Logging Photo

Photo from EG - This is a Gavin logging team probably in Muskoka Parry Sound


The names of the men in the photo with their position to the right of the name

Logging in Muskoka

...........................Photo A- Alf in the bush. Two men behind are using a saw and Alf in front is using the ax to make sure the tree falls away from the men. He was born in London, England in 1874. He was tall but thin, and worked more as a cook in the camps or in cutting trails. As an older man, he built some log cabins around Fraserburg and guided men in the bush.

In photo B, Alf is wearing a vest and tie, so I doubt that he was actually part of the loading team. Perhaps he was doing some other job and just got up on top for the photo.

........................Photo B... Click on the photos to enlarge them

........................Photo C
.....Photos B and C were sent by Alfred Hammond to his brother in Southern Ontario sometime before the turn of the century. Alfred is the middle figure on top of the logs and is second from the left in the back row of the group photo. The man to his left is Rob Crockford, friend of Alf and father of Clare Crockford.

.....This logging culture is not familiar to us now, but when it was common employment, men would be gone from home in the winter to work in the logging industry. The women had to run the home by themselves. In summer, the men would farm or some other kind of employment. One of my father's early jobs was taking supplies into camps. It was called 'cadging'...I'm not sure of the spelling of the word.

.....In 1983, they were shown to Mr. Roy Greer, a man associated with logging for many years. He was 88 years old in 1983 and had known three generations of Gavin men and many of the men married to Gavin daughters. His comments are below. Dotted lines represent inaudible phrases or pauses:

THIS IS WHEN MEN HAD TO WORK, YOU KNOW. This is a Gavin outfit....I'm pret' near sure I bought this team from Gavins, later on. This big white face [horse], that's what makes me say that, and the other one the same. You see, Ab Gavin worked for my Dad for a good many years when Ab started out jobbing. He was out around Purbrook; their old house is just back from Colsen's Corners, a mile or so. Old Mr. Gavin was around the Albion Hotel in later years looking after the stables, all horses then you know. The wheels in his head got a little bad; he was a little bit confused. And old Mrs. Gavin (Margaret Horn) and my Grandmother Thompson used to get together and they'd talk the Gaelic, you couldn' hear blinking anything...they were both Scotch you know. [No family memory that she spoke Gaelic; however, descendants of Jane Gavin and Thomas Horn in PEI reportedly spoke Gaelic.]

.....Ab took out a contract from my Dad and he took all the gang from down here up to Sucker Lake [Medora Lake]. He took out a contract for to take out the hemlock.....600 acres up there. Ab was a big husky man and he took the job. He and his brothers used to work together. Old Matt Harrison was always around with Gavin too. Ab was married and his wife did the cooking. Crab [George]Thompson was there, and Jessie [Ab's sister] before she was married to Crab. They ran the camp there and took out the logs back of Harper's Lake. I can show you right where the camp was. I wouldn't be surprised if this was Frank Fielding [looking at a man in the photo]; he worked for Ab a lot driving horses.

.....But **Don and Gordon [Ab's sons] were just boys then....I was a boy too....and my Dad would go up and have lunch or dinner when they were taking the logs out. [He did not identify anyone in the photo as his father].

.....Ab took another contract the next year and went over on the other side of the CPR for anothe bunch of timber. By the thousand, that's the way they worked in those days, not by the hour. Wouldn't be much either, for a man got a dollar a day, lucky to get that, thirty dollars a month or so.

.....This one was taken for the picture [referring to the group photo], no doubt about that. They were in for a picture that day, for they had their vests on. But the other picture, they're dressed for outside work. Alf Hammond married a Gavin; Herb Shire married a Gavin; Crab Thompson did; and Andy [should be Archie] Yuill. I knew him [Andy Yuill?] awful well in the north country. I was running engines up in the north country and I worked with Andy. The Gavins went up around Thessalon. [Andy Yuill never married and Archie married a Gavin woman. Roy probably knew both men, but Archie was around Sudbury. Roy probably worked with Andy.]

.....Men worked hard in those days and took pride in doing what they could. This load of logs was all put on by hand, you now; they put them on with a chain and dicking line. Ab worked hard at the logging business. He was boss, but that didn't stop him from working.

......It takes a pretty good head for to keep the logs as even as that. They're not all the same length, but they've got to be balanced on the load. If it's heavy on one side, the team can't turn the tongue. The logs are chained on....in those days, it used to be bind poles, now they use bear-traps. A bind pole used to be a spring pole out of the bush, green, and you gave it a twist and tied it down with the chain , one on the back and one on the front. They'd a lot of kick to them, but it kept the chains good and tight.

......This is when they used bunks. Years ago, they just had a little bit of a narrow bunk, six feet....and narrow sleighs.....soon as they got into the business right, they widened the sleighs, put 12 foot bunks on them, big wide ones, and they had to build the roads accordingly.

.....These men with the shovels, they'd be the men shovelling the skidways.... that's where you pile the logs up in the bush and they come along with the sleighs , the road goes in front of it and that's when they loaded the logs over top of that.

They loaded with torches stuck in the snow, tin cans with wicks in them and full of coal oil.. And it could be three or four o'clock in the morning, whenever it had to be done.

.....There was the teamster, drove the team and pulled the logs up; there was a man on each end of the logs to send them; and there was one man on top of the sleigh to place them and get them into shape. There'd be a fellow tailing the logs down to the senders. That'd be the whole gang. There was around six in the loading team. There's a top loader, a fellow right on top; then these two fellow with cant hooks; they'd keep sending them up, keeping them straight.

.....These were all good logging men, you know. They knew how and they weren't scared to work. There's no doubt about it.

Note: **Don and Gordon Gavin were born just after the turn of the century. The photos of Alfred are probably before he was married in 1899, so Roy's memories intertwine different experiences.