My Day in the Woods
As I have previously written, I was in the sixth grade when my father died. In the summer of 1970, between the seventh and eighth grades, Mom took our family on a vacation to visit my Dad’s brother, Tom and his family. I believe now that, by this simple act, she was trying to provide a “normal” childhood for her kids.
Uncle Tom was a logger and earned a good living as a timber faller. He lived with his wife, Rosie and their children, Tommy, Kenny and Tina, in Happy Camp, CA. The population of their town was under 1,000 and it is located west of Yreka on Highway 96 in a remote area near the Klamath River. That vacation was one of the most fun and exciting things our family had ever done.
Several of those days, Mom and Aunt Rosie took all of us kids to a great swimming hole on the Klamath River. We took a picnic lunch and spent the entire day there. We went swimming, explored up and down the river and skipped rocks on the water. Someone had tied a two by four foot board to a tree branch hanging over a swift area of the river. It had a rope handle attached to it so one could stand on the board, hold onto the handle and “surf” the river. It was so fun.
However, the most exciting part of that vacation for me was the day Uncle Tom took me to work with him in the woods. He woke me up at 5:00 a.m. and told me to get dressed. I was a big kid even then and was able to wear his old boots and blue denim work shirt. He handed me some suspenders and an extra hard hat made of aluminum and my work ensemble was complete. Aunt Rosie packed us a big lunch and plenty of water. She gave Uncle Tom his thermos of coffee and we headed up the mountain in his old pick-up to the lumber company landing.
Uncle Tom was assigned a certain area of the forest at an elevation of 7,000 feet in which there were trees marked by red paint. These were the ones he was expected to fall and he quickly got about his business. He gave me some safety instructions including to always stay behind him and to watch for rattlesnakes. He warned me to never step to a spot that I could not see such as over a log as there might be a snake resting there.
Uncle Tom had two chainsaws. One was big and used for cutting down the trees. I estimated the bar, on which the chain blade revolved around was four to five feet in length. His other saw was smaller and used for “bucking” the trees. Bucking is when a timber faller walks on top of the fallen tree, cutting the limbs off the topside and both sides so the tree could be dragged to the landing by the crew at a later time using huge chains and heavy equipment.
I was fascinated by how quickly he worked. In addition to his saws he also had gas and oil cans, an ax and several wedges. The wedges were made of yellow plastic which he sometimes had to use to finish the job of bringing down the tree, some of which were 70 to 80 feet tall and six feet in diameter. Uncle Tom began by deciding which way he wanted the tree to fall. He had to make certain his tree fell between the others and did not want it to hit other trees. He would then make his first cut on that side of the tree, perpendicular to the ground approximately three feet from the forest floor. The second cut was made above the first one at a 30 degrees that angled down into the first cut. He then took his ax and with the back of it, knocked the wedge of wood out of the cut. On the opposite side he made another perpendicular incision, called the back cut, moving toward the front cut. Usually when he got a couple of feet in, the tree would begin to fall. At this time he backed up quickly, never turning away from the tree and closely watching its fall. He always made sure I was a good twenty feet away from the tree before he began his back cut. He had explained to me earlier that one never turns his back on a falling tree, especially in forest as dense as we were in. There was a danger of a limb from a falling tree breaking off as it fell and catching on a standing tree. This limb could later fall on top of you. These were called “widow makers” for a good reason.
There were times when the tree would not fall after the first three cuts were made. This is where the plastic wedges and ax came into play. It’s called “wedging.” Uncle Tom put the thin end of the wedge into the back cut and drove it in with his ax. Sometimes, due to the size of the tree he needed two or three wedges to make the tree fall. Three times that day, Uncle Tom allowed me to drive the wedge into the tree to finish it off. Talk about exciting! I felt like I was a man being out there with him on the job.
After each tree went down, he climbed up on it and bucked it. He then took out his tape to measure the tree’s length and diameter at the base. He used a pencil he carried in his shirt pocket to write this information on his aluminum hard hat.
At 11:00 a.m., we stopped for lunch. Sitting on a big rock, in the warm sun on the side of a mountain, looking down into a gorgeous valley made my bologna and cheese sandwich the best one of my life. A half hour later we got back to work and quit for the day at 2:30. We hauled his gear back to the landing. Uncle Tom sat in his truck and figured out from the entries on his hard hat how many board feet he had fallen that day, filled out a report card and gave it to the foreman. I asked him how many trees we cut down and much money we had made that day. He said he/we felled twenty trees and had earned about $350. I was amazed someone could make that much money in a single day.
My family stayed in Happy Camp for about ten days on that vacation and had a lot of fun, but for me it was the best due to the fact I had spent one of those days as a logger with my Uncle Tom.
Uncle Tom was a logger and earned a good living as a timber faller. He lived with his wife, Rosie and their children, Tommy, Kenny and Tina, in Happy Camp, CA. The population of their town was under 1,000 and it is located west of Yreka on Highway 96 in a remote area near the Klamath River. That vacation was one of the most fun and exciting things our family had ever done.
Several of those days, Mom and Aunt Rosie took all of us kids to a great swimming hole on the Klamath River. We took a picnic lunch and spent the entire day there. We went swimming, explored up and down the river and skipped rocks on the water. Someone had tied a two by four foot board to a tree branch hanging over a swift area of the river. It had a rope handle attached to it so one could stand on the board, hold onto the handle and “surf” the river. It was so fun.
However, the most exciting part of that vacation for me was the day Uncle Tom took me to work with him in the woods. He woke me up at 5:00 a.m. and told me to get dressed. I was a big kid even then and was able to wear his old boots and blue denim work shirt. He handed me some suspenders and an extra hard hat made of aluminum and my work ensemble was complete. Aunt Rosie packed us a big lunch and plenty of water. She gave Uncle Tom his thermos of coffee and we headed up the mountain in his old pick-up to the lumber company landing.
Uncle Tom was assigned a certain area of the forest at an elevation of 7,000 feet in which there were trees marked by red paint. These were the ones he was expected to fall and he quickly got about his business. He gave me some safety instructions including to always stay behind him and to watch for rattlesnakes. He warned me to never step to a spot that I could not see such as over a log as there might be a snake resting there.
Uncle Tom had two chainsaws. One was big and used for cutting down the trees. I estimated the bar, on which the chain blade revolved around was four to five feet in length. His other saw was smaller and used for “bucking” the trees. Bucking is when a timber faller walks on top of the fallen tree, cutting the limbs off the topside and both sides so the tree could be dragged to the landing by the crew at a later time using huge chains and heavy equipment.
I was fascinated by how quickly he worked. In addition to his saws he also had gas and oil cans, an ax and several wedges. The wedges were made of yellow plastic which he sometimes had to use to finish the job of bringing down the tree, some of which were 70 to 80 feet tall and six feet in diameter. Uncle Tom began by deciding which way he wanted the tree to fall. He had to make certain his tree fell between the others and did not want it to hit other trees. He would then make his first cut on that side of the tree, perpendicular to the ground approximately three feet from the forest floor. The second cut was made above the first one at a 30 degrees that angled down into the first cut. He then took his ax and with the back of it, knocked the wedge of wood out of the cut. On the opposite side he made another perpendicular incision, called the back cut, moving toward the front cut. Usually when he got a couple of feet in, the tree would begin to fall. At this time he backed up quickly, never turning away from the tree and closely watching its fall. He always made sure I was a good twenty feet away from the tree before he began his back cut. He had explained to me earlier that one never turns his back on a falling tree, especially in forest as dense as we were in. There was a danger of a limb from a falling tree breaking off as it fell and catching on a standing tree. This limb could later fall on top of you. These were called “widow makers” for a good reason.
There were times when the tree would not fall after the first three cuts were made. This is where the plastic wedges and ax came into play. It’s called “wedging.” Uncle Tom put the thin end of the wedge into the back cut and drove it in with his ax. Sometimes, due to the size of the tree he needed two or three wedges to make the tree fall. Three times that day, Uncle Tom allowed me to drive the wedge into the tree to finish it off. Talk about exciting! I felt like I was a man being out there with him on the job.
After each tree went down, he climbed up on it and bucked it. He then took out his tape to measure the tree’s length and diameter at the base. He used a pencil he carried in his shirt pocket to write this information on his aluminum hard hat.
At 11:00 a.m., we stopped for lunch. Sitting on a big rock, in the warm sun on the side of a mountain, looking down into a gorgeous valley made my bologna and cheese sandwich the best one of my life. A half hour later we got back to work and quit for the day at 2:30. We hauled his gear back to the landing. Uncle Tom sat in his truck and figured out from the entries on his hard hat how many board feet he had fallen that day, filled out a report card and gave it to the foreman. I asked him how many trees we cut down and much money we had made that day. He said he/we felled twenty trees and had earned about $350. I was amazed someone could make that much money in a single day.
My family stayed in Happy Camp for about ten days on that vacation and had a lot of fun, but for me it was the best due to the fact I had spent one of those days as a logger with my Uncle Tom.
Comments
alling mom a"witch" under my breath.