It took many different people to run the winter cut. The skill and effort of the loggers, swampers, teamsters, cooks, managers, chickadees, jobbers and operators were all crucial to the success of a logging operation. Even management was a hands on affair. Teams of horses were housed in strategic locations just for the use of the owners and operators to be able to quickly reach any of their camps, quickly being within several days. Days were long, starting at or before dawn, and finishing after sundown.

One can only imagine what it was like living in a cabin with dozens of men for several months. The traditional meals of pork fried beans and other very fatty foods for energy every day is certainly different from what is considered ‘healthy’ today. Twelve hour workdays, six days a week all winter long are unheard of now. Injuries were not uncommon, and if you were of no use to the company, you were simply sent home.

The sawmill era was a rugged one. It preceded the papermill era, and although there was a considerable growth of pulpwood, only the large spruce trees were cut and used as saw-timber. Roads were primitive, and transportation to and from the camps and depots was done entirely by horses. The camps themselves were built in early autumn the year previous to the operation. Equipment and supplies had to be moved in on the ice during the winter before the cut. From the time camp building finished until the cutting season began, the camps were used as “keep-overs” to store the food, fodder, equipment, drugs, and “van” goods, that had been hauled in by portage teams.

The following year, in the early autumn, the horses were brought in to do the timber cutting. They usually finished the “cut” before Christmas, and during the holiday season all necessary preparations were made for the “log-haul.” Near the earliest date that ice was solid, usually in early January, the haul began. When conditions were good it was finished by the second week in March. The horses drew the saw logs to the closest drivable water, be it a creek, a river or lake, and piled them on the ice and on the banks.

Excerpt from: Hurling Down the Pine, by John W. Hughson and Courtney C. J. Bond

The men selected as “jobbers,” who contracted to run a shanty or two on behalf of the company, had usually been foremen on the “drive” or in one of the company’s shanties. In any case they had to be well known to the woods manager so that their general character and reliability were established. They were entrusted with quite a few thousand dollars worth of supplies and provisions and would be drawing other large quantities as the winter wore on.

The chief clerk at the Company’s issuing point was required to use a nice sense of balance and knowledge of the firm’s operations when he issued supplies to the jobbers, because the values of the contracts were all different, each being based on an estimate made by the Company’s forester as to the amount of timber of various kinds available on the particular small watershed involved. It was usually arranged that the jobber chosen for an area was already a settler in that area, or lived close to it. (“Close to” is, of course, a relative term, since the companies were usually managing areas of up to several thousand square miles.)

The jobber (or contractor) very seldom had any hope of making much profit from his winter’s work, but he did obtain housing and food for his whole family and even relatives sometimes, and for his horses and oxen for the winter months. It was very seldom that these men were called upon to make good any deficit on their contract, and in any case it would have been difficult to recover any money from them. They were usually given the job because of some peculiar situation or circumstances in one area of the drainage basin of some small stream on which they were to operate and where it would be awkward for the company to maintain its own camp during that particular winter. Any recovery of timber from that area would be just so much to the good.

Long black buildings in the cold light of dawn; the sound of teamsters and horses trampling around the stable by the dim light of two or three lanterns; log sleighs beginning to squeal along the hard snow road: a string of workmen hurrying down the trail to the cutting area, with frozen breath and smoke going straight up in the below zero weather, and soon the ring of the axe on frozen timber: this was how the day began.

The operators ran a tight ship and everything was supervised. There was no waste. The managers did most of their work right in the bush. If a river drive was sticking, the manager was personally responsible to take it out. If it appeared that logs were about to be left in the bush over the summer months he, again, was personally responsible and would quickly supervise any additional work necessary to complete the job.

Shanty life may sound romantic, but it was hard and tough. It was, however, a very healthy one. During the earlier years, the menu was limited. The men lived on fat salt pork, hard biscuits, tea and beans. Some time later the cooks were able to expand the menu to include bread, pies, fresh pork and sausages, and, of course, beef. Any man who lived in a lumber camp insists on talking about the marvellous baked beans. The beans, with a heavy content of fat pork, were left baking in a pot all night in a hot sand hole in the cambuse. Blackstrap molasses and prunes were also a must in the regular diet. The men slept well; they were in the cool clean air all day, and that helped them pass the night in sound slumber in the long building, with the red-hot stove in the center. Steam rose from clothing, socks, towels, underwear, moccasins and boots, which were all hung up to dry beside the bunks.