The River Exploits, on which the Northcliffe Mills are built, runs through one of the finest lumbering sections of the Colony. “Between the Grand Falls and Badger Brook, at many parts on both sides of the main river, pine flourishes luxuriantly, much of which appears to be of excellent quality, being often of fair diameter, straight, and tall. These reaches also display a fine growth of other varieties of timber; and at some parts, especially above the forks of Sandy Hook, white birch often attains a very large size. About Red Indian Lake there is a superb growth of pine and spruce of large size, straight and tall.”
LORD NORTHCLIFFE’S PAPER MILLS AT GRAND FALLS.
In spite of the loneliness of his life, the logger is usually a happy and a healthy man. You may miss the finely-chiselled features, intelligent eyes, and refined speech when you confront these loggers; but you have not spent a day in their camp before you realize that they possess something more wonderful than the above-mentioned qualities: they have a native wit, born of a struggle, year after year, with natural forces. Many of them are able to measure a tree exactly by a rapid glance of the eye from root to tip, and they can so manipulate a falling tree that it shall drop within an inch of the spot on which they desire it. If you entered one of their camps you would probably be disappointed because it looked so small and clumsy in comparison with modern villas; but if you stopped to examine one of their houses, and thought of the thousands of miles separating the logger from what is called advanced civilization, you would be deeply impressed by the skill exhibited in the construction of these wooden dwellings. The trunks of the pine are laid across the corners with discriminating exactness, and between the pines are layers of moss compressed so tightly by the weight of the trunks that neither wind, rain, nor snow can find its unwelcome way to the interior. About twenty men are the tenants of one of the improvised houses, and everyone takes care that the rooms are kept clean and tidy. The long bedroom is divided into sections by curtains, and at the one end of this is a large kitchen, with a big cooking-stove running towards the centre, around which the loggers smoke and tell yarns in the long winter evenings. Yes, the stalwart sons of Newfoundland are brainy enough when the forces of Nature call their brains into play. You can see them returning from the woods with timber, roughly hewn at first; but if you were to inquire for that same timber a few months afterwards you would be shown a beautiful schooner that had already been out and fought a battle with ice and wind, and now lay in the harbour, her sides bulging with fish, their snow-white bellies glimmering in the sunlight.
The ingenuity of the Newfoundlander is seen at its best, probably, when navigation opens in spring and the logs are sent down the river on their mad rush to the mills. Over 50,000 logs, as soon as they feel the impetus of a favouring wind, go tumbling over the rapids and down the broad river. The men skip across the logs as lightly as the deer steps from crag to crag. If the logs become jammed, in a few moments they are set at liberty, and breast forward goes the whole army once more. It is exhilarating labour. One great expanse of forest, field and water, a clear blue sky above, a fresh breeze blowing, the haunting cry of the great northern diver—who in the heart of a smoke-laden city would not sigh for a life such as this? When the logger’s work is finished in the evening he can sit by the side of the river, or take a punt across the lake and throw out his line for a few hours of sport with the salmon, trout, and other fishes.
One of the great charms of Newfoundland is the strong wind, that seldom rests a single day. Just as the sea gets into the blood of the fisherman and continually lures him to the “long dim rollers,” so the wind gets into the blood of the logger and lures him to the music of the forests.
“O wild west wind, thou breath of autumn’s being,
Thou from whose unseen presence the leaves, dead,
Are driven, like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing,
* * * * *
Wild spirit which art moving everywhere.”
What wild music the wind draws from the harp-strings of the pine! The clusters of spruce-trees quiver to their roots. Shrieking before the blast, the gulls skim down to their coverts in the rocks, only to rise again in a few moments, for one can tell that they love the wind as much as they love the sea.