Robert Mullen: Working through the Winter

Hard work spotlights the character of people: some turn up their sleeves, some turn up their noses, and some don't turn up at all.

Sam Ewing

At the end of the harvest on the farms, the young pioneers like Robert Mullen would head out to the work camps. It was not uncommon for boys as young as 12 years old to become loggers at the end of August. The older folks would stay on the farm and take care of the winter chores. A team of 25 loggers would chop down over 2000 giant pines in one season.

The tall Red and White Pines would be cut down by hand using axes and crosscut saws. Then, after the trees were de-limbed and scribed, Timber Squarers would “square up” the logs using broad axes. The squared “sticks” as they were often referred to, would then be dragged out of the bush by horses or oxen to the river's edge.

From here, the squared timbers were loaded on top of saw log cribs and fastened down to form large rafts. When the snow and ice melted, the small dams and the floodgates that had been built where opened to release the rafts down the river