Hello, and welcome back. This is our last story about Paul Bunyan. Today’s story is about Paul Bunyan the master craftsman. As time went by, Paul’s crew continued to grow, and so did his workload. Paul was constantly running into problems and had to invent new tools or ways to complete a job.
Paul was the inventor of logging. This itself caused a small problem for Paul. There were no two jobs the same and Paul had to make changes for each job. One problem Paul faced was the marking of his logs, so the mills would know that they came from him. At first Paul could just use his fingernail and scratch a line in the bark since he was the only logger around. After a short while, other companies started logging also. Paul then had to find a quick way to distinguish his logs from the others. Paul noticed as he was cutting the logs that his axe head was glowing read with heat. With his quick thinking Paul took his axe head and burned a mark in the bark. Paul was the only person who could swing an axe with a six-foot head, so this mark was surely his.
Another problem that Paul ran into was dull axes. Paul could cut logs for three days straight, but it would take five days to get the axe sharp again. While in North Dakota Paul was behind schedule and could not wait five days for the axe to be sharpened. Paul found a completely round stone. He thought for a minute and attached a wooden arm to the stone. He used the camp gofer to run circles around the camp and turn the stone. With this new invention an axe could be sharpened in one day. This worked well because while one axe was being sharpened Paul used his spare axe and could chop around the clock.
One time
that sticks out in my mind was during the winter in North Dakota. It
had been
snowing for weeks and the snow was piled up as tall as the pines. Paul
was
having fits trying to walk in the deep snow; he kept sinking to his
waist. This
was a terrible problem as Paul was to be in California the next day to
work in the
nicer weather. Without time to waste, Paul started collecting branches
off the
tops of the pines that were sticking through the snow. He began to tie
the
branches together in a web design and attached them to his feet. With
these new
snow shoes Paul was able to walk on top of the snow. This invention
allowed
Paul to travel to California and clear the northern half of the state.
These
shoes were great but they took a while to tie on and take off. Paul was
in a
hurry to get back to North Dakota and could not stop long enough to
take the
shoes off. He ran so fast that the shoes caught fire and set the lower
half of
Idaho on fire. Paul using his fast thinking, lay down, took a gulp of
the river,
and spat it on the fire. This caused a massive lake that is known today
as the
Great Spat
Lake. I would like to think all who
listened to my journey with Paul Bunyan.
Author’s notes: This week I told stories about Paul’s craftsmanship. Paul being so big and having so much work caused the need for special tools and also special skills. Paul always had to invent new ideas to do a job. One story that I liked was how it normally took rolling big rocks down hills to sharpen their axes, Paul finally invented a grindstone to sharpen the axe. I retold this story and added a little more detail about how the grindstone was actually invented. There is also a story about Paul making the first saw. I decided to leave this story out. Even though the story about the first story was a good story, I did not want to use it.. I did use the story about Paul making the snow shoes. I really like this story and thought that it would be funny to add the part about the shoes causing the fire. I added the lake because most Paul Bunyan stories end with a natural attraction. I also retold the story about Paul marking the logs. I have read about the axe heads becoming glowing red with heat and thought it would be a good use of information to have them burn the mark in the log.
Biblography:
The Marvelous
Exploits of Paul
Bunyan as
Told in the Camps of the White Pine Lumbermen for Generations
During Which Time the Loggers Have Pioneered the Way Through the North
Woods From Maine to California
W. B. Laughead 1934
Website: Books
about California
Image: Acadia
Magic web site.