Logging camp

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Lumberjacks
in front of logging camp building

A logging camp (or lumber camp) is a transitory work site used in the logging industry. Before the second half of the 20th century, these camps were the primary place where

lumbermills
in the spring.

Design

The requirements of the logging industry involved the creation of a working site and housing from the

lumbermills in the spring.[2] By their nature logging camps were temporary work sites used to harvest lumber in remote areas. Once the lumber in a particular area was harvested, the lumberjacks would move on.[3]

Primitive sites had two buildings, a

blacksmith shop, filer shack (to sharpen the saws), office and camp store.[2] Lumber cut by the lumberjacks was the source of the materials for the buildings, and camps were built in the fall prior to the winter logging season. Most of the lumberjacks would return to their jobs after the logging season, with a few staying on to drive logs in the spring.[4]

In the United States, logging camps were phased out after World War II, as work crews could more easily be transported to remote logging sites.[5]

Camp food

Mess hall at a logging camp

Lumberjacks could work upwards of twelve hours a day, and lumbering was such physically demanding work that each man could eat between 6,000 to 9,000

calories a day.[6][7] In one estimation, the average logger consumed 5 pounds (2.3 kg) of food each day.[7] Quality and quantity were important parts of maintaining the health and productivity of the workers. Meat, other foods high in protein, and fats were served in abundance. Sack lunches were provided to the loggers. During peak season, as many as five meals a day could be served.[7] Camp cooks were important to the morale of the workers. In some cases, workers would follow a cook to the camp they were working at each season.[2]

In Canada, the long distances to the camps and the closure of most access during the winter led to the development of depot farms that would be built near logging camps to supply cereals and vegetables to the loggers as well as food for horses in the form of hay and oats. These farms were often built on poor quality land and had little output other than the camps and self-consumption, and most often closed as soon as the camp did.[8]

See also

References

  1. JSTOR 41331174
    .(subscription required)
  2. ^ a b c "Logging Camps: The Early Years". Minnesota DNR.
  3. S2CID 131635434
    .(subscription required)
  4. ^ Woodward, George Austin (September 1894). "Life in a Lumber Camp". Munsey's Magazine. pp. 604–610 – via Explorations in Iowa History Project.
  5. JSTOR 3113615
    .(subscription required)
  6. S2CID 156435149
    .
  7. ^ a b c "Camp Food in a Logging Camp". Mendocino Coast Model Railroad and Navigation Company.
  8. ^ MacKay, Roderick (2007). Potatoes in the Pines: Depot Farms in Algonquin Park; with particular investigations at the Egan Farm, BkGl-1, Clancy Township (Technical report). Proceedings of the 2005 Ontario Archaeological Society Symposium.

External links

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