Part Seven The Logging Camp Cook

PART SEVEN

The Logging Camp Cook Kept the Lumbermen Going

     My father Ed, spent a majority of his working life, in the employ of the lumber industry labouring in one capacity or another. If memory serves he worked for Jones Lumber in Ancaster, Ontario, Tepsons, although I'm not sure where that was located, Weldwood, Consumer's Lumber, and when we moved to Muskoka, he began with the well known Shier's Lumber Company, and then finished his days as general manager of Bracebridge's Building Trades Centre. I worked for a summer as a general labourer at Building Trades and decided after one summer, that my relationship with lumber would be through family from that point on. It was an incredibly difficult job, and my most loathed gig, was having to crawl up into the tiny air space inside the fully loaded box car, with none other than cedar siding. There were also two by fours, and four by fours. Did I mention it would occur on the company siding on the hottest days of the summer. When I got the uppermost level cleared out, so that the fork lift could be better employed to lift out the rest of the lumber, I was covered in blood from the hundreds of splinters in my arms and legs from the dry cedar. I itched for the next week.
     I got to perform many other lumber-yard tasks often including the gathering of wood to fill orders, to be shipped out later that same day. Whenever my work-mate pulled the lift truck to the pile of timbers, long and short, I cringed with fear. I was the manager's son, and my father worried about my initiation to the company, especially amongst those who didn't really care for his managerial style. He was right. They were hard on me. Here's an example:
     I used to ride on the side of the lift-truck so that I could get to the piles of lumber at the same time as my partner we called "Balls". When we pulled up to the pile of timbers, the big ones being most feared of all, Balls would get on one end of the pile and I was supposed to be on the other end, so that we could pick up a timber at the same time, and then shift one at a time onto the forks of the lift-truck raised to accept the timbers. Balls warned me about the back-lash of the timber, if, for example, we didn't drop them onto the forks at exactly the same time. I don't know why he warned me of this, because it didn't matter, even if we both counted to three before dropping it onto the forks. If we had agreed to drop a timber down on three, he let his end go on two. My end of the timber was often still in my hand when he tossed his end, and that usually beat the heck out of my hands. Sometimes, the toss would be so agressive that I would get the whiplash of timber whipping past my ear, while Balls was already picking up the next timber. The timbers by the way, even the short ones, are hugely heavy, and getting an end bashing you on the head, beat anything I got as a hockey goaltender in all my seasons. I got even with Balls by the end of the summer, because I'd agree to count to three and then toss it down on one. He soon figured out that the Ed Currie's kid was smarter than he thought.
     Point of this lengthy preamble is that, even in modern times, of which the seventies seemed that way, the lumber business demanded exceptional alertness and physical fitness. The ambulance visited frequently, especially the saw mill at the side, when one of the labourers, or saw operators had an "oops" moment. I simply can't imagine how incredibly difficult the lumbering business was, first as the loggers had to deal with cutting and extracting white pine logs from the rough Muskoka landscape, and then running them along the rapids-filled waterways to local sawmills. This will be a feature story for later, but what is of interest today, is how the loggers got their sustenance out their in the snowy woods, hustling about their jobs in a Arctic-like climate. What was the cook up to in that shanty, that would inspire the men that physical salvation was a few hours away. It is said by some of the insiders from that period, that the Camboose and other camp cooks were of the highest quality, the food delicious, and that employees often weighed this fact, before signing-on to work in the winter and then log drive. The best cooks were considered quite an asset of these logging enterprises, and the well known early century book by Reverend Allen, entitled "From the Lumber Camp to the Ministry," has a fabulous section, where the author highlights the fine work of the camp cooks in their wonderfully aromatic kitchens; with the tell-tale wafting of woodsmoke that very much added to the flavor of everything being cooked on-site, like it or not. Including wood ash.
     One of the favorite logging camp staples, but not the best inside air quality, was the buried iron pots, in the fire pit, of baking beans that would cook for most of the day leading to the logger's dinner hour. It was thick with molasses and pork bits and grease, and was definitely of the hardy variety, to satisfy hunger pangs. And yes, it was expected wood ash falling to the mix would give that smokey flavour to the menu, no matter what was being served at the time. It could be desert!
     Reverend Allen writes about the preparation of stews, using a variety of available meat, which depended largely on the cash to purchase better quality provisions; or if bad weather limited accessibility via roadways, a mutton or beef stew, might have to be altered somewhat, although the men may not have known of the substitution. If there were cows kept for their dairy product capacity, milk and butter particularly, which wasn't common by the way, it's possible one or two might go missing to feed the camp. The same for oxen used for hauling, or the occasional horse that showed signs of poor health usually due to having worked to hard for too long. The men, being hungry, were mostly concerned at the final hour, that provisions were plentiful and did not taste like it often looked. Reverend Allen wrote about looking into the cookery before breakfast preparations had fully begun, and watched as the camp cook stirred a large and thick layer of white fat, that had congealed on the top of the stew from the night before, was mixed in to the rest of the pot, to get it ready for later in the day. To most of us today, this would be considered grossly unhealthy and, in the process of preparation, well, pretty disgusting. But it had the constitution that seemed to work well for the loggers, who had to work in some of the most adverse weather conditions, demanding the physical endurance to make it through a sunrise to sunset length day.
     It was also recorded in a number of historic lumbering industry overviews, from the period of logging in Muskoka from the 1860's onward to the 1890's, that dinner periods in the mess hall area of these same camps, were only filled with the metal sounds of utensils hitting tin dinner trays, occasional coughing and snuffing of the nostrils, as rules often prohibited talking while the meal was in progress. Most of the men would admittedly, have been so hungry, conversation would have only got in the way of hardy eating.
     There would have been other meat options provided at these camps, dependent on the wildlife of the neighborhood where the camp operation, or river drive was located. It's highly possibly, on occasion, to have offered the loggers freshly caught fish and game, such as rabbit, deer and moose although this would have been considered quite a treat from the normal fare. It is known that many of these logging camp cooks were highly proficient bread, and pie bakers. It is also known that many women from the area also provided food materials for the camps, and would come to the camps themselves to staff the kitchens, although this was not the case for a majority of the operations, at least in this region of Ontario.
     Cookery heritage is more than just a household consideration, and these unsung heroes of the camp kitchens kept Muskoka's number one industry in operation, in those formative years, thanks to their hardy, nourishing, stick-to-your-bones dinners. We have found a few recipes for baked beans we believe were from some of those camps, but we really don't think the cooks in these situations really needed one to follow; at least after the first thousand suppers.
     In Suzanne's family archives, specifically her uncle Bert Shea's book, "The History of the Sheas and the Paths of Adventure,"
there is a small but interesting passage addressing camp food, under the heading "Back to Camp." It reads as follows: "Daylight the following morning saw John and Nehemiah miles from home, heading at a brisk pace in the clear frosty air for Number 2 Camp, Moon River. Not pausing in their pace at noon, each undone a lunch of good home-made bread and cold, homegrown pork in a sandwich, done up on a big red handkerchief tied to a brace under their mackinaw coats to keep them from freezing. Eating as they travelled, the days were short and the miles long and to be at Borlin's Camp on time for supper was important or there would be nothing to eat till breakfast.
     "Tired and hungry they arrived at the camp. Of the few who remained in over Christmas, one had made himself a new hunting knife in the blacksmith shop, another, a new white oak handle for his handaxe, another had gone hunting and shot a fine buck that brought fresh venison in the camp for Christmas. Others had spent their time resting around the table playing cards; all were interested in news from the outside world. John and Nehemiah after a good supper, crawled into their bunks and were soon asleep, to arouse at the usual time - at breakfast the long tables were far from full, but the men were straggling in throughout the day and by night, singly and in groups, some fit and some badly out of balance from the bottle."
     In another paragraph, Bert Shea offers a particularly warm and inviting overview of the lumber camp, writing, "It is needless to say that as darkness settled down on that cool September evening, the odor of wood smoke reaching the nostrils of the weary traveller, the dim lights of the oil lamps from the camp windows, that came into view, then the odour of cooking food filtering out of the open cookery door, all offered a wordless welcome not only to John but to many the weary traveller seeking out work in the land of the virgin pine.
     "A lumber camp was a place where grub was stocked in plenty, there were no restrictions as to the amount of food a man could eat so long as he was there for the interest of the operator. But for the greater part of lumbermen, they were there for all they could get for themselves without concern for man or horseflesh."
     A thriving lumbering camp had a thriving camp kitchen, and good, hardy food, for a hardy day's work. This is a legacy of the Muskoka experience, as it existed in the lumber camps of old.
     Thank you for joining this short series of articles on cookery heritage, handwritten recipes, and vintage cookbooks. I will be writing more about the logging industry as it existed in this locale, in the near future, early in the New Year, all to be published on this facebook page. Coming up next is our favorite "Christmas in Muskoka" series of articles, that will run for the entire month of December, ending on New Year's Day. Some of the stories will be ones I wrote many years ago, and a few more recently, but most will be new for 2016. They are rooted in our family's love for this wonderful part of the world, and it's one of my favorite seasons of the year, in which to put pen to paper, and rejoice about the good qualities and quantities of being a Muskokan. Please join us starting December 1st.