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David
Vaughan plays ‘Treasure Island’
and goes deep into the forest to find
the lost steam donkeys of British Columbia.
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A steam donkey in action. Note
the supply of firewood and the
tin roof slanting down to keep
the rain off. The remains of the
awning were still to be seen on
the engines I found in the forest.
HARBOUR PUBLISHING
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British
Columbia is a vast province on Canada’s
West coast, stretching from the USA’s
Washington state in the South to Alaska
and the Yukon Territory in the North.
It encompasses the capital city of Vancouver
and the Rocky Mountains, together with
thousands of square miles of unspoilt
natural beauty. Since the early days of
the province’s foundation one of
its staple industries has been timber
extraction.
Like all industries, logging has had its
share of ups and downs in world markets
and has always been a hazardous industry
to work in. This was never more so than
in the early days when it was often the
case of one man logging in the depths
of the rainforests of the west coast with
only the bears and wolves for company.
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If you go down in the woods today,
you’re sure of a big surprise!
The two engines have been left virtually
untouched where they stood for 60
years. David is standing by the
pipe that fed water from the stream
to the boiler.
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Mechanisation in the form of petrol driven
chain saws and gas powered winches only
arrived in the early 20th century, but
steam power was introduced to some of
the larger logging crews in the late 19th
century when, in 1882, John Dolbeer was
credited with the introduction of a machine
which revolutionised the industry —
the ‘Steam Donkey’.
I recently visited a remote part of British
Columbia, where logging is one of its
main industries. I was in search of a
bit of peace and quiet but I couldn’t
resist the temptation of finding something
interesting! When I arrived at Port McNeil
on the north of Vancouver Island, my eye
was immediately drawn to what was obviously
a large vertical boiler on a patch of
grass near the waterfront. Closer inspection
revealed that it was a quite well preserved
example of one of the old logging steam
donkeys.
These were basically a large vertical
boilered steam stationary engine, wood
fired of course, that drives a pair of
hefty winch drums which are skilfully
worked by the ‘Donkeyman’
through a system of clutches and brakes.
A more modern term for the winch engine,
still used today, is a ‘yarder’.
The purpose of the donkey engine is to
extract the felled timber from the forest
and get it down to the shoreline or riverbank
where it is made up into a raft or ‘boom’
to be floated to the sawmill.
Put simply, the winches operate two hawsers,
the ‘Mainline’ and the ‘Backline’,
which work like one of those old clothes
lines where you pay out the clothes as
you peg them on using a pulley at the
far end of the line. The mainline is paid
out to a ‘spar tree’ at the
felling area. This is usually uphill from
the engine so as to give lift. The ‘Chokerman’
attaches his ‘choker’ to the
front end of the tree trunks, and then
the ‘Whistle punk’ (usually
the youngest member of the crew) signals
to the ‘Donkeyman’ by pulling
on a long cord strung through the trees
and attached to the whistle on the donkey
to ‘Haul in the Mainline’.
The backline, which can be up to two miles
long, is then let out as the logs are
skidded down hill on ‘Bedding skids’
which are small trees felled across the
hill for the big trees to slide on.
It is often the case that, due to undulating
ground, this is a two stage operation
and trees are hauled to a dead log stack
where there is another spar tree and the
process is repeated down to the shoreline.
Once at the water’s edge, the steam
donkey was also often used in conjunction
with an ‘A-frame’ - two tall
trunks tied together. The trees, now shorn
of all branches, were attached to this
by the choker and hauled up into the air
then swung over into the water. Although
operations would nearly always be carried
out on falling ground, so as to speed
the passage of the tree trunks, it was
a hazardous task and snags or jams were
common, calling for skill on the part
of the Donkeyman in order to minimise
the risk of the hawser snapping and the
winch stalling. All the members of the
logging crew lived dangerous lives and
the steam donkey itself worked in tough
and arduous conditions and had to withstand
harsh treatment.
End
of the On-line article. You can read the full article in the latest
issue of Old Glory.
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