Author Chad Lewis spoke to about 40 people at the Owen Public Library on Friday, April 25. The event focusing on Lumberjack Legends and Lore was part of Owen’s Centennial Celebration.
Lewis began by talking a little about himself. He was born and raised in Eau Claire and went to UW-Stout, which was founded by a lumber baron.
He moved on to talking about logging camps and lumbering in the mid 1800s to early 1900s. Logging was done in the winter months, so the loggers, many of who were also farmers, could tend to their farms during the summer months. It also was easier when ice roads could be created to get the logs to the river banks. When the ice melted in the spring, the logs would be floated downriver.
Lewis said most lumber camps were set up for a period of one to two years. They had a bunkhouse and a cook shanty. Thirty to forty men lived in each bunkhouse. The cook shanty was where breakfast and suppers were served to the lumberjacks. Lunch was taken to where they were working. No talking was allowed during meals. The cook was the most important person in the camp because if they were a bad cook, people would move on to another operation with a better one. They worked six days a week. Sundays were the day when they could mend their clothing and sharpen their tools. Usually only the head guys had visits from family. Lumberjacks operated on coffee and tobacco.
A typical camp had African Americans, Native Americans, and lots of immigrants. Most lumberjacks were around 5’3” tall and weighed about 140 pounds. They would have contests to see who could cut the most wood and their prize would be bragging rights. Their pants were cut off at the bottom so they wouldn’t get wet and freeze. They wore caulked boots for traction. Most of their purchases were made from the camp store and deducted from their wages. They carried a “turkey” which is a type of backpack and that is where all their belongings were kept. It could also be used as a pillow.
Oxen were preferred to horses in the camps as they were easier to take care of. Legend says when an oxen died in a lumber camp it became a hodag. The job of being a lumberjack was dangerous. Nuns travelled the camps selling health insurance so a lumberjack wouldn’t have to pay for basic care. If they died in camp and were lucky, they might be buried in a barrel or between two pieces of wood.
Lewis went on to talk about Paul Bunyan. He is first mentioned in oral tales around 1885 at a camp north of Tomahawk. In 1893, Bunyan was mentioned in a Michigan newspaper. He appeared in a Minnesota newspaper in 1904. He didn’t always look like what we think of him looking like today. In 1958 the first restaurant with a Paul Bunyan statue was built. Paul met Babe the Blue Ox during the winter of the blue snow. Babe had been in the snow so long he had turned blue.
The first legend regarding creatures that Lewis told related to Bunyan bringing back bumblebees to kill mosquitoes. Instead of killing them, they fell in love with them. Bunyan also owned Sport, the reversible dog, He thought it was a rat, threw an axe and cut it in half. When he realized it was a dog, he sewed it back up, but sewed the back legs on upside down by mistake. His accountant was Johnny Inkslinger. Some believe that Bunyan is buried at Rib Mountain in Wausau, but the legend lives on.
Lewis then began talking about some mysterious creatures. The Hodag first appeared in 1893. Eugene Shepard took it to carnivals. The hodag only eats white bulldogs on Sunday. Lewis also talked about the hoop snake. It could bite its own tail and would come after you. There was the axehandle hound who ate lumberjack axe handles. The Hugag had no knees and you could hear it stomp through the woods. It leaned against trees at night. The agropetter lived in the top of hollowed out trees and was angry about lumber practices. There was the splinter cat, the size of a mountain lion, that had an anvil for a head and loved to eat honey. The hide behind was so go at hiding that it could hide behind itself. The side hill gouger had one half of its body shorter than the other half, they walked around hills and were protective of their environment. The jackalope is the fastest land animal and can run 100 miles per hour. The goofus bird flies backwards and only cares where it has been. It roosts in its nest upside down. Lewis said that lumberjacks believed in over 100 mythical creatures.
Lumbering is done differently now. Two trees are planted to replace the one that is cut down. Lewis said the memory of the lumberjack lives in the stories we tell, but some stories aren’t told the same way twice.