Paul Bunyan and His Loggers

by Otis T. Howd; Cloice R. Howd

This is one of the Eastern stories, but with numerous Western additions, chief of which is the introduction of Noah.

In the pre-historic ages, e’re the Swedes ruled Minnesota,
Fairest spot in all the Westland was the woodland of Dakota.
’Twas a land of timbered ridges long before the axe was known,
And there grew the largest timber on which the sun had ever shown.
Many tales are told about it, how it grew so very high,
That the tops were broke and shattered where they rubbed against the sky.
And no man had ever ventured in that forest deep and dark
Till old Noah got to thinking he would build himself an ark.
So he looked the timber over and decided it would take
Every tree if he would carry every bird and beast and snake;
If he just could get it yarded; there he had a serious doubt,
Till Paul Bunyan finally told him he would get the round stuff out.
So he harnessed up his Blue Ox, took the big logs on the run.
Never even stopped for dinner, worked right through from sun to sun.
Many logs he dogged together, took three hundred turns a day;
Still Old Noah hollered “Faster,” said that snail’s pace didn’t pay.
Then old Bunyan got quite peevish, sent the loggers all to camp;
Started hauling in the sections; he’d put Noah on the tramp.
But he bragged a bit too early, tho each day he hauled eight score,
Noah cleared them off by noontime and sat down and yelled for more.

Paul got madder than a logger, cussed and jumped upon his hat;
Noah was a domned slave driver, contract didn’t call for that.
But old Noah only guyed him, called his ox a lazy slob,
Then to keep Paul Bunyan working put a bonus on the job.
Next Paul hooked upon a township and the ox pulled with a will,
But the cable only parted when it caught upon a hill;
Broke in twenty-seven pieces; the Blue Ox sure had the power;
Then Paul set his splicing record, twenty-six within an hour.
But he never got discouraged, he would still show Noah that
A true logger always finished anything he started at.
So he hooked onto the ridges, pulled them all into the mill;
Then they say of real hard labor Noah finally got his fill.
Thus the task was finally finished, nor was that the only gain:
Naught was left in the Dakotas but a large and level plain
Save in just two places only, where the logging had begun,
And where all the refuse ridges were left drying in the sun.
First is called the Black Hills district, there the ancient land still stands,
And the pile of broken ridges is Dakota’s famed Bad Lands.

The Year of the Great Hot Winter

This is probably a true Western story.

I was punching a half breed roader down on Shoalwater Bay
The year the nights came together, some called it the great dark day.
We hit the deck at sunrise but the sun never rose at all,
So we sat by the light of the lantern waiting the breakfast call.
’Twas an event to call forth stories of wonderful times in the Past,
And I listened to marvelous stories till the Bull Cook’s turn came at last.
“I was just a lad,” he started, “When I worked in Paul Bunyan’s camps,
Darkness was nothing in those days for we had volcanoes for lamps.
“One year we were logging Missouri, before Bunyan came to the coast,
And had just finished building the Ozarks to serve as a snubbing post.
“We were working down an ice chute almost across the state,
When the weather turned suddenly warmer, hotter than Satan’s grate.
“Twas the year of the great hot winter, hottest I ever felt,
And the ice cakes turned right into steam without even stopping to melt.
“Well, that was the end of our logging, but Bunyan must look around,
So he left his ox behind him and came to Puget Sound.
“And when he reached the water he picked himself a tree
And dug it out into a boat and so put out to sea.
“’Twas cooler on the water and so he sailed around
Till in the Caribbean Sea he finally run aground.
“For days he tried to float her, but it wasn’t any use,
So he went and got his Blue Ox to pull the old tub loose.
“He gathered all the rigging he could from near and far,
But chains much larger than your leg were stretched into a bar.
“And all the gear he didn’t break was melted by the heat,
And there are lakes all over Texas where the Blue Ox braced his feet.
“But every bit of timber was pulled loose from that boat
And still the old hulk lay there, she simply wouldn’t float.
“Well, many years have passed since then and it’s drifted o’er with sand
And trees have grown upon it until it’s solid land.
“Now boys, that’s simply history, as right as God above,
And the little isle of Cuba is the place I’m speaking of.”
The Bull Cook finished up his tale and went about his task,
But there’ve always been some questions I’d kinder like to ask.
But he is dead and gathered to old Paul Bunyan’s side,
And so I’ll never know for sure if that old codger lied.

The Charmed Land

A Western story of one of Paul’s greatest feats of landscape engineering.

Old Hewey wrought, so I’ve been taught, six days to make the world;
He built the sky, and rearing high, the mighty mountains hurled;
One only spot he finished not, and then his tents he furled.

But e’re on high, above the sky, he went up out of sight,
With final shout he called about his workers all of might,
And thus he spoke, e’re like a cloak he clothed himself with night:
“Good helpers all, both great and small, this is my last command,
This place you see must finished be that all may understand
I hold it blest ’bove all the rest, the final promised land.”
Old Puget then lined up his men, he asked each one to work,
Three mighty men stood by him then and labored like a Turk,
While all the rest refused the test and did their best to shirk.
Paul Bunyan drew his fingers through his long and tangled locks,
He hardly spoke but took the yoke and sought his old Blue Ox;
He said “Watch me, I’ll build a sea, you two may use the rocks.”
With cunning stroke the soil he broke, he flung the dirt aside;
The rocks he tore with mighty roar and flung them far and wide,
He piled the earth till hills had birth and grew on either side.
The old Blue Ox he hitched to rocks and tore the big ones out,
He rolled them out and all about and called each one a mount,
And lest I lie, against the sky, they witness if you doubt.
At reach and bay he dug away, he shaped a thousand isles;
By headlands steep dug channels deep where rippling water smiles;
With generous hand he took the sand and built the beach for miles.
Like golden gleam of painter’s dream he built old Puget Sound,
Where skies of blue the waters woo a thousand isles around,
With emerald sheen they’re always green and always spring abounds.
Then old Cascade took up his spade and reared against the sky,
A row of peaks whose summit seeks a marriage with the sky,
A super land whose wonders grand enchant the human eye.
Olympus then laid down his pen and built with cunning hand
A place so rare that e’en the air seems wilder and more grand,
Of hill and stream beyond our dream, a greater Switzerland.
And thus these three, as you may see, beneath the Western skies
Have built a land that’s super grand, an earthly paradise;
When God looked down they say it found great favor in his eyes.

Building Columbia Gorge

Bunyan frequently went hunting or fishing, and on such occasions anything might happen.