bunks with straw tics and a huge grey
thick spread for each man. Inside this
room there was also a table with a basin
and pail of water for the men to wash
up with and there was a barrel stove
for heat. Between this structure and
the cook camp, there was an attached
roof and entryway called a Dingle. I
remember there was always ice coming
in from the outside and this entryway
was always extremely slippery. There
were two young boys who had the job
of cutting and splitting wood for the
sleeping and cooking camps. They also
had to shovel the snow and ice from
the entryway and carry water from the
nearby brook.
There were also four or five small camps
where some of the men who brought
their families would live.
a 25-pound box of cod fish, sugar and
flour in 100-pound cotton bags, fivegallon pails of butter which had an
additive that had to be worked into the
lard which turned the butter yellow,
salt pork and five-gallon pails of orange
and lemon pie filling. Mother made
homemade bread and biscuits every
day. And, the cotton bags that had flour
and sugar in them ended up being our
dresses.
We would stay at the camp right
through the winter and early spring.
There was no room in the cook camp for
a Christmas tree, but we were creative.
Mother had many cases of canned milk
which were used in cooking and milk
for the men’s tea. We would save these
cans and would string hay wire through
holes made in the cans with Mother’s
large butcher knife. There were no
can openers. There was a Cedar tree
outside the camp and we would throw
these cans upon the tree limbs. Mother
had made a loop with a hook in the
can and the hook would catch onto a
branch when we threw them up. To us
young children, this tree seemed very
big when in reality it was probably six
or eight feet. The milk can ornaments
stayed there for many years rusting
away. How Mother was ever able to get
us Christmas gifts was always a mystery
to me, but we always had something
on Christmas morning. My fondest
memory of a Christmas gift was a little
sailor doll which I cherished for many
years.
During the day, Papa and the men
would cut lumber and pile it in various
places in the woods. There was a
bulldozer that was used to open trails
in the woods. The cedar cuttings were
loaded onto single sleds and hauled by
the work horses to the high landing on
the St. John River bank. This was about
a four-mile haul. In late spring when
woodcutting was done, because of the
muddy conditions, the wood that had
been cut and hauled to higher ground
was rolled into the river. The men
would roll the logs into the river and
they would float down to the mill in Ft.
Kent. This was called the Spring Drive.
It was extremely dangerous work,
rolling these logs into the river. Men
could be killed if they were caught in Late spring would come, we would
the rolling logs and not being careful.
return home and start getting the
gardens ready for planting and of
Since there were no vehicles in the course, those old enough to go to
woods, when it was time to get supplies school would return to their studies.
for the meals Mother would travel
by horse and sled for about six miles
to where there was a vehicle available
and someone would drive her into
town for the supplies. Some of the
supplies purchased included 50 gallon
barrels of molasses, 100- pound bags
of dry beans, 25-30 pounds of raisins,
26
WINTER 2016