White Pine

by Caroline Akervik

  At the logging camp, life went on as usual. But things felt different, maybe it was just in the attitudes of the men. The end was in site. We were all working hard, maybe even harder than before because the Push wanted us to bring in as many board feet as possible before the end of the season. But the men were already dreaming of downtime and of all of the possibilities in the sawdust cities for a man with money to spend.

  Some of the men started heading out. As the weeks passed, more and more left camp. It was then that I got another letter from my ma. It read:

  Dear Sevy,

  How are you? We all miss you and can’t wait to see you, in just a few weeks. Your father is doing well. He’s up and around with only a little limp. He’s been doing some carpentry, and that’s brought in some money, but he’s fit to be tied with wanting to come up and get you.

  I paused in my reading. I didn’t want my pa to come get me, not now. It was not that I didn’t want to see him. I missed him something fierce. But I wanted to finish out the season. After all, I’d made it this far. Ma ended the letter with the comment:

  When you get home, we’ll go and talk with Mr. Watters about getting you back into school.

  It felt odd thinking about going back to school. I’d grown up a lot over the winter. Grown men had treated me like a man. And they’d expected me to behave like a man, too. Sometimes their very lives had depended me. The idea of going back to being just a boy in Eau Claire felt down right peculiar.

  It was Ma’s letter and thinking about going back that decided me. The spring log drive was coming up, and I’d been listening to the other fellas talk about it for weeks. They spoke of the adventures of the river rats and about what it was like to ride into town with the logs. This might have been my only chance to be a part of a river drive, and I wasn’t going to miss it. It seemed like the most fitting end to my time in the Northwoods. To be honest, I also kept thinking about how Adelaide would look at me when she saw me coming down the Chippewa River on a log raft with my peavey in hand, a real Northwoods hero like from a penny novel.

  So I sent a letter back to my folks telling them that I would be a few more weeks and that I was going on the river drive. I knew it might worry Ma. Each year, fellas died on it. But I thought Pa would understand that I wanted to see it through to the end.

  Chapter Eleven

  ~ River Drive ~

  All through the winter, we’d stacked huge piles of wood along the banks of the rivers that led into the Chippewa. Now that they were running high, the river rats would push the logs into the mix to be carried downstream to Eau Claire.

  I’d heard from the other fellas that the trip would likely take us a little more than a week from where we were to Eau Claire. In the final leg of the journey, flumes would carry the logs down into the holding area in Half Moon Bay. Ever since I was little boy, I’d watched the logs come through the flumes every spring.

  When I signed on as a river rat, I traded in my clodhoppers for a pair of caulked boots with sharp points on the soles. I got me some overalls from the wannigan and I cut ‘em off half way up my calves. River rats did that so the cuffs of their pants wouldn’t get caught between two logs and pull them down under the water where they could drown.

  I’d already headed out with the other river rats when they closed the camp down for the year. I was glad not to be there when the last of the fellas pulled out, leaving a camp that had seen so much living all cold, empty, and dead. Before we left, I said my goodbyes to the fellas I wasn’t likely to see again. Then, I joined a crew of men including Roget, Adam, and the Swedish brothers. Bart and Harold were coming along to man the cookshack during the drive.

  “The grub won’t be like the stuff you get at camp ‘cuz we’re always moving,” Bart warned me. “It’ll be mostly beans and soggy door knobs.”

  “Oh you’ll be right grateful for any kind of hot food,” Harold remarked.

  I soon learned neither were blowing smoke.

  When I hefted my peavey for my first day of river work, it was with considerable thought. It seemed so long ago that I’d first held it in the general store with Hugh. I cringed to think how green and foolish I must have seemed.

  In the early days of the log drive, I learned being a river rat was nowhere near as romantic as I’d imagined. Sure, it was exciting, but exciting in a “you may be killed in the next second” sort of way. Being a river rat meant being cold and wet and worried all of the time, and when you weren’t worried, you were all out scared. It was near impossible to put into words the sound of thousands of log feet hitting water that was running high and white.

  Several crews worked the drive that spring for the Daniel Shaw Lumber company. The first crew set off early. They moved with the logs, but at the front, making sure that the way was clear for the main body. The second and biggest crew went with the logs, and a third picked up stragglers.

  I travelled with the second group. And, of course, Roget was our leader. He was a good lumberjack, but as a rat, he was beyond compare. He had a real sense for how those logs moved in the current. He could see a problem coming up in the bend of a river and knew how to avoid it most of the time. Dangerous work as driving logs down a river was, Roget had a reputation for getting his men through it alive. Even the Johan and Ole didn’t give him any guff.

  I was wet, tired, cold, but alive. Every step I took on those shifting logs could lead to death. And somehow, knowing that made me feel more alive than I ever had before.

  When we got near a town, the folks rushed out to see us and they waved and clapped their hands, though we couldn’t hear them over the roaring and grinding of thousands of log feet riding the river.

  We’d been on the log drive for a couple of days when the Swedish brothers taught me how to burl. We were in a backwater, pushing out a bunch of logs that had gotten hung up. It was a crisp, cold sunny day, just hinting at the warmer weather coming.

  Johan got up on one of the logs first. “Eh, look at me.” He balanced carefully on a log and toed it out into the little bay, away from the other logs. It was a real thick log, an easy eighteen inches. He sorta shimmied down the log, standing sideways with his arms up for balancing. Then, he began to walk on the log, making it turn, like I’d seen the burlers on Half Moon do.

  “Snabbare! Faster!” Ole yelled.

  Johan grinned and his feet in their hobnailed boots began to move faster. The log was gaining momentum, turning faster and faster still. Johan’s arms were outstretched, his arms bouncing rhythmically with his movement.

  “Bra jobbat!” Ole said, laughing out loud. “Good job. Keep going.”

  Johan’s legs flew. Then, his torso began to rock, forward, then backward. Then, splash! He was gone. He came up laughing and choking, and splashed an armful of ice-cold snowmelt up at his brother, who leaped backwards.

  “You think you can do better?” Johan challenged once he was back on dry land. Arms crossed, he shivered something fierce.

  “I know I can,” Ole responded, not at all deterred by thought of being cold and wet in the frigid air. Still, he carefully took his coat off and set it on the ground. After some more joshing and horseplay, he got up on a log. But despite his brave words, he didn’t last much longer than his brother had.

  “Sevy, it’s your turn,” a dripping wet Johan said after both Swedish brothers had been in and out of the drink a number of times. Both were shaking near uncontrollably.

  “Nah,” I said.

  Johan smacked Ole on the back of the head. “He’s no fool. Now the two of us are going to have to go and get some dry clothes.”

  “Yah, well he can’t be working alone now, can he? He’ll be heading on back anyway. He might as well get in on the fun.”

  I was sore tempted. Just like any other kid growing up in a sawdust city like Eau Claire, I’d dreamed of being one of those champion burlers who won the prizes on Half Moon Lake. But I knew that water was real cold, so cold it made your heart feel like it was going to jump right out of your chest
. I’d gone ankle deep in it enough times to know. The two Swedes had blue lips, and I’d seen those two fellas jump into snow banks in their all togethers.

  “Come on, boy. A little bath won’t hurt ya.”

  “Get rid of some of them bluebacks, so the girls back home will think you’re a pretty fella.”

  They kept at me, and it didn’t take much convincing to get me up on a log. Not when secretly I’d been hankering to give it a try. This was definitely the time and the place. There was no one around but Ole and Johan. And, typical Scandihoovians, those two weren’t the sort to tell tales. Maybe a few slow moving musky or northerns might witness me falling into the drink, but even the beavers were still in their dams.

  Careful, real careful, with my heart pounding, I stepped from the snarl of logs that had gotten stuck by the shore out onto the log that the Swedish brothers had waded waist deep into the water and held for me. Now, if this here had been a real burlin’ contest, I would have had to get up on the log from a straddle in the middle of some log holding pen. But since this was my first time, those fellas were helpin’ me all they could. And I didn’t want to get anywhere near that cold water until I had to. I guessed I’d end up in it soon enough.

  I stepped onto the log, and, keeping my knees bent, I sorta half stood half squatted up. To my surprise, the standing part was pretty easy, the calks in my boot soles dug me right in.

  “Good boy,” Johan said as he gently directed the log away from the snarl and out into the open water.

  I was too busy staring down at that log to say anything back. Then, those fellas, who were at each end of the log, began to turn it, real slow like. I sorta walked with the motion to stay upright.

  I was doing it! I was burling!

  “This ain’t that bad,” I shouted.

  “Keep your knees bent,” Ole instructed.

  “Now go faster,” Johan yelled.

  They began to roll that log so that I had to sorta jog to stay up. The caulks in my boots were now proving more of a hindrance than a help as the way that they dug into the pine slowed down my feet.

  “Faster,” Johan yelled again.

  “No!” But my feet were flying. To tell the truth, I loved it. I laughed out loud. It felt like I was dancin’ up there on that log. The next minute, one caulked book sorta got stuck and I took a funny half step. The sky rushed down to the water, and I was in the drink. Ice cold! So cold, it stole your breath away. My heart exploded right out of my chest.

  “Holy smokes!” It was only waist deep, but I went scrambling right out onto the shore.

  “Good ‘un, Sevy.” Johan raised a fist in the air.

  After that, the icy coldness of the water didn’t stop me from getting back up and trying again and again. Finally, none of us could take the cold anymore, so we headed out to rejoin the others at the main drive. But I couldn’t stop thinkin’ about the burling. I planned on practicing my burling each and every remaining day of the river drive.

  The cook shack was tied up on a narrow wooded peninsula. The other fellas sat around a campfire eating their grub when we came up. The three of us were soaking wet, near blue with cold, but also smiling and laughing. Roget took one look at us, didn’t saying nothing, just shook his head. We changed our clothes and joined the others around the campfire. I got as close as I could, and even set my boots on some cinders.

  While we were wolfing down the beans and salt pork, Johan started jabbering. “This boy,” he said, between mouthfuls of chow, “he is a natural on the logs. Give you a run for your money, Fabien. He has young legs.”

  “Ja, and he doesn’t give up.” Ole reached over and tousled my hair.

  Roget grunted. “No wonder it took you three so long to bring those logs in.”

  “Tomorrow,” Johan said. “You come with us and see him, Frenchman. He is a fine burler, a real river man.”

  I puffed up at his words, but Roget deflated me real quick. First, he eyeballed me with those cold blue eyes that didn’t show a thing of what he was thinking. He stood, tossed the remains of his tea on the ground, then said, “This boy, he is not one of us.”

  Then, he just walked away.

  I stared after him, feeling like I’d been gut punched.

  No one said anything for a long moment.

  I swallowed my mouthful of beans. I knew there was nothing that I could ever do to prove myself to the man.

  Then, Dob spoke, “Sevy, don’t mind him.”

  I nodded, biting the inside of my bottom lip so they wouldn’t see my reaction. I wouldn’t tear up now, not in front of these fellas, not like some little girl whose feelings had been hurt.

  Whiteside spoke up next. “Roget’s an odd one.”

  “What is his problem with the boy?” Johan demanded.

  “The problem isn’t with Sevy at all,” Dob explained. “It’s with Fabien. But what he said wasn’t right. You’re as much of a lumberjack and a river rat as any of us, Sevy, and you’ve proven it again and again.”

  The others nodded and grunted and said the things that shoulda made me feel better, but they didn’t quite ease the sting of Roget’s comment. I thought that he’d come around where I was concerned. Guess I’d been wrong.

  Chapter Twelve

  ~ Logjam ~

  The very next day of that river drive, the one thing that river rats fear the most happened. A logjam. For most of the morning, me and the Swedes had been travelling behind the others again, picking up straggler logs. But by midafternoon, we were all back together at the jam. It was a huge one; logs must have been backing up there for days. Fellas from some of the other companies were crawling all over it like ants. There was cursing in many languages up and down both sides of the river. But those logs weren’t budging.

  Folks were talking and pointing and all fired up about the unholy mess. Through the crowd, I spotted Dob.

  “Hey, Dob!” It didn’t look like he’d heard me, so I pushed my way through the crowd and grabbed his arm. “What do we do now?”

  He cocked an eyebrow at me. “Damned if I know. These fools...” He waved an arm. “Are arguing about the key log.”

  I knew what the key log was. Anyone who grew up in a sawdust city did. It was the log that held up the whole mess of a log jam. Some folks would tell you that you needed to move a mountain of logs to break up a jam. But others sweared that if you somehow managed to move or pull out the key log, the whole structure would come apart in a swirl of white water and logs.

  I was too green to know what to believe. But I stared wide eyed as a couple of jacks climbed over that groaning mountain of wood, following the directions of the Pushes, looking for that one rumored log.

  “The only other choice they have is dynamite,” Dob said, “but that’s expensive for the logging companies—it blows some fine pine to matchsticks—and dangerous for the men handling it.” He shook his head. “Find yourself a dry spot to hunker down. We won’t be going anywhere for some time.”

  Some other fella came over and started jabbering at Dob, so he nodded to me and headed on his way.

  I wandered around until I found several of the jacks from our company, including Bob Johnson and the Swedish brothers. We got ourselves some cold grub and settled down to watch the show.

  From midmorning until afternoon, the river rats from a number of outfits worked with their peavies to break up the logjam. The tension grew, the language grew ripe, and the river bosses grew ever more anxious. More logs just kept coming down and joining the pile up. No one was having any luck. Finally, the Pushes got together and made the decision to finally use dynamite. They would blow that logjam right out of the river by placing dynamite at some critical points at the front of the jam. Now, most of the fuses could be lit safely from the shore, so the fella doing the lighting could get away. But one pack, probably the most important one, was to be set dead center and low down on the pile in the middle of the river. I didn’t envy that man his job.

  A call went out asking for volunteers. They were lo
oking for experienced men, fellas who would have done this sorta thing before. The problem was that most of the men were savvy as to what they were up against. The man lighting that last fuse was likely to get himself killed. Arguments blew up all around. Each crew had top men, but only a handful would consider taking this monster on. In the end, the bosses chose the jacks they had the most confidence in, fearless ones, men who weren’t afraid to die.

  I wasn’t a surprise the man they chose from our company was Fabien Roget. The crowd parted as he moved through it, walking tall like a knight in those old stories about King Arthur that Mr. Watters used to read to us in the schoolhouse. Roget went right over to the riverbank, unbuttoned his shirt and handed it off. He draped a rope harness over his chest, and then barefoot, wearing nothing more than his cut off trousers, eyeballed that jam.

  I knew that he’d taken on a job that was likely to get him killed. But I had to admit that I felt a little jealous as I stood there with the rest of the men watching him. We all knew that we were watching the bravest one of us all, or the most reckless.

  “They’ll swing his rope over that branch,” Dob explained, pointing at a thick oak branch that extended out over the river, “then they’ll lower him right down to the middle of the jam, just over the water level. He’ll light that fuse then they’ll lift him out of there. Hopefully.”

  Johan whistled low and that sort of said it for all of us. Now I was good and mad at Roget for what he’d said to me the night before, but while I watched as they lowered that crazy French Canadian onto the jam, I felt proud knowing he was one of ours.

  Roget was grinning, his teeth, white, against the black of his beard. He was a man living life on the razor’s edge and loving it.

  “He’s not even afraid,” Johnson remarked.

  Dob joined us, shaking his head. “That Frenchman’s a fool.” But he didn’t look away, none of us could.