Log driving

Log driving is a means of moving logs (sawn tree trunks) from a forest to sawmills and pulp mills downstream using the current of a river. It was the main transportation method of the early logging industry in Europe and North America.

History

When the first sawmills were established, they were usually small water powered facilities located near the source of timber, which might be converted to grist mills after farming became established when the forests had been cleared. Later, larger circular sawmills were developed in the lower reaches of a river, with the logs floated down to them by log drivers. In the broader, slower stretches of a river, the logs might be bound together into timber rafts. In the smaller, wilder stretches of a river, rafts couldn't get through, so masses of individual logs were driven down the river like huge herds of cattle.

The log drive was one step in a larger process of lumber-making in remote places. In a location with snowy winters, the yearly process typically began in the fall when a small team of men hauled tools upstream into the timbered area, chopped out a clearing, and constructed crude buildings for a logging camp. In the winter when things froze down, a larger crew moved into the camp and proceeded to fell trees, cutting the trunks into 16-foot (5 m) lengths, and hauling the logs with oxen or horses over iced trails to the riverbank. There the logs were decked onto "rollways." In the spring when snow thawed and water levels rose, the logs were rolled into the river, and the drive commenced.