However, I got all the men I wanted and every- thing went well untii along in the month of October the head ol the firm wrote up to me to make a twenty per cent, cut in the wages of all my men. He said that he could send up car loads of men at the lower rate. Now such a thing as a cut in the men's wages had never before been heard of in the bush ; neither had a combined strike of the men ever occurred. The view the men took of it was that they were being imposed upon, for they knew that tbey could have obtained the same rate of wages from other firms when they engaged with me, and being away back in the J i ! ^, 68 UP TO DATE ; OR, THE LIFE OF A I.UMUERMAN bush they knew nothing of the drop that had not only occurred in wages, but in timber and lumber ; neither did they care. They claimed a bargain was a bargain ; they had signed papers for the rOh or until the shanties closed in the spring, and they were prepared to carfy out their part of the contract. I wrote back to the fittn and explained how the men felt about it, airtl said if enforced it would cause a lot of trouble, and prove a big loss to the film. I received a reply that the cut must be made, and that it would go into effect on the ist of November. I again wrote in reply and said that I would make no cut, and if the firm still wished to go on with it, for them to send some one up and do it for I would not, for I said I knew that the greater part of our men would "jump" us rather than remain at the reduced wages. Besides, I said it would make it next to impossible to obtain good men another year. A few days later up came " his nibs " with a big force of men, to replace any of those who would not accept the reduction. Nearly two- thirds of th*; timber makers would not, and were settled up with and paid oflf. Of course all work was suspended in the shanties for several days, and threats and vows of vengance made ; many of the men wanted to take "his nibs" out and string him up to a tree ; others proposed to fire the camps, and thete was " Halifax " to pay generally, for a few hundred men such as shanty men are when fairly aroused in a just cause, as they knew theirs was, are a dangerous element to fool with. Fortunately, I had great influence with them and begged them for my sake not to do anything which they would be sorry for afterwards. There was no whiskey to be got nearer than forty miles, and that fact alone saved his nibs' life and those of many of the men he brought up with him. As it was, when nearly all the men from one of the far shanties had been settled with, and had departed, there was nearly being bloods^),ed, for eight or ten big strapping fellows, who had already been settled with, marched back into the office in a body. " His nibs," (the manager) the chief clerk, and I were in the office. His nibs and the clerk were sitting at a table facing each other when the me*? marched in and the leader of them en- quired how they were to get their large trunks down to the lake, which w;as ten miles di^nt. His nibs replied that he did not care a — *— how they got them down. Quick as a flash his nibs got a blow on the neck from one of the men, and then 1 knew we were in for it. His nibs coun- tenance assumed a sickly hue, and he either fainted or did something worse, for he did not speak or attempt to get up from his seat or in any way try even to defend himself. I instantly drew my revolver and fired in among the men, being careful not to hurt any one. This had thft desired effect ; the men tumbled out of the office in short order, and immediately got their trunks, emptied their clothes QUt juvi ^a4e Si bon fire of the trunks right in front of the officei ; j to o l" pi* o a V)' c w (/) > •Jl, H ? > r c o > a c > o H •N if J ,r 1 'tX jp* '^ArJ ^ 1 P| ( UP TO DATE ; OR, THE LIFE OF A LUMBERMAN 69 and with curses and yells, took their departure. During the noise and confusion his nibs and ihe clerk never spoke or moved ; they were too terrified, and if I had their picture as they sat there I would plac: it in this book, and that picture alone would no doubt sell hundreds of copies. It was a lesson to his nibs, for never after did he mention anything 'about reducing the men's wages. The timber that season was the last our firm ever put on the Quebec market, for that raft caused a loss of at least one hundred thousand dollars to the firm, for the men his nibs brought up knew no more about n;akiiig timber than he did himself, but as he hired them to make timber, I let them make it, and they ruined the raft. The men that "cepted the reduced wages and remained on purposely jumped punks and' it rots,&c., in the sticks, and inother ways,spoiled theraft,so that when it arrived in Ouebec no one would buy it, and the firm after keeping it in the cove three years, had to get it all re-made and tlien sell it for a very low price. It sickened our firm, and they gave up the timber part of the business ; anyhow, tney had no more pine left that was fit to make into timbe r. In another season or sj afterwards I finished cutting all the pine left on the English Land Company's nine townships that would pay to take out in sawlogs. What little that was left was away on top of some almost inaccessible .ock, or else a tew rough and rotten trees scattered here and there miles away from any improved stream. Thr Ottawa lumbermen had cleared out all the timber that was on waters tributary to the Ottawa river ; and so all the large pine trees that had so " embarrassed " the Land Company in the early days, had, after nearly a quarter of a century, been cut and removed " don't you know " by " those lumbermen," and the lands are now ready for settlement, and should sell fast, for most of the settlers' hardest work has been done Isy ihe philanthropic lumberman, at enormous expense. Some of the finest and largest Canadian pine that ever i^ent to Quebec or ever was sawed into a deal plank o;- boards, was cut on those same lands, and more than one lumber concern made a mil- lion or more of dollars out of the Englishmen's pine trees, " don't you know," fi i;,i ^ 70 UP TO DATE ; OR, THE UFE OF A LUMUKKMAN CHAPTER VII. s ♦ /v N I M I' O R T A N r V. VENT c: E L K B R A T E t) , It was decided to give a grAtul hall and si»pper in the llaliburton Town Mall in order lo celebrate the lonioval of tlie last ot the pine fioni the Hahbu;ton district. A meeting was called and the ft^llowing gentle- men were appointed a committee of management : Jo'^n Ferguson, M. P., now for South Kenfrc ;, the bush superintendent for J. R. Booth of (^tt.'uva ; Norman Harnhart, bush superintendent for Mossom Uoyd «S: Co., BobcavReon ; Archibald Reddell, bush superintendent for Bronson ft Weston, Ottawa; John KUis, bush superintcndcr-t fpr Cireen >.V KUis, I'enelon Falls ; Joseph (.iould, bush superintendent, UKbriilgc; and myself as secretary and master of cermonies. Supper and music was brought specially from the city, and no expense was spared to make it an event worthy of the occasion. The hall was beautifully decorated with bunting, and the tools used in bush and r-.ver by lumbermen. The best brands of real Havanna cigars and sparkling wmes were there in abund- ance, while many ladies were present from a distance, dressed with equisile taste. . -'-. :v Our firm could not credit me that it was possible that all those pine trees had been cut, so they got Mr. J. B. McWilliams, the Ontario Govern- ment Superintendent of Bush Rangers, to take a number of the best bush experts up and thoroughly look over the lands, but they only ccn- firmed the report. Mr. McWilliams, I may say, is probably the best Judge of pine and cleverest bushman in Canada to-day, and knows more about what is left of Canada's greatest sourse of wealth than any other man alive, for he has personally travelled over all the lumbering districts, and if b*^ could be induced to write a book it would without a dodbt containin for- mation of great value, and such as no other person could give. Our tirm missed a great chance when they did not sell the lands back to the Ontario Government, who were then looking for a locality for a National Park, (a la Yellowstone). Some of our firm brought the matter, sol was V d, before Sir Oliver Mowat, who, report says, would not even promise to take it into his " serious consideration." Sir Oliver knew he wanted a National Park, and our firm thought he wanted a national cemetery, for that would have been where his political grave would have been dug if he had bought those lands. That word " Yellowstone " done it all, for our firm knew that they had almost every other kind of stone on "mmmiimmm OP TO DATK; OR, THE I.IFK OF A ItTMMP.RMAN 7« of their lands excepting " Yellowstone." No doubt they never thou){ht Sir Oliver would be so particular about the color of the ston?, for report says Sir Oliver was always color blind. KIscwhcre is a photograph whirh shows ft Jam cf saw logs at Fenelon Falls I put it in because it will not only give the reader an idea of what a jam of saw logs looks like, but it also shows men at work, myself among the number. This was the last drive of saw logs our firm cut in the Eng- lish Company's lands. The jam not only knocked the corner oflTthc saw mtll, shown on the left side of the photograph, but also knocked down a wooden bridge, or rather two sections of it, that was there used for crossing over to the saw mill shown on the right hand side of the picture. AU of our drive of three or four million feet of logs got jammed in the eddy below the lalls, (only a mall part of the jam is shown in the phoiogr;iph;, the greaittrpart hav- ing been broken and the logs had flo.ue.l down stream before the artist came around. That jam was caused partly through carlessncss and part- ly throuj{h a dense fog that prevailed preventing the men seeing the jam; forming. The body of water shown in the slide close to the mill is where the logs and limber run down. The F'alls at Fenelon are of great beauty, and were named after the Abbe Fenelon, a Jesuit Priest who discovered «t some two hundred years ago. A magnificent lock on the Trent Valley Canal is con.structed on the right of tne large stone grist mill, shown t n photograph. It used to take us three months to get our drives down from the English Land Conjpany's territory to Fenelon Falls, a distance by water of over a hundred miles, and »o j,et from there to Peterborough "•"iuld take us two months longer Of roi?.se in those days we used horses and a capstan, as shown elsewhere, to pull the logs across the mary be.iutiful lakes in the Trent waters, and it was a slow process. The "alligator" tug does much better and quicker work, and will probably make at least a month's difference in the time and with less than half the men at tl.at. I cannot close my reference to Fenelon Falls without saying that quite a number of men have lost theii i'ves at this place in running timber and logs. I saw one of my best and bruveat foremen lose his life there, just where the reader can see men standing on the logs nearest to the F""* The poor fellow (Douglass by name) was thrown off the timber and struck by a passing stick and he sj^nk before any of us could get out into the boiling eddy to save him. Such is the fate of many a brave river man. The large saw mill shown in illustration on the left hand side of the Falls, was purchased two yaars ago by J. W. Howry & Sons, of Saginaw, Mich., who also purchased at the same time about two hundred million feet— almost all virgin pine on the Trent waters; in fact they got the only 72 VP to DATK ; OR, THE LIKE OV A LUMBERMAN virgin pine leU on these waters, so the mill will be historical as having cut the last saw log that grew on the banks of the waters tributary to the Trent. The Howry Co. equipped the mill with all the latest improved machinery, including band saws. The mill property and the limits cost the firm nearly two million dollars. Our firm went out of business as soon as the last pine had been cut off the English Land Company's territory, and I, like that old hero we read about, had to look around for other worlds to conquer. So ended my connection of many years with this firm— and a remarkable concern it was in more ways than one, not the least of v/hich was the number of persons connected with it that were affected with mental troubles at one time or other, and all were persons possessed of good business ability and all principals or heads of the concern. I have already intimated who one of the sufferers was ; the next to go was Superintendent Taylor, who, alter a few years residence in Manitoba, accumulated a considerable for- tune, and worrying over his wealth drove him insane. I got word from the asylum authorities at Winnipeg and Portage la Prairie that Taylor claimed that I was a relation of his, and I was the only relation that they could find. I wrote back that I was not, but that I would gt) up as soon as my business would permit. Before I was able to go I received word that 1 aylor was dead^ only living a short time after his mind gave way. Taylor wanted to leave his wealth to me, so the authorities wrote, although not even a letter passed between us. I told him, however, before he went to Manitoba, part of the history of my life, and it seemed to interest him very much, and when alone together he would often talk to me about it. Stev2 Thompson had also moved out to Manitoba shortly after Taylor went, the two living only a short distance apart. So when they heard Taylor raving aboui me they sent for Steve, but Taylor would have noth- ing to say to him. After Taylor's death I wrote Steve to see about the property Taylor had left and what shape it was in. Steve answered that the woman who had lived with Taylor as housekeeper and her children (tht; children especially) had a better moral claim to the property than 1 had; and advised me to leave them in peacable possession. I took Lis advice; that was the first and last letter I ever received from Steve. '^'- ■ '' " ''^ ' ' ' ' "'' ■' ^ . The next person to be troubled mentally was the wife of one of the principal members of the firm — a most beautiful, highly accomplished and clever lady, a daughter of one of the oldest, richest and best families in Canada, mnd a family whose members are noted for their great business ability, benevolence and kindness to all, and therefore greatly respected by. everyone. The lady, I am greatly pleased to say, recovered and is now her former lovable self, and I sincerly hope will contmue so. The next was the concern's chief bookkeeper. Nothing else could be expected would happen any one who would keep the books for such a con- < H a < a Q W H ►J u a; o o ^ (A tn to U ..-J I i I II { * \ kW If i ¥V. *■' ■^. UP TO DATE ; OR, THE LIFE OF A LUMBERMAN 73 cem as ours was. Only a short time ago I read part of the man':'^cript of this book to him, including the above passage, and he enjoyed a hearty laugh over it ; so now there is not much wrong with him. The next one was the writer, but of that I will tell the reader later on. As to whether I have recovered or not, whoever has read this book so far will be the best judge— that is if reading it has not put the reader crazy. » : \^ .■ CHAPTER VIII. ^ - I GO UP THE OTTAWA RIVER. After my connection ended I made an engagement with one of the latgest monetary mstitutions in Canada, and took charge of a party of thirty to go up and examine, estimate and make a report upon the quantity of pine and its value upon a large tract of territory situated in the Lake Temiscamnique and Lake Kippewa district on the Upper Ottawa river in the Province of Quebec. I had two surveyors in my party — Mr. Cotton, of Ottawa, and Mr. Blackwell, of Peterborough — who accompanied the party to take notes and rnake plans of the territory as the Bush Rangers travelled and estimated Jt. Sixteen of the party were composed of some of the best expert Bush Rangers that could be got, and the balance was made up of Frenchmen and Indians, whom I took along to haul or pack the camping equipment and supplies and do the cooking for the party. We collected together and made our start from Ottawa, where I pur- chased most of our supplies and completed the outfit on our arrival at Mattawa, at Murray & Loughrin's immense store at that point. Mr. John Loughrin, now M. P. P., did all in his power to assist us, and gave me a lot of useful information about the Upper Ottawa and the best route to get up to the territory. Mr. Loughrin also secured us a dozen teams and sleighs to go ijip with as far as Lake Kippawa. That was the first time I had ever met Mr. Loughrin, and to say that he is a hustler feebly expresses what I would like to say of him. When getti'ig ready the morning we were leaving Mattawa to start the sleigh u.irl of our journey, Mr. Loughrin gave me valuable assistance in loading u^ and collecting everyth ng and getting the party started. He appeared to be all over and to be talking English, French and Indian all at one time, for I know he speaks these three lauguages and probably several others. On reaching the head of Lake Kippewa I divided my party, one half taking a northwesterly course on up to Lake Temiscamnique, and m 1 i 74 lip TO DATL ; OR, THE LIFE OF A LUMBERMAN Mr. Blackwell taking his party up the main stream that runs into Lake Kippewa, which is quite a large liver. I made a cache of our supplies at the head of Lake Kippawa, so that oi: ; packing or toboggan men belonging lo the party could come out at any time and haul it in as required and also get any mail arriving for any of the party as well as bringing out the surveyors and men's reports to me, I left an Indian in charge of the cache. The two parties were about seventy miles apart and often were a hundred, and travelling from the cache where I made my headquariers to where the parties would be camped used to take me two days, and the night spent on the way up. The Indian who accompanied me would usually crawl into a snow bank. We e&ch had a blanket of rabbit skins, made in the shape of a bag, in which we would crawl feet foremost and then work ourselves backwards, of course into a snow bank, and then pull the hole we made in after us. The Indian used to claim that he was always nice and warm though the thermometer was often forty below zero. Whether he was or not, I do not know ; I do know that I used to be half frozen with cold, and occasional* ly in the morning when I crawled out if I found only a few toes, fingers or my nose frozen, I would think I had put in a fairly comfortable night. The men were supplied with tents in which a small stove would be used. The stoves I got specially made of sheet iron, vvith hinges on the corners, so that it could be folded up flat and portaged on the toboggans easi.. . The men would shovel out with their snow shoes a space sufficiently large enough for the tent, then strew the space with balsam boughs a foot or so deep, then set up the tent. The banks of snow around the tent kept off the cold winds, and then a little fire in the stove kept the tent quite comfortable as well as afforded means of cooking — at night each rrian in the party took his spell of one hour keeping the stove fired up, then when his hour was up he woke up the next in turn to go on duty and 'so on till through the night, lots being drawn each evening by the whole party to decide which should go on duty first. Once a week, and sometimes twice a week, camp would have to be moved to keep near the bush rangers — moving abonc six miles each time. So when I would visit a party in an interval of a couple of weeks or so, I had to be careful or I would miss them, instructions being left for me at each of their camping places as to how to proceed to the next place. A piece of birch bark at', ached to a stick and stuck up near the camp ground was always left for me ; and written on it were the instructions. So my Indian and myself seldom had any difficulty in finding our way. Timber berths or limits in the province of Quebec are laid out in a different way to what they were in Ontario. In the former the usual way is for the government to sell so many miles commencing or starting from some point on the shore of some lake or bank of a stream — so N iS into Lake >awa, so that come out at ving for any eports tome, were about ng from the Bs would be the way up, snow bank. )f a bag, in backwards, in after us. though the not, I do not i occasional* ;s, fingers or e night. re would be nges on the e toboggans e sufficiently oughs a foot the tent kept le tent quite each man in I, then when nd 'so on till lole party to etimes twice ;h rangers — party in an would miss places as to ti ached to a for me ; and seldom had laid out in a e usual way arting from stream — so UP TO DATE ; OR, THE LIFE OF A LUMBERMAN 75 II' j* ■ many miles up and back of it ; therefore the lakes and streams are the only boundary in many cases. Then after purchasing the lumberman has to stirke any lines he needs to keep him within the limit he has bought ; he is obliged to be very careful, for if he gets outside of his limits either into the Goverment lands or his neighbours, it is a serious matter for hirru and be will probably be made pay a large bill of damages for any trees he may have even only cut down, just the same as if he had taken them away or removed them. Twenty or thirty years ago when pine was cheap, trespassing or stealing pine was one of the tricks of the trade, and often timber sufficient for a whole raft was stolen from the government, and sometimes from off a neighbour's limits ; but those ays have gone by, and since pine has got to be of such enormous value it is far safer and easier to steal a lumber- man's daughter or perhaps his wife than it is even to steal one pine tree from his limits, for the pine trees are watched close and kept better track of than are usually his daughters or wife. And generally it is not a very safe thing foi' a dude with no brains to try to steal one of those wealthy lumber- men's daughters, as quite a few of their papas are more than ordinarily rusty characters, and are not noted for their mildness of speech ; but if the young man has brains papa will often talk to him kindly, even if he has not a cent of cash. A story is told of a certain curate who was paying his attentions to the lovely daughter of a very wealthy lumberman. The old gentleman was possessed of a more than ordinary violent temper, and when in one of his evil moods thought Utile of taking off his hat and jumping on it, and would follow this exhibition of passion by using language not found in Webster's or any other dictionary. Some of the wags of the curate's con- gregation advised the curate to give his prospective father-in-law a few words of advice when a favorable opportunity should occur, which soon after presented 'tself. On the occasion referred to the old gentleman invited the curate to take a drive out into the countiy with him, and after they had travelled a few miles the curate introduced the subject that was bearing so heavily on his mind. The old gentleman was ?o indignant at the curate presuming to charge him with what he claimed he never did in his life, that he almost threw the curate out of the rig, using at the same time language the curate had not studied at Oxford. Crestfallen the poor curate had to trudge back home on foot. All the same the old gentleman admired the curate's pluck, for he no longer objected to the marriage. So the curate marriea the lovely daughter and to-day he is one of the most gifted and talented ministers of his church in Canada. The Ottawa river is the boundary line between the provinces of Que- bec and Ontario, and without exception at one time and has even yet more valuable white pine standing on its ban^s than any other river on the continent of America. \V: 76 UP TO DATE ; OR, THE LIFE OF A LUMBERMAN 11 The term *' Upper Ottawa " meanp the river arid its tributaries above the city of (Ottawa. Immense quanities of pine have already been taken of! its banks. For years past several lumber concerns have taken out not only enormous rafts of square timber, but nearly one hundred million leet of logs annually as well, and there are numbers of other firms who ope. ale on it who annually take out forty to fifty million feet of logs, and concerns can be counted almost by the dozen which take out from five to twenty million feet annually along that river. Of course if this enormous outflow is kept up the land will soon be stripped of the most valuable pine, but I do not think any man living to day will see it. The white and red pine of the Ottawa was always noted for its good quality, and always com- manded a good price. Many men have made themselves millionaries out of the pine forests of ihe Ottawa, a/id probably many more will do so in the future. I will try to give the reader some idea of how Bush Rangers make an estimate of the quantity of p^ne on u given territory or limit. On ar- riving near f hey keep close watch to find the boundary mark of the terri- tory, which may be only a point of land or a rock on the shore of some lake on the mouth of a river or stream, or more frequently, a tree or trees marked or blazed with an axe, which probably has been put there twenty or thirty years previously. Often hundreds of other trees since have been blazed in a similar way near it by lumbermen and others in marking out roads and trails^ so that it is often difficult to strike the right spot, and even the best experts are frequently at fault. A tedious and long search is often made before one is sure that the right boundary has been found. Wood posts have of late years been placed to mark such places and thus make it easier for the Bush Ranger. He is sure then that he has the right place. When the starting point is settled to the Bush Ranger's mind he either puts up his tent there or may move up into the territory before he camps and 'rakes a start in estimating. In the old days,when pine was cheap, the Bush Ranger would ramble around the territory long enough to make it certain that there were enough trees on the territory or close to it to make sufficient square timber, the profit on which would more than repay them for the whole sum asked for the territory several times over. If it would not in their opinion do that they would not pur- chase it, for t|je trees that would only make saw logs were never taken into their calculations at all. It was dead easy to Bush Ranger in those days, especially if it turned out that he had made a wrong calculation, for all he had to do was to increase the territory by cutting any timber that came handy on adjoining territory, and no one would probably be any the wiser. That day has long gone past. Now, when the territory has been reached care is taken to keep account of the course one travels more minutely than even a captain keeps of the course of his vessel, and an ex- pert Bush Ranger can tell you just the spot he is in m the bush wherever 'ies above sen taken in out not lillionfeet o ope. ate concerns twenty s outflow DC, but I red pine ys com- aries out lo^so in rs make On ar- le terri- r)f sdme or trees twenty ve been ng out 3t, and search found, d thus IS the ngeHs rritorv m o n o. in c > D H *^ 11 li l*^ la . Hifrsiimimarasi^'nt, UP TO DATE ; OR, TH« LIFE OF A LUMBFRMATf tJ you may mett him at any time and not be fifty feet out in his calculation ; and it is easily and simply done. He carries a plan or book in which he makes a map or chart of each day's work, carefully tracing in it the course he has taken from the time he gets his starting point in the limit and commences to estimate. Every step he makes he counts, and five hund- red steps carries him over a quarter of a mile of ground, or two thousand steps a mile. T17 it on a measured mile a few times and it will surprise you how close you can come to it ; use only the ordinary step when walk- ing. The compass he holds in his hand all the time tells him the course he is travelling, and by it he can keep '* tab " of any zig-zaging or tacking he does, for it is not often one can walk in a straight line in the bush Ten miles a day is a good day's work in the bush when estimating, but sometimes, if good snow shoeing, a longer distance cr.n be .ravelled. Of course the closer the territory is favelled and examined the better esti- mate can be made, and often every tree is not only counted but an inspec- tion made of it so as to get an idea as to its soundness, by which a general average can be made of the whole lot on the limit, and so expert will some oi the Bush Rangers become that after examining a given territory they can compute within a few thousand feet, board measure, what it will cut out. But to get it down that tine takes up a lot of time and money, as experts draw big pay. Where. the best experts or top sawyer's come in is to take in the value of the pine on the limit and the probable quantity of it in a limited time, and make a snap shot deal or bargain on that basis. The extent of the option given on the sale of a limit is seldom over thirty days, though in an extreme case and an extra big territory, sometimes three months is given to lookoverit, butasa rulethe holder does not care to tie his properity up for so long a time unless he is pretty sure of making a sale to the party who wants to look it over. So it takes years of ex- perience and hard work before one becomes an expert Bush Ranger. In one celebrated case at law over a disputed estimate made on a certain pine limit, the Hon. E. Blake asked Mr. William Irwin (who is one of the best Bush Rangers and probably the most expert one in Canada) if esti- mating pine was not like guessing the number of beans in a bottle. Mr. Irwin answered, "no, to him it was not, but that it probably would be to Mr. Blake." Mr. Blake then requested Mr. Irwin to explain how he did it, or how he got the necessary knowledge and information to be able to tell the quantity of pine on a large territory, and Mr. Irwin answered that question in the usual Irishman's way—and a witty as well as sharp one is Mr. Irwin— for he asked Mr. Blake to just tell him how he got his great ■knowledge of law. So probably Mr. Irwin's reply to Mr. Blake will after all give the reader the best idea of this subject. We did not get through working over the Upper Ottawa limits until It was too late to get down on the ice, so we had to wait until navigatio!^ opened, and then come down in canoes — which we got from the Indians MMHIBif I' t l\ : a .'L- J f% Vl» 1M 1>AT1{ \>Vm VM« \.\fti UK \ LUMURHMAN who ««♦ q\ni* n«m»ttnu «\\ the tmitmy. Th«n<» liuUduti wfir a vfvy hnn»«t lot, t«M ot\fo xvp winilil U*RV* ovt\ |M*iOMi, »^r , ItM «lrtv<« tO|, hiUki Oil »vM\\<^ tvatl \\\\evt. th«»v piinxrii iltuly hut uot rt thyn^ wm wvn («kr«» At\fv ){^vio^ »n o«v tt»j>oit« rt'ui RUttlinn up nAtitliuhMv to nil, th« i\\A«i\j{fv ot th« V>Aok i\\\ whom we w*i« woikinn itittneutfil n\»» with a ihcvjof tor \imt« « hi\tuWome ^um ovn ft