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NotMeantForTheCity

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I am engaged in an off-and-on project to identify and document the occupations that a self-sufficient community would need to survive without much contact from the outside world and without our modern reliance on petroleum- I'm thinking the period from 1890 to 1920.

I've obtained several lists of occupations from the web, and I have classified them into broad categories and then into specific functions within each broad category.

This is what I have for the lumber industry:

lumberjacklumberjack
lumbersplittersomeone who splits timber either by hand or with a machine
lumbertop sawyer
topman		upper man in a saw pit
lumbertrepangerone who used a circular saw to cut timber

Does anyone know of any other occupations connected to the lumber industry?
 
Teamsters to drive the teams of horses to "skid" or haul logs or material to merchants. River boat operators to wrangle the river borne logs to mill. Carpenters to build the slidable housing and cookshack around the eternal project. A near bar and whorehouse.
 
A feller cuts trees down.

A scaler measures (scales) the board feet of a log. This determines how much the logging company gets paid by the mill or other purchaser.

I was a level loader operator. I sorted and stacked cants. A cant is a squared off log. It is illegal to export unmilled lumber. This is the least milled lumber you could export. The cants I worked with went to Japan and most were buried in swamps for up to 100 years. The swamps would protect the lumber from rot.

I'll not list any other logging jobs that require electricity to diesel for the integrity of this thread.
 
Topper:
The guy that climbs a tall tree to cut the top off before it is felled.
 
You would need most if not all of the business staff you have today. Think of it from cradle to grave.

Somebody had to go out and find the timber/trees that would be profitable to cut. That land would have to be purchased from somebody. Once you set up operations, which would require personnel, you would need office staff to direct operations, and keep track of everything that was cut and processed. Probably at least one accountant or bookkeeper to keep track of finances. Money would be coming in from Sales, and going out for expenses. You are going to have a payroll.

Back end you have to get your product to market. You have to get it out of the woods, and use some type of transportation, and you must have customers somewhere. IMHO the staffing and number of jobs would be significant. Not terribly different from what you have today.
 
Sourdough said:
Teamsters to drive the teams of horses to "skid" or haul logs or material to merchants. River boat operators to wrangle the river borne logs to mill. Carpenters to build the slidable housing and cookshack around the eternal project. A near bar and whorehouse.
Click to expand...
I've put teamsters and boat operators in a category for transportation.
 
Caribou said:
A feller cuts trees down.

A scaler measures (scales) the board feet of a log. This determines how much the logging company gets paid by the mill or other purchaser.

I was a level loader operator. I sorted and stacked cants. A cant is a squared off log. It is illegal to export unmilled lumber. This is the least milled lumber you could export. The cants I worked with went to Japan and most were buried in swamps for up to 100 years. The swamps would protect the lumber from rot.

I'll not list any other logging jobs that require electricity to diesel for the integrity of this thread.
Click to expand...
Is the ban on exporting unmilled lumber a precaution against spreading insects or disease?
 
Magpie said:
I'm thinking there would have been office staff like clerks? and agents also. How far out-like the ripple effect- were you thinking? Because you would have transport links, hauliers and the like.
Click to expand...
Different job categories. So far I have 24 broad categories, and I'm only about halfway through with my compiled list.

I have a category for brick and stone masonry, but I'm wondering if most of these jobs should be moved to the category for construction.
 
NotMeantForTheCity said:
Is the ban on exporting unmilled lumber a precaution against spreading insects or disease?
Click to expand...
No. It is an effort to retain jobs in America. The Alaska natives are exempt from this law. Bundles of logs are loaded on a truck and strapped together. these bundles are then dropped into the water. A chain of logs then surrounds the bundles and a raft is formed. The raft is towed to the mill where it is cut into lumber, or cut into chips at a paper mill.

The natives would cut off their land, dump the bundles into the bay where a ship would come in, load the bundles, and carry the raw logs to Japan where they would be buried. The raft builders, the tugs, and the mill jobs would all be eliminated.

I worked on tugs though I never towed logs. A friend of mine was the skipper on a tug, towing a raft of logs near Ketchikan, when the Good Friday earthquake tsunami hit (9.2). You can't see a tsunami in deep water. He went past the same point three times. The tsunami kept carrying him miles backward.
 
SLADE said:
There are tribes alive today that survive with none or those skills.
Click to expand...

Certainly, but this thread is specifically about the old occupations involving the lumber industry.
 
A friend of mine ran his own logging operation by himself. He has one son, three daughters, and his wife. I went to high school with his kids. H bought a surplus tank, removed the turret, and used that to drag his lumber out of the woods. There are big operations and small operations.
 
SLADE said:
There are tribes alive today that survive with none or those skills.
Click to expand...

The Bajau Sea Nomad shttps://isemph.org/Sea-Nomads​

But not being one of them I need skilled worker to get the job completed.
Wood worker to repair wagons, carts, plow handles, crates, Barrel, spoons & bowls.
Blacksmith for iron work, there is more metal above ground then any time in history.
Undertaker, potter, woodsmen, herdsmen, horses men, glass blower, miners for salt, coal,
midwives, herbalist, gardener, orchard steward.
Lets not forget the Chicken lady.
 
joel said:

The Bajau Sea Nomad shttps://isemph.org/Sea-Nomads​

But not being one of them I need skilled worker to get the job completed.
Wood worker to repair wagons, carts, plow handles, crates, Barrel, spoons & bowls.
Blacksmith for iron work, there is more metal above ground then any time in history.
Undertaker, potter, woodsmen, herdsmen, horses men, glass blower, miners for salt, coal,
midwives, herbalist, gardener, orchard steward.
Lets not forget the Chicken lady.
Click to expand...
Need a wheelwright as well to make the rims for the wagon wheels
 
You may want to see if you can get a copy of Durable Trades: Family Centered Economies That Have Stood The Test of Time. I picked up a copy of this book several years ago. I mainly got it for my oldest son to browse through, as he has no desire to go to a four year school.

https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/56141272-durable-trades
 
My great aunt was married to a man who made deliveries. I have been looking for the name of his profession way back then. It is likely that he did not have an automobile, but made deliveries with a horse and some sort of buggy. Of course, this kind of job kept evolving, and we can all get deliveries to our front doors now.
 
Weedygarden said:
My great aunt was married to a man who made deliveries. I have been looking for the name of his profession way back then. It is likely that he did not have an automobile, but made deliveries with a horse and some sort of buggy. Of course, this kind of job kept evolving, and we can all get deliveries to our front doors now.
Click to expand...
The name you may be looking for is drayman. A dray is the wagon or cart that hauled freight. Later the term extended to trucks used for deliveries.
 
My grandmother was a cook for a lumber camp. This would have been probably in the 20's or 30's. She started cooking about 4 a.m. and kept going till evening. She said by the time the breakfast dishes were done she had to have lunch started. By the time lunch dishes were washed, dinner had to be started. One year the got snowed in at Christmas and couldn't go back home. One of the men chopped down the Christmas tree. She decorated it with tinfoil decorations and popcorn.
 
My grandfather had a skiff that he used to get trees he sold to the lumber mill. I remember my uncle (who was younger than I am) and I rode ontop of the trees while he dragged it out of the woods. This was well after the 20's and 30's, but I imagine the probably did something similar back then when they didn't have waterways to transport the lumber.
 
Alaskajohn said:
Certainly, but this thread is specifically about the old occupations involving the lumber industry.
Click to expand...
Well that a narrow minded non- survival POV.
The strongest do not survive.
The Smartest do not survive.
Only the one who is Flexible & can change with the climate.
 
joel said:
Well that a narrow minded non- survival POV.
The strongest do not survive.
The Smartest do not survive.
Only the one who is Flexible & can change with the climate.
Click to expand...

I hate to bust your bubble, but you clearly lack reading and comprehension skills.
 
Buffalo said:
You may want to see if you can get a copy of Durable Trades: Family Centered Economies That Have Stood The Test of Time. I picked up a copy of this book several years ago. I mainly got it for my oldest son to browse through, as he has no desire to go to a four year school.

https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/56141272-durable-trades
Click to expand...
I haven't read this yet, but I think I saw a youtube video a while back where the author discussed the book with Jon Townsend, who runs a company that produces and sells clothing and equipment for people who do 18th century re-enacting at historic sites and Hollywood.
 
NotMeantForTheCity said:
I haven't read this yet, but I think I saw a youtube video a while back where the author discussed the book with Jon Townsend, who runs a company that produces and sells clothing and equipment for people who do 18th century re-enacting at historic sites and Hollywood.
Click to expand...
Yes! J.A.S.Townsends and Sons. I've followed his channel for several years and when I was younger and doing living history I always sent off for their catalog.

I heard about the book on the Glenn Beck show a while back.
 
Shawn Burkett said:
My grandfather had a skiff that he used to get trees he sold to the lumber mill. I remember my uncle (who was younger than I am) and I rode ontop of the trees while he dragged it out of the woods. This was well after the 20's and 30's, but I imagine the probably did something similar back then when they didn't have waterways to transport the lumber.
Click to expand...
Dragging the logs out of the woods is called skidding. Today they have machines called skitters to drag the logs with. Previously they might skid logs with a horse team. I read of one guy that used his pet moose to skid logs.

Waterways have always been the most economical way to transport logs. I expect that your grandfather had a number of short lines with a log dog at each end. He would dog the tail of oe log to the head of another and tow them in one behind the other. He could only tow a few at a time with a skiff. Larger boats would make rafts with bundled logs, if the water was deep enough.
 
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