In fact, there's a whole new face to logging here along the bay. We used to just go up in the nearby hills and cut our firewood. Loads and loads of it. Then the powers-that-be required permits. Then the logging companies, as they one by one went out of business, got tighter with what wood they left in the hills. So what's a guy supposed to do, to get firewood to heat his home and cook his elk (harvested out of those same hills)?
Brother Terry, with two wood stoves and a roaring big fireplace, not to mention a freezer full of elk, turned to another source of wood. The winter storms and floods sweep down the canyons along our main rivers, the Wilson and the Trask, carrying downed logs to the bay. A guy handy with a boat could actually "log" the bay! And that's just what he did.
It's really really hard work. And takes some special equipment and know-how. After beating one boat up, Terry had a special steel boat custom built for him, in Washington state. Heavy-sided and extra strong. He single-handedly pioneered the art of logging the bay for firewood and cedar bolts for shakes and shingles.
Now days, there's a lot of competition for those logs, which have become fewer and fewer as the old growth has disappeared and the logging has turned to more wood-stingy techniques. Terry is known for being a tough man on the water. We've watched him more than once, fight a log through a storm into harbor.
This day was following some storms, the water was still rough and the weather pretty iffy.
You can't see him, but with binocs I spotted him coming down the bay, about in the middle of the sun spot.
As you can see from the milk-chocolate water color, there was a lot of water coming down the rivers, with slides contributing mud and logs.
One of the beauties of being out on the bay is the wildlife. Flocks of ducks and other waterfowl keep company, and if you don't mind getting a little wet you can spend a whole day in a boat just enjoying nature. Even with a big log bucking the waves alongside, Terry loves being on the water.Eventually, about 40 minutes later, he was close to the quieter water in the small harbor at Bay City, where he launches from.
He approaches the first log he had secured earlier, a big fir. The dark log lashed to the boat is an old cedar, well over 250 years old.
We frequently say, Terry was born about 100 years late. He would have made a great Mountain Man.
As much work as it is to haul those logs in, there's a lot more labor involved before the wood is warming our backsides.
First of all, the equipment has to be cared for. The boat has to be on the trailer while there's still enough water in the harbor to maneuver. The logging is done approaching high tide, when the logs can be floated off high banks or from backwater sloughs. Then the race is on to get to the harbor, because by then the tide has turned and water is flowing quickly OUT.
A logger, woods or water variety, keeps an arsenal of tools in good shape, ready for work.
Terry usually lets us know when he's got a log on the ramp, because he knows that cutting wood is mom's favorite thing in the whole world. And she's good help, even at 83 years old!
She has been splitting and handling wood all her life. She knows how to read the grain of the wood and just where to put the wedge, how hard to swing the maul.
This old cedar was heavy with water - notice the sheen of water around the wedge, where it's being forced out by pressure from the splitting tools.
The most fun to split is the "she-wood". One whack with the splitting wedge or ax, and the straight grain wood just POPS! apart. In case you are wondering - it's "she-wood" because even a woman can split it with ease. You can bet a man coined that term...
One of the many hazards of bay logging. When those trees come sliding down mountainsides, they often ram into and through mud slides, piles of other logs, etc. They pick up strange passengers. Things that can wreck a saw blade. So one of the many tools Terry has on hand is a sharpener. Today it was needed, because...
a big chunk of rock had plowed inside the log right to the core, and when the saw hit it, bad things happened to the teeth of the chain. Mom cleaned out the rest of the hole, but it was too late for the poor saw. Takes time to sharpen, which after a long day on the water is an aggravation a tired logger doesn't need.
Back on task. There's nothing like the scent of fresh cedar or fir sawdust - fresh, woodsy, homey.
We worked for 3 hours cutting wood and stacking it in the trailer. That was about half the log.
He approaches the first log he had secured earlier, a big fir. The dark log lashed to the boat is an old cedar, well over 250 years old.
We frequently say, Terry was born about 100 years late. He would have made a great Mountain Man.
As much work as it is to haul those logs in, there's a lot more labor involved before the wood is warming our backsides.
First of all, the equipment has to be cared for. The boat has to be on the trailer while there's still enough water in the harbor to maneuver. The logging is done approaching high tide, when the logs can be floated off high banks or from backwater sloughs. Then the race is on to get to the harbor, because by then the tide has turned and water is flowing quickly OUT.
A logger, woods or water variety, keeps an arsenal of tools in good shape, ready for work.
Terry usually lets us know when he's got a log on the ramp, because he knows that cutting wood is mom's favorite thing in the whole world. And she's good help, even at 83 years old!
She has been splitting and handling wood all her life. She knows how to read the grain of the wood and just where to put the wedge, how hard to swing the maul.
This old cedar was heavy with water - notice the sheen of water around the wedge, where it's being forced out by pressure from the splitting tools.
The most fun to split is the "she-wood". One whack with the splitting wedge or ax, and the straight grain wood just POPS! apart. In case you are wondering - it's "she-wood" because even a woman can split it with ease. You can bet a man coined that term...
One of the many hazards of bay logging. When those trees come sliding down mountainsides, they often ram into and through mud slides, piles of other logs, etc. They pick up strange passengers. Things that can wreck a saw blade. So one of the many tools Terry has on hand is a sharpener. Today it was needed, because...
a big chunk of rock had plowed inside the log right to the core, and when the saw hit it, bad things happened to the teeth of the chain. Mom cleaned out the rest of the hole, but it was too late for the poor saw. Takes time to sharpen, which after a long day on the water is an aggravation a tired logger doesn't need.
Back on task. There's nothing like the scent of fresh cedar or fir sawdust - fresh, woodsy, homey.
We worked for 3 hours cutting wood and stacking it in the trailer. That was about half the log.By then it was dark, so we headed home, to enjoy a nice warm crackling fire while we ate dinner!
Wood heat truly "heats you twice..." Or maybe three or four times, when you are logging it out of the woods or bay.
It was nice and pretty interesting to see this whole process from the beginning. Gram just cracks me up with her excitement of cutting wood. :) That wood sure is beautiful but it makes me hurt just looking at all the hard work it takes to get it to the fireplaces!
ReplyDeleteI love how you document the whole bay logging process. I also love the picture with the sun spot! It's pretty neat to have these pictures of Terry on the bay and Mom helping out. Can you believe it, at 83?!!!!
ReplyDeleteThere is so much art in these traditions. He truly is a man out of time, isn't he. How many men have this kind of determination for this kind of back-breaking work? Like your felting, most people don't understand what it means to create something from raw materials, the steps, the labor of love that it is. Amazing.
ReplyDelete