Only complaint I have is the guy narrating mispronounces a lot if not most of the place names. The one at the end of Saginaw logging was on North River and my Grandfather was working there when that photo was taken. They were trying to set a one-day production record on Labor Day. I guess Labor Day was celebrated differently back then. I believe they yarded and loaded 116 loads in 7 hours 45 minutes. Why not 8 hours? They broke a loading line so quit early.

Thank you for sharing this with us , while your family was on the coast mine was all over Washington state with a good many of them around Spokane and Colville where they farmed and logged .

Have a good and Safe Memorial Day weekend !

Amazing, Thanks

There are some big pickles in there.

My dad was a log truck driver in Oregon. I remember him hauling several 1 log loads. My grandpa was one of those timber fallers working on a springboard. Me? I joined the Marine corps cause the spotted owl needed to survive!

Great post thanks

Very Interesting

Some tough dudes. Makes my work day look like retirement. Wonder what percent of them had all 10 digits on their hands?

Very few loggers I have been around had missing fingers. Most just wore out. There were a few equipment operators that might be older. Other than that, it was rare to see someone over 40. I lasted until my early 50s and was usually the oldest man on the crew for the last 15 years of my working life. It was very athletic and that is a young man's game. There is an old saying about working on the rigging, "Run in for your job, run out for your life".
In those old pictures you see more older guys than later on. That had a few more jobs for worn out loggers before things got more mechanized. Now it is completely mechanized. Everything I knew how to do is obsolete.

What all did you do that is now obsolete?

Interesting Thanks

Lumberjack319
While we're waiting for Humptulips to reply, I give you examples of what I see.

A couple of years ago we had about 130 acres of timber cut in mountainous terrain here in Washington. Between a combination of tether logging, feller bunchers, forwarders, processors, and loaders, hardly a boot ever hits the ground except to get into and out of a piece of equipment. It is really a sight to see tether loggers operating on steep ground..

Found this video short of tether logging, and this isn't even steep ground.
[video:youtube]https://www.youtube.com/shorts/xhGAgtUhlI8[/video]

As to the lack of young men, those pic's were taken during the time period that encompassed the Great Depression, WW 1 and even the Span/Am war in Cuba!

I was what we call a hooktender. I have heard the job called rigger or head rigger in other locals. I worked and had charge of a yarder/tower with a crew of 6 to 8. Some places had foreman that did some of the decision making but I mostly worked for gypos (a colloquial term for smaller independent logging companies) which saved on crew size by putting more responsibility on some jobs. Basically, I decided how a unit was to be logged, picked landings and if needed tail trees. We would put the lines out and while the crew was logging I would be laying out the next "road"(just the next swath to be logged to a landing) I packed and strung a lot of strawline (a smaller line used to pull the larger lines into place) usually comes in 250' sections, weighs about 75 pounds depending upon diameter. Packed and hung blocks and other rigging, notched stumps for same. Did a lot of climbing and I was the guy called to fix problems. Broken line, I spliced it. Log hung up, I got it unhung. Tree needs fell or bucked that the cutters left, I cut it.
I mostly worked slacklines which gives the option of a number of different logging methods. Sometimes I would get on the cat but mostly I was on the ground.
Today there is just about no tower logging left. It is all done with machines mostly shovels and nobody is on the ground. I bet there aren't many left who could put a long splice in a 1 1/2" skyline and there never will be because they are not being used anymore.

And here I thought they still did the yarder stuff. Surely those machines cant handle the larger trees?

They really don't log bigger trees anymore. Shovels can handle a pretty big log but most mills won't take anything bigger than 28', some 32'. They require that you leave 3 trees per acre now for wildlife trees so if there are some larger trees those usually get designated as wildlife trees and left. On my place I have some spruce up to 5' and there is just about no market for them.

It's quite a shame that there is essentially no market for large diameter logs anymore; there are still some available on private land. BTW, there are still millions of them on USFS land, but they are now sacred and protected.

In 1997 I may have logged the last large old growth in Snohomish County, Washington. We had a couple of one log loads, and several three log loads. The premium doug fir peeler grades were getting us $3200 per MBF; now you can hardly give it away.

Is it basically the same way in Oregon, California and Alaska?

No sissies on that operation- mentally & physically tough all the way!