Paul Bunyan

Transcriber’s Note
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JAMES STEVENS
PAUL BUNYAN
WOODCUTS BY ALLAN LEWIS
NEW YORK GARDEN CITY PUBLISHING CO., INC.
COPYRIGHT, 1925, BY ALFRED A. KNOPF, INC.
Note: Four of Mr. Lewis’ woodcuts were originally made for, and are used by courtesy of The Century Magazine.
CL MANUFACTURED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
TO OTHEMAN STEVENS
The Paul Bunyan legend had its origin in the Papineau Rebellion of 1837. This was a revolt of the French-Canadians against their young English queen. In the Two Mountains country, at St. Eustache, many loggers armed with mattocks, axes, and wooden forks which had been steamed and warped into hooks, stormed into battle. Among them was a mighty-muscled, bellicose, bearded giant named Paul Bunyon. This forest warrior, with a mattock in one hand, and a great fork in the other, powerful as Hercules, indomitable as Spartacus, bellowing like a furious Titan, raged among the Queen’s troops like Samson among the Philistines. He came out of the rebellion with great fame among his own kind. His slaughters got the grandeur of legend.
Later this Paul Bunyon operated a logging camp. In that day logging was heroic labor. In the autumn the loggers went to the woods, forcing their way in batteaux up swift rivers. On every trip there were many wearisome portages around rapids. Snow and ice then locked them in their camps for five or six months. The workday was from dawn to dusk. The loggers lived on beans, salt pork and sourdough bread. At night there were songs and tales around the shanty stove. Of course these were mainly about their own life, their own heroes. The camp boss was like the chief of a tribe; his will had to be the law, and he had to have exceptional physical power and courage to enforce it. After his part in the rebellion there was no more famous camp chief in Canada than Paul Bunyon.