The Lumberjacks - Softcover

MacKay, Donald

4.11

19 ratings by Goodreads

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1896219462 ISBN 13: 9781896219462

Publisher: Natural Heritage, 2002

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Short-listed for the 1978 Governor General's Award for Non-Fiction

The 19th century spawned a unique breed of men who took pride in their woodsmen skills and rough codes of conduct. They called themselves lumberers, shantymen, timber beasts, les bucherons – and, more recently, lumberjacks, working in the vast forests of eastern Canada and British Columbia.

Across the country, farm boys would go to the woods, lumbering being the only winter work available. Immigrants – Swedes and Finns more often than not – resumed the trades they had learned so well in the forests of northern Europe. They broke the cold, hard monotony of camp life with songs, tall tales and card games.

Within these pages, author Donald MacKay allows us a glimpse into that moment in our heritage when men entered the virgin forest to carve out an industry from the seemingly endless array of pine, spruce, maple and balsam fir found there.

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Review:

It's marvellous material of a type often ignored by historians ... Such books may do more to help us understand ourselves than all the academic tomes together. (Atlantic Insight)

... a superb marriage of text and pictures, a nostalgic but not sentimental discussion of one of Canada's primary industries, logging. (Globe and Mail)

[Donald] MacKay's book has many virtues. His prose is clean. He lets the surviving pioneers talk for themselves when they have something to say, but never allows them to get too windy. He separates legends and half-truths from facts ... (Montreal Star)

Synopsis:

This fourth printing of a non-fiction classic will be welcomed by those interested in the early days of the Canadian logging industry. The 19th century spawned a unique breed of men who took pride in their woodsmen skills and rough codes of conduct. They called themselves lumberers, shantymen, timber beasts, les bucherrons -- and, more recently, lumberjacks, working in the vast forests of eastern Canada and British Columbia. Across the country, farm boys would go to the woods, lumbering being the only winter work available. Immigrants -- Swedes and Finns more often than not -- resumed the trades they had learned so well in the forests of northern Europe. They broke the cold, hard monotony of camp life with songs, tall tales and card games. Within these pages, author Donald MacKay allows us a glimpse into that moment of our heritage when men entered the virgin forest to carve out an industry from the seemingly endless array of pine, spruce, maple and balsam fir found there.

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