GUTS AND GRACE
As far as Port Arthur goes this story starts in Lake Nipigon...that lovely lake
beloved by
moose hunters and fishermen. On one of
its many feeding rivers… say on a frosty November day a cutter swings his axe
against a tall spruce… bites into it with bucksaw… shouts “timber”… the tree
crashes and then the great odyssey begins.
Teamsters and caterpillar tractors haul the logs to the Ombabika
River. Now the log sits quiet and patient
upon the ice for month after month… until May arrives… the sun breaks the grip of ice… Mr. Log is on
his way. Oh, he doesn’t move fast… he’s
jostled and jammed with thousands of others like him… sometimes dynamite is
used to free him from the Chinese puzzle of fellow logs. This nature-given conveyor belt of the river
has its own moods and twists and currents.
The winds help him too, blow panic upon the logs… and old man sun joins the
circus… sucks up the water in summer… slows the conveyor belt and even brings
in the long dry summer arms of the banks to arrest the merry sail of Mr. Log.
The
lumberjack swats and sweats and swears and gives Canada a vocabulary that would
put Webster and Hollywood Press agents to shame. As Mr. Log on his colourful jaunt to the jaws
of the mill flirts, stops and stares at obstacles, his back is pricked and prodded with sharp
pike poles. His bark is scarred from
the catty dance of steel boots. Drama;
Colour; Pulp and Paper is not only our biggest business… it is our most
Canadian of shows. Here is the ballet of
brawn. Here tough rugged men do the
arabesque on a floor of rolling spruce.
Here is drama with the backdrop of white water, and props taken from Nature’s burly and
beautiful storehouse.
The stage is
mighty and magnificent. Man against
nature. The orchestral accompaniment
comes from the strange company of the outdoors… a medley of the musical silence
of the bush… the drone of the mosquito … the timpani of rolling water… the throaty vengeance of the
frog… the swish of trees… the call of the wilds… and thrown upon this scene are
the dimensions of smell… the nostalgic smell of slow rot and quick growth… and
the dimensions of colour… floral and faunal.
Sunset and sunrise peeking through the screen of green.
And Canada
cries for expression in its personality! And the newsboy calls “paper” on
corners rancid with friction-mad rubber burnt gasoline and choked with crowds.
And newspapers are the carriers of democracy.
True! Liberty must march with
newsprint or die. The purveyor of Liberty is born not amid the thundering
thousands, but deep within the kingdom
of trees. Drama? Colour?
Story? Where art thou, Mr.
Canadian dramatist? Point thy pen to the
pageant of paper and thou will write pungent prose.
Mr. Log has
come down the river. With thousands he
takes rest in the storage reserves of Lake Nipigon. The tugs wait for the winds to blow him over
and into the v-shaped mouth of the booms
which trails behind them. When the winds
blow and the logs follow, Catty men like Bob Matchett close the mouth of the V…
turn it into an “O” and the logs are caught inside.
to be concluded in part five TOP OF THE FENCE
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