Westward Expansion

Lumberjacks and Lumberyards
by Oliver

Introduction

Lumberjacks were men who worked on lumber yards cutting down mostly pine and oak trees. Lumber yards moved when a forest was cleaned out of trees. Logging was mainly in the upper mid-west, Maine, Canada, Scandinavia, Pacific north-west, and the Atlantic north-east.

A Lumberjack’s Work

Work for a lumberjack was hard and most shifts were ten hours long. To make a full grown pine tree into lumber ready for work, a lumberjack would first have to cut down pine trees (logging), and then saw the tree into logs. The logs would then need to be split again. Lumberjacks would then saw logs into boards, dried, and then were used for construction purposes. After work a lumberjack would be extremely stiff and can barely move.

Lumber Yards

A lumber yard had to be near or next to a forest or the whole production of lumber was lost. A lumber yard was mostly in the mountains because rich forests were nearby. Because of this, transporting lumber was difficult for most lumber companies. Lumber yards had large piles of finished and unfinished lumber scattered around every where. Lumberjacks mostly lived in tents or log cabins made from the nearby lumber.

Culture

Lumberjacks Had fun doing their job. They created sports out of logging. Burling is where two lumberjacks balance on a log while going down a river to see who stays on longest. Lumberjacks had a legend of Paul Bunyan who was a giant lumberjack who had a blue cow named Babe. Most lumberjacks sang foot stomping songs while they cut down trees. A common lumberjack wears green suspenders and a plaid, red shirt.

Logging helped settlers by supplying them with houses, fire wood, and furniture. Logging destroyed many forests which made homes for animals and Native Americans scarce.

This picture is courtesy of home-and-garden.webshots.com/photo/2576002540...

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