His Logging Camp - PaulBunyan.org

SECTION 37, HIS LOGGING CAMP

What is a master without his domain? It is often said that a man's home is his castle, if such is so then Paul's camp must have been his kingdom. For he ruled over a crew of a hundred or more and onward over the expanses of the woodland frontier. No little time is ever made describing Paul's giant camp and the happenings therein. But, Paul was more clever than most, and not anywhere would do for the location of his camp. Land surveys are customarily done on a six-by-six grid, comprising thirty-six sections. Consequently, Paul always ensured that his camps were built nowhere but lucky section 37.

PAUL HAD A CAMP, ANOTHER UNDERSTATEMENT. See, Paul's camp was not just any camp, no sir. That camp was a place were the near was far and the far far out of sight. It was the spot, in the bunkhouses, where at day's end, the jacks hung their socks to dry ’round the old cast-iron stove, kick back and rest up the night before the next day's job. But that weren't the whole story. A logging camp bunkhouse was also a place were the whole lot of tired souls were moved to song, smoke and story. That is where the first tales were told. Where the name “Paul Bunyan” first rang out among a crop of open ears. But, that camp, I wish you could've would've seen it. All else aside, Paul, he didn't have it easy. Logging builds up a mighty powerful appetite, and feedin’ all those stomachs was a pretty tall order to fill:

“Of course I'm an old lumberjack cook but I got my start a flunkey for Paul. He only had a little camp in those days, nine cooks and 75 flunkeys. The cook-house was two miles long and the flunkeys was on roller skates. We didn't use any pearl divers, [dishwashers] the plates were nailed to the table and after meal we would get the hose and a broom each and scrub them every morning.

I drove the salt and pepper wagon. I used to get to the end of the table every nite and I'd start back the next morning; made three trips.

My bro, Dan had a contract hauling away the egg shells from the back door of the cook house. He kept four wagons busy all the time.”

— “Meat Burner,” The Seattle Star, November 20, 1920

It ain't no wonder, big or small, why so many take to Paul. Not only did he tamed that big, blue ox but could command a camp bigger than the rest of the other ’uns put together. And, that takes more than what might could be learned swinging an ax. Without question, Paul saw that all, the big and the tall, got their fill of chuck, that is food. By the wagon load, there was bacon, potatoes, fried salt pork with cream gravy, baked beans, fresh beef, venison and bear in the mix, brown bread, white bread, coffee as much as one can drink and flapjacks, of course. Not to mention, it was good fortune, too, that Paul was as quick with his wits as with an ax. As, sometimes things sort'a kind'a don't go as planned, y'know?

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TALES

“The cook shanty was so large that it took half a day to walk around its outside. Three forties had to be cleared each week to keep up a fire in the big cook-stove. An entire cord of wood was needed to start a blaze. The loaves of bread were gigantic. When the men had eaten the insides the crusts were used for bunks (some say bunk-houses). One day, Joe Mufferon, the cook, put a loaf in the oven and started around to the other side to remove it, but before he got there it had burned to a crisp.”

— Charles E. Brown, “American Folklore Paul Bunyan Tales”

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“Near the Round River camp was a hot spring, into which the tote-teamster, returning one day from town with a load of peas, dumped the whole load by accident. Most men would have regarded the peas as a dead loss, but not so Paul. He promptly added the proper amount of pepper and salt to the mixture and had enough hot pea-soup to last the crew all winter. When his men were working too far away from camp to return to dinner, he got the soup to them by freezing it upon the ends of sticks and sending it in that shape.”

— K. Bernice Stewart and Homer A. Watt, “Legends of Paul Bunyan, Lumberjack.”

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“Paul had much trouble with his cooks. He was always having to hire new ones. One got lost between the potato bin and the flour bin and nearly starved to death before he was found. The horn which Paul or the cook used to call the men to dinner was so big that it once blew down ten acres of pine. Next time the cook blew it straight up and that caused a cyclone.

The dining room was so large that when a man told a yarn [tall tale] at one end it grew so big by the time it reached the other that it had to be shoveled out. ”

— Charles E. Brown, “American Folklore Paul Bunyan Tales”

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“ One day old Forty Jones of Bunyan's crew killed two hundred deer by the simple process of tripping a key-log which supported a pile of logs on a hillside above the place where the animals came to drink. The skins were made into a harness for the blue ox. Some days later while the cook was hauling a log in for fire-wood, it began to rain, the buckskin began to stretch, and by the time the ox reached camp the log was out of sight around a bend in the road with the tugs stretching back endlessly after it. The cook tied the ox and went to dinner. While he was eating, the sun came out boiling hot, dried the buckskin harness, and hauled the log into camp. ”

— K. Bernice Stewart and Homer A. Watt, “Legends of Paul Bunyan, Lumberjack.”