A C K N O W L E D G M E N T
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Grateful acknowledgment is made to numerous friends and family for
help in making this project possible. To my Uncle, Chris Grosvenor (his
site ), for finding and purchasing the
copy for which this site is based. To my mother, S. G. Sharpe, for helping me scan
Coert Du Bois's wonderful illustrations and finally to the librarians at the
Louisa County High School, Wendy Craig and Anne Repp, for helping research
important information on the book. 2006
Contact Info: LENWOOD S. SHARPE, GENT.
YourFriendAndServant@FearsomeCreaturesOfTheLumberwoods.com
I N T R O D U C T I O N
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Every lumber region has its lore. Thrilling tales of adventure
are told in camp wherever the logger has entered the wilderness. The lumber jack
is an imaginative being, and a story loses none of its interest as it is carried
and reapeated from one camp to another. Stories which I know to have originated
on the Penobscot and the Kennebec are told, somewhat strengthened and improved, in
the redwood camps of Humboldt Bay. Yarns orginating among the river drivers of
the Ottawa, the St. Croix, and the upper Mississippi are respun to groups of
listening loggers on Vancouver Island. But every lumber district has its own
peculiar tales. Some have their songs, also, and nearly all have mysterious
stories or vague rumors of dreadful beasts with which to regale newcomers and
frighten people unfamiliar with the woods. Much has been written concerning the
lumber jack and his life ; some of his songs also, rough but full of the sentiment
of his exciting vocation, have been commemorated, but, so far as I know, very few
the strange creatures of his imagination have ever been described by the
naturalist or sketched by the artist.
The lumber regions are
contracting. Stretches of forest that once seemed boundless are all but gone, and
many a stream is quiet that once ran full of logs and echoed to the song of the
river driver. Some say that the old type of logger himself is becoming extinct.
It is my purpose in this little book to preserve at least a description and sketch
of some of the interesting animals which he has originated. WM. T. COX .
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