North Country History with Rob Burg
Your podcast on the Forest History of the Great Lakes Region. The forests of the Great Lakes have been home to people for centuries and have provided great resources and wealth, shelter, food, and recreation for many. But in the wake of these uses, the region has been environmentally damaged from deforestation, fire, and erosion, and are still recovering to this day. I will be your guide for exploring the forests and sharing stories of the forests and the people who have called them home.
About Rob Burg: Hi! I'm an environmental historian specializing on the forest history of the Great Lakes Region. I am a mostly lifelong Michigan resident and studied at Eastern Michigan University for both my undergraduate degree in History and graduate studies in Historic Preservation. My 35-year professional life has mostly been in history museums, including the Henry Ford Museum and Greenfield Village, the Michigan History Museum, and the Stuhr Museum of the Prairie Pioneer. I began my environmental history career with managing both the Hartwick Pines Logging Museum and the Civilian Conservation Corps Museum for the Michigan History Museum system, directing the Lovells Museum of Trout Fishing History, archivist for the Devereaux Memorial Library in Grayling, Michigan, and as the Interpretive Resources Coordinator for the Stuhr Museum of the Prairie Pioneer in Grand Island, Nebraska. I am proud that the first person to ever call me an environmental historian was none other than Dr. William Cronon, the dean of American Environmental History.
North Country History with Rob Burg
River Drives and River Hogs
This episode is a continuation of the previous episode "Winter Logging." After the logs were cut in the winter they were moved to the banking grounds to await the Spring breakup of ice on the rivers to move the logs by water to the sawmills at the mouths of the rivers on the Great Lakes.
River drives were the most dangerous aspect of the logging industry. It took a steady and skillful man to be able to handle logs on a river drive as they were shepherded to the sawmills. Injury and death could be encountered by the careless or just unlucky river driver. For this reason, only the best hands were hired to move the logs. They had to be agile on their feet and be skilled to handle the tools of the trade such as the pike poles and Peavey poles. At the end of the drives in milltowns such as Alpena, AuSable and Oscoda, Bay City, Manistee, Manistique, Menominee, Muskegon, Oscoda, and Saginaw, the men were rewarded with their pay, alcohol, female companionship, and entertainment of all kinds. These men would walk tall as the greatest figures in the lumber industry.
However there was a great environmental impact of the river drives on the rivers of the Great Lakes, some that we are still feeling today. The landscapes of the rivers changed by the impact of logs being dumped into the river. The rivers themselves changed, making them less suitable for aquatic and terrestrial wildlife, and it has taken a century, or more, for these rivers to recover.
Correction in Podcast: I kept mentioning Front Street in Bay City. It is actually Water Street that I was referring to.
Episode Sources:
Alexander, Jeff. "The Muskegon: The Majesty and Tragedy of Michigan's Rarest River." Michigan State University Press, East Lansing, MI, 2006.
Allen, Clifford (editor). "Michigan Log Marks." WPA Writers' Project, Michigan State College, East Lansing, MI, 1941.
Benson, Barbara E. "Logs and Lumber: The Development of Lumbering in Michigan's Lower Peninsula 1837-1870." Clarke Historical Library, Central Michigan University, Mount Pleasant, MI, 1989.
Crowe, William S., and Lynn McGlothlin Emerick and Ann McGlothlin Weller (editors). "Lumberjack: Inside an Era in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan." North Country Publishing, Skandia, MI, 2002.
Foehl, Harold M. and Irene M. Hargreaves. "The Story of Logging the White Pine in the Saginaw Valley." Red Keg Press, Bay City, MI, 1964.
Halsey, John R., Eric A. McDonald, and Rose Lockwood Moore. "The East Branch Big Creek Logging Dam and Sluiceway (20OD25), Oscoda County, Michigan." "The Michigan Archaeologist." Michigan Archaeological Society, Grand Rapids, MI, Vol. 43, Nos. 2-3, 1997.
Kilar, Jeremy W. "Michigan's Lumbertowns: Lumbermen and Laborers in Saginaw, Bay CIty, and Muskegon, 1870-1905." Wayne State University Press, Detroit, MI, 1990.
Maybee, Rolland H. "Michigan's White Pine Era 1840-1900." Michigan Historical Commission, Lansing, MI, 1960.
Miller, Hazen L. "The Old Au Sable." William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., Grand Rapids, MI, 1963.
Nolan, Herbert. "Logging the Tittabawassee: In Memory of Camp Sixteeners." Printer Devil's Press, Tawas City, MI, 1970.
Rector, William Gerald. "Log Transportation in the Lake States Lumber Industry, 1840-1918." The Arthur H. Clarke Company, Glendale, CA, 1953.