More pics from the logging camp

More pics from our Summer adventures......

One of the funnest days was when we got to go to the Forest History Museum in Grand Rapids Minnesota. It is one of the most visited places in Minnesota. Joe sooo did not want to go for the first few weeks, I don't know I guess he just wasn't thinking a museum would be too fun, well lucky for us, we saw an ad that on this particular Saturday it was a special Pie day! They were going to have a huge pie tasting day, there were at least 40 different pies there. That of course sold Joe on going. We packed a lunch and headed over. We had a pic nic outside the Museum first and then headed in. It turned out that the musuem has a huge old logging camp just outside. After trying almost every pie!! We got to go on the tour. The boys all LOVED it. They start it out as if you are back the 1880's during the big logging times there. They have you pretend that we are a group of Men going out because there is no work an we need to go to find work at a logging camp. We hiked about oh probly 1/4 of a mile, but all along the tour guide was telling us, that it is just before winter is starting, and we are really desperate to find work. The trouble is we won't know until we get there if they have any opening, and it will take 2 days to walk there. So we say goodbye to our families and they don't know when they will see us, either in 4 days if no work, or not until next spring. Once you arrive there are people all over dressed in the right time, and the whole tour is as if you are being hired for various positions, and they describe each one. They talked about why it would have been winter, because it was easier on the horses to pull the logs on the snow! But boy, were the conditions tough on the loggers. They sleeped in flea filled SMALL boxes that really looked like horse stalls. They shared a bunck with another grown, usually large man, and in the one lodge over 75 men slept. So you can imagine the smell! It was so great how they described it all. The boys got to saw a log, and get involved so much. The reason for the pie was that every logger got a 1/3 of a pie a day to take in there lunch packs out to the job. One great thing about the logging camps, were the food had to be good. That is what would draw the best loggers there. As good as could be, considering they needed whatever food they brought in to last the whole season, and be able to feed over 90 people daily, all the loggers of course, and then the other help, the cooks, the fire boys, the ones who kept every fire going in the four main areas, like the dinner hall, the lodge, and others. This position actually, paid the best, better then the chef, or the loggers. They made $35 month! Loggers made $30 a month. This person had to get up about 4 times a night to stoke fires, and run to each building in the apsolute freezing weather to do all the buildings. The other thing she said to the boys that I remember them with big eyes about, she said, now your the new guy, so that will be your bunk all the way over their, and ask them why that would not be the best place to sleep. She told them that it was the farthest from the fire, and they needed to be really careful that they didn't get to close to the wall, because many times they could wake up with there hair or coats frozen to the wall!!!

Anyway, it was so fun, we all loved it. Here are some pics!