Log drives on Grand River continued until 1906

The following is a re-print of a past column by former Advertiser columnist Stephen Thorning, who passed away on Feb. 23, 2015.

Some text has been updated to reflect changes since the original publication and any images used may not be the same as those that accompanied the original publication.

To most people the mention of an old-fashioned log drive brings forth the image of a gang of Irish or French woodsmen driving booms of timber from Muskoka or elsewhere in northern Ontario, into the Ottawa river and downstream to a sawmill. 

Few realize that the same sort of activity once took place in Wellington County.

While we have no local lumber barons in the same league as Booth, Eddy, Gilmour or tributaries to move logs from the upper reaches of the river to their sawing operations, such activity reached its peak in the 1860s and 1870s, but continued on a lesser scale until the early 20th century.

Roswell Matthews and his sons, who established the first settlement in the central portion of the county at the future site of Elora in 1817, where the first to use the river to move logs. They shipped small quantities of logs downstream to sawmills in Waterloo County in the early 1820s. Later, the pioneers of Peel Township in the early 1850s drew logs to Elora by sled in the winter, and dumped the logs into the Grand, to be captured by sawmills downstream.

But those activities were quite minor in importance. The chief route for logs in the Grand River system was from the Luther Marsh area and the upper reaches of the Grand and its tributaries to sawmills in Fergus, Elora and downstream in Bridgeport.

Today we have little idea of what those upper reaches of the watershed – from Grand Valley to the Dundalk area – were like. Except in areas that had burned or had been cleared by beaver, the land was heavily timbered and marshy in many places. The higher land had impressive stands of maple and beech, with a good sprinkling of elm and hemlock. Lower land supported black spruce, cedar and pockets of impressive white pine. Some specimens of the latter were hundreds of years old, with trunks exceeding four feet in diameter.

The hardwoods, maple particularly, enjoyed a growing local market during the 19th century to the furniture industry. Elm was much less desirable and with its tough texture was a difficult wood to cut with hand tools. Until the late 1890s the biggest market for all hardwoods was a fuel, until coal assumed dominance as a heating fuel. For construction the softwoods – cedar, hemlock, spruce and pine – were the varieties that drove the logging industry.

Pine was especially desirable and much of it was stolen from vacant land and speculative holdings. Some old-timers claimed there was an unwritten law that pine belonged to the person who chopped it, regardless of who owned the land it was growing on. But that was a rationalization concocted in later years. During the 1860s there were frequent court cases involving the theft of pine trees.

During the 1860s the “pine thieves” went to extraordinary lengths to get out the timber, constructing crude roadways a mile and more in length, and dragging the logs with a team of oxen to the nearest stream. Making the rivers and streams fit for log transportation was itself a major chore. Fallen trees and branches had to be removed, and numerous beaver dams hindered the passage of logs, even though the ponds they created made transportation easier.

The uppermost sawing operation of importance was at Grand Valley, originally known as Little Toronto. The village produced a huge amount of lumber, but most was destined for local barns and houses, not for export outside the neighbourhood.

Belwood, Fergus and Elora boasted more substantial sawmills, supplied in large part by logs floated down the Grand. With logs belonging to several millers on the river at the same time, a measure of co-operation and co-ordination was necessary. Timber buyers would usually mark each log they purchased, and shippers would roll each consignment into the river at a predetermined time and place.

Logs for the Elora millers were the first to be sent downstream, the Fergus logs went in next, then those for Belwood, Waldemar and Grand Valley. That helped to prevent timber for various consignees from becoming mixed together. In the 1860s timing was not so critical. High water in the spring normally lasted about three weeks. Later, with much land cleared and ditches and drains everywhere, the spring runoff could pass violently in a couple of days, leaving piles of logs with insufficient water to carry them to their destination. Those who participated in the spring log drives recalled the Grand at Waldemar being entirely filled with logs for four weeks at a stretch. Daredevils among the timbermen would stand on the logs as they floated, in the style of the Ottawa River crews, prepared to keep logs from jamming together or from becoming entangled in brush or bridge abutments with their pike poles. 

A jammed log could create havoc quickly, as others piled behind it. Men armed with “peevies,” eight-foot poles ending in a spike, would attempt to dislodge the offending log. Sometimes they resorted to chopping it in two. The greatest danger came when the jam released, sending men and timber in all directions. Even though armed with their poles and with boots having half-inch spikes, the job was not for the faint-hearted or those who were not strong swimmers. Nevertheless, many Wellington County farm boys became experts at the annual log drive.

While some of the crew rode the logs, others followed along the shore. A gang consisted of 12 to 15 men, most of whom were local farmers picking up a little extra cash. Most crews had one or two seasoned and experienced timbermen, usually from the Ottawa valley.

Saw mill operators strung booms across the river to catch their logs as they reached a particular point on the river. Those points were usually six miles or so apart. Timber would be held by the boom until all of that consignment had caught up. Then the crew opened the boom for the run to the next one, with the final boom at the sawmill.

Work on the log drives usually paid $1.50 to $2 per day, a great deal more than could be earned in a factory or as a farm labourer. Consequently, saw mill operators could pick the best men for the job. Injuries and accidents were surprisingly few. 

Gil McWhirter, who in the 1920s wrote of his experiences decades before, recalled that dunkings in the ice-cold water were routine, and that men were soaking wet all day at least to their knees, and sometimes to their waist or neck.

At least, that was the way it was supposed to work. Many logs never made it to their destined market. They could be swept ashore, become entangled along the banks, or sink out of site under the ice. Booms frequently broke, forcing mill operators into a chase that often ended in the Bridgeport area. Then there was the expensive task of hauling the logs back, or finding a saw mill there willing to buy them.

Though forced to co-operate, more or less, during the spring timber drives, there was keen competition among the saw millers. Often they would buy timber before it was cut. The major operators in the upper Grand watershed were Potter Brothers of Elora, Perry and Black of Fergus, Johnston of Waldemar, and John Philip of Grand Valley. Most of those men operated more than one sawmill. There were literally dozens of other, smaller sawmills in the upper reaches of the Grand and its tributaries – the Speed, Irvine and Conestogo – generally supplying a local market and operating intermittently.

The important sawmills were those at the major centres: Elora, Fergus, Belwood and Grand Valley. They all employed the river to bring in at least part of their log supply, and all exported lumber outside the area.

(Next week: more on the days of Wellington County’s lumbermen.)

*This column was originally published in the Wellington Advertiser on Oct. 27, 2006.