To most people, the past is glowingly referred to as the good old days. This pie-in-the-sky idyll never existed apart from people’s imaginations. The overwhelming majority of people a century ago – 92%+ in the case of Britain – what work entailed was back-breaking manual work whether in foundries or as reflected here in a logging operation.

Hard grinding physical labour was the lot of these workers. What was more iniquitous was the pittance that they were paid for these long hours of toil.

Main picture: Lumberjacks besides their handiwork. The height of the man is indicative of the diameter of the tree

The chain saw is merely a metaphor for machinery

Lumberjacks chopping down a giant redwood

Before chainsaws were invented, the logging industry in the United States & Canada was a seriously challenging occupation and we are only talking about 125 years ago. In the Pacific Northwest there were forests full of monster trees and cutting them down was done by hand.

Look at the length of the two-man hand saw and heavy duty axes above that they used to drop these tremendous trees.  It is almost inconceivable to think of cutting down a tree this size with a hand saw.

The work required very strong men (and horses) working long days for minimal pay. Could you imagine doing this to earn a living?

After a tree was finally felled, it took a week or more to cut it up into sections that could be managed (somehow) and transported by train to a lumber yard.

Maneuvering the logs down the mountain to the train was a complex job. I didn’t do any research on this, but I would be willing to bet that many men lost their lives doing this dangerous work. One slip and a hunk of wood as big as a hotel is rolling your way! The other question that begs an answer is how did they get those logs up onto the flatbeds of that train?

Hollowed out logs became the company’s mobile office. Can you imagine stacking such logs to build a log home?  Two courses would produce a 30′ ceiling. Maybe that’s why it was easier to hollow out a tree.

A long time before anyone ever thought of a mobile home or RV, hollowed out logs were also used to house and feed the logging crews.

We are accustomed to our modern conveniences like electricity and gasoline powered chainsaws, and it is always such a mind-boggling experience to see how such monumental tasks were performed before these conveniences appeared on the scene.  Remember that the picture above shows a hollowed-out log made into a travel trailer.

Never again in a moment of nostalgia refer to the past as the good old days for the past is not how we imagine it except in fairy tales.