In the office where the clerk, the bosses, scalers and others of more pretentious occupation sleep, one corner is set apart for the wannigan, as the small camp store is called. Here the workers buy clothing, shoes, tobacco and the few articles needed in the camp. The stock is not extensive, but the price of the articles is far reaching. One of the clerks said, "I have charge of the wannigan—the first graft of the lumberjack."
Where once the timid deer cropped the tender herbage, the rough camps of the lumbermen are seen. Before the mighty swing of the keen blades the solitudes are passing away. In Minnesota, two billion board feet of lumber represent the cut of the winter months, and in the camps and mills almost forty thousand men are employed. Logging is an extensive industry, and it has been brought to a high degree of efficiency in Minnesota.
Every day the tote teams pass between the camps and the village carrying provisions for man and beast. These teams are the means of communication between the foresters and civilization.
Where there are several camps owned by the same company, the most important personage is the representative of the company who is known among the men as the "walking boss," because he is always passing from camp to camp, seeing to the interests of the firm. The "walking boss" gives his orders to the subordinate boss who has charge of an individual camp. This subordinate is known as the "push." Under the "push" is another who goes by the name of the "straw push." The camps have their own nomenclature, and some of the names are interesting and humorous. The carpenter is the "wood butcher;" the clerk is the "ink splasher," or the "bloat that makes the stroke;" the man who tends the logging roads and keeps them free from anything that would interfere with the heavy sleds is called the "road monkey;" the workman who keeps the fires in the bunkhouse and does odd jobs around the camp goes by the title of "bull cook," because, in the old days when oxen were used his duty was to see to their comfort; the missionary is known as the "sky pilot," and the top-loader is called the "sky hooker." Besides these named there are the cook and cookees, skidders, teamsters, sawyers, swampers, the barn boss and the blacksmith.
"In the works" where the trees are felled, the men work in crews. The sawyers bring the giants to the earth and the swampers clear the trunk of its branches and make the openings through which the logs are drawn to the skidways. After the tree has fallen, a man called the "punk hunter" examines it to see if it be sound and marks the dimensions into which the log is to be sawn.
The loads hauled from the skidways to the landings average differently in the camps, owing to the condition of the roads. Where the roads are the best the amount drawn by two or four horses is almost incredible. In 1905 a load of logs was hauled into Tenstrike, Minnesota, which scaled over twenty thousand feet. One of the camps situated near Shell Lake, Wisconsin, is said to have hauled the largest load of logs ever drawn out of a camp by four horses. The load contained thirty-one thousand four hundred and eighty feet. A thousand feet in the green log, with its attendant slabs and bark, will weigh nearly eight thousand pounds. The above figures will give some idea of the great weight of the loads, and also of the perfection to which the road-making must be carried to make such results possible.
Into these camps with the coming of winter the lumberjacks crowd. "Why is it that they are willing to go into isolation and hardship?" you ask. We can only answer, "Why does the sailor go down to the sea in ships?" It seems to get into the blood. Douglas Malloch, in "The Calling of the Pine," says:
"When I listen to the callin' of the pine,
When I drink the brimmin' cup of forest wine—
Then the path of life is sweet to my travel-weary feet
When I listen to the callin' of the pine."
There are lots of men who have followed the camps from boyhood. I met one man who had spent forty-four winters in the woods and his brother almost as many. It had become a second nature to them and the lure of the camps was irresistible.
In the towns and villages adjacent to the camps the lumberjacks are seen at their worst because civilization only welcomes them to its vices; in the camps the woodsmen are seen at their best because the causes of their depravity are absent. These big, hearty fellows may be strong in vices, but they are by no means lacking in virtues. They have their code of honor, and the man who departs from it will find it necessary to depart from the camp. Depraved as are most of them, yet in many ways they command the respect of the men who are acquainted with their better natures.