Log drives were often in conflict with navigation, as logs would sometimes fill the entire river and make boat travel dangerous or impossible. Floating logs down a river worked well for the most desirable pine timber, because it floated well.
What did log drivers do?
A draveur, or log driver, was a person who ran convoys of cut trees and facilitated the floating of logs in rivers. When the very first sawmills were established in Canada, they were usually water-powered and small in size, and located near the forests where trees were being cut down.
What is river log?
When logs floated apart, log drivers would direct and control them in curves of the stream with pike poles. Reaching the broader streams and rivers, the logs would be bundled together in timber rafts controlled from the banks of the river or from boats.
Why are there so many logs in the Fraser River?
Sometimes, the log booms are brought into the Fraser River in order to store the wood temporarily in freshwater before shipping overseas. Invariably, some logs roll out of the booms as the tides wash in and out. Companies that cut the trees rarely put their tag on the logs.
Do logs sink?
If an object weighs less than an equal volume of water, it floats because the water can support its weight. An object that is less dense than water can be held up by water, and so it floats. An object that is more dense than water will sink. The logs that float are less dense than the logs that sink.
What were the work conditions like for log drivers?
They left their family’s behind for the lucrative but dangerous job of river running. Working 14-16 hours a day, 6 days a week in icy cold waters, living in isolated camps and the majority could not even swim.
Are there still log drivers in Canada?
The reason Log Drivers don’t exist anymore isn’t because of logging trucks, it’s because the quality wood adjacent to rivers is mostly gone. Water transportation and sorting of logs is still very much a thing; come up to coastal BC Canada and you’ll see it frequently.
What is a river pig?
The men who undertook the dangerous task of guiding the logs downstream were known as “river pigs.” River Pigs had three roles: (1) the driver pushed, pried and pulled the logs off rocks and debris. (2) the rear (Sacking) crew searched for logs that were stuck along the way.
What are the three types of logging?
There are three major groups of timber harvest practices; clearcutting, shelterwood and selection systems.
Why do Vancouver beaches have logs?
Regardless of their origin, drift wood acts as an important stabilizer of beaches. In the winter these logs are tossed like tiny toothpicks by high tides and pounding waves. In the summer they settle into place and trap sand and organic material.
What is a log boom used for?
A log boom is a barrier placed in a river, designed to collect and or contain floating logs timbered from nearby forests sometimes called a fence or bag. The term is also used as a place where logs were collected into booms, as at the mouth of a river.
Why was it necessary to drive logs down river?
Floating logs down a river worked well for the most desirable pine timber, because it floated well. But hardwoods were more dense, and weren’t buoyant enough to be easily driven, and some pines weren’t near drivable streams. Log driving became increasingly unnecessary with the development of railroads and the use of trucks on logging roads.
Where was the St Croix River Log Jam in 1886?
In 1886, a log jam developed in the St. Croix River, close to Taylors Falls, Minnesota, and St. Croix Falls, Wisconsin. It was described at the time by a local journalist as “the jammedest jam” he had encountered, and was very difficult to clear, with hundreds of men working for six weeks to clear it, eventually using steamboats and dynamite.
When was the last log drive on the Gatineau River?
During the peak of the log drive in the latter part of the 20th century, 1.3 million cubic meters of wood was floated down the Gatineau River each year. From the 1830s to the last log drive on the Gatineau River in 1990, logs travelled some 400km until they arrived at the mill on the Ottawa River, just a stone’s throw from Parliament Hill.
What was the purpose of a River Drive?
River drives were a standard way of moving large amounts of cut timber to sawmills during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, prior to the expansion and adoption of railroads and trucks for log transport. This clip is an excerpt from “Timber on the Move: A History of Log Moving Technology,” a documentary film from the Forest History Society:
