Search for Old Logging Equipment BC

[dboles]

Every spring for the last couple years I go on a quest to look for an old steam donkey thats rumoured to be left in the woods.At the turn of the last century the loggers used steam machinery to aid in logging.This operation used locomotives to transport the logs to mill.
Yesterday I filled my riggin sack full of lunch thermos of tea,camera and the usual other gear that I take.
I beat the bush for several hours again without ant success in getting any closer to that rumored leftover gear.
Do not know what is up with my camera yesterday as I took around 30 photos.Unfortunately only 7 or so were decent enough to show here.I plan to get out again so I will update with more pictures later.
Those oldtimers were workers its amazing to see where they took steam engines.
They logged all the oldgrowth cedar in that valley
Heres a nurse stump.Notice the spring board notches used to get above the taper of the tree so that they wouldnt have to cut so much wood when falling the tree

Heres a picture of wild ginger- a good edible and seasoning

Heres a Fairy slipper orchid bulb is edible but in my part of the world you would have to search far and wide for a feed of them as they are rare here and maybe protected

Just a picture of the greenery coming up mostly skunk cabbage in a week it will be useless to search for anything in these woods

I took what i thought were decent pictures as I did find a camp where they watered the locomotives and scattered tin cans everywhere.The oldtimers in this area always buried any glass as they felt it could cause a forest fite with the sun streaming through the glass.Maybe could happen
Anyway I had an agreeable day out even though I got soaking wet
The quest continues!!
Dan"l

 

[tknife]

Even if you didn't find it, still sounds like great time. You definitely have some beautiful country there.

 

[sunnyd]

Very nice photography. Look forward to seeing more from you. You are blessed to live in such beautiful part of the great northern lands. Thanks for sharing.

Anthony

 

[PayetteRucker]

There are a couple of resevoirs now that are burrying saw mills and silver mines up in the mountains-some are still uncovered but they're supposed to be historical sites so you cannot take anything from them. I know a huge ship sank in the Payette Lake full of blacksmithing and logging tools, but it's at about 360 feet and from what I hear it's a pretty trecherous dive. Itd be fascinating to find something like that though, my buddy has a grinding stone from the turn of the century that he found along the Salmon River.

 

[hollowdweller]

I wish your pictures were'n't hosted on Photobucket. That's blocked for me and I can't see them.

Stuff like that fascinates me.

Here's some pics of the remnants of 2 old logging camps I passed by a couple weekends ago while hiking the North Face Trail which is in the Tea Creek Back Country of the Monongahela National Forest in WV. The North Face Trail follows an old RR grade.

In a few places there are the remnants of the spikes and ties:

I came upon these frames which as best as I could tell appeared to be some sort of bunk beds. I'm guessing because the frames had springs around them

Old wash tub, shovel and wash basin

Apparently there was a mess hall or something because I noticed these stacks of what appeared to be plates rusted together partially covered

This second camp I ran onto appeared to maybe be the place where they fixed the saws and tended the horses. The bunks were there too but I didn't photograph them again.

But here was part of a stove and crosscut

I didn't extensively check this over but it appeared to be a wood cook stove

Not sure what this was part of but liked the inscription

This was one of the cooler things part of an old crosscut sticking up out of the middle of the trail and an old hand cranked forge.

 

[KiljoyKutlery]

Man, I love this old stuff.

 

[hollowdweller]

What's funny is a lot of what is now wilderness the gov't got because it was trashed. Logged all to be damned, then burnt over with forest fires.

Now, 80 to 100 years after the carnage the spruce is coming back. There's trees getting close to the original size. It's a cool thing:thumbup:

 

[PayetteRucker]

What's funny is a lot of what is now wilderness the gov't got because it was trashed. Logged all to be damned, then burnt over with forest fires.

Now, 80 to 100 years after the carnage the spruce is coming back. There's trees getting close to the original size. It's a cool thing:thumbup:

It's the natural way of things friend, if wood doesn't burn, it rots, and that's no good either. At least a good burn transfers plenty of nutrients into the soil to aid in the rebirth of the forest, whereas a rotting forest stinks and produces killer spores and looks ugly for 100 years before it gets to the point a burn will achieve in just a few hours.

 

[hollowdweller]

It's the natural way of things friend, if wood doesn't burn, it rots, and that's no good either. At least a good burn transfers plenty of nutrients into the soil to aid in the rebirth of the forest, whereas a rotting forest stinks and produces killer spores and looks ugly for 100 years before it gets to the point a burn will achieve in just a few hours.

PR,

Depends.

For instance in Dolly Sods due to the massive spruce forests there was a 6' deep layer of peat.

The spruce forest was logged and then the peat caught on fire and the smoke could be seen as far away as Washington DC.

There are still places in that area that are just rock because the soil was burned down to the bedrock and it never recovered.

Railroad logging made the spruce and hemlocks accessible in the late 1880s and the huge trees were cut down. Shay locomotives climbed the mountain and logging camps sprang up throughout Dolly Sods, clearing away the virgin forest to feed hungry mills. The humus dried up when the protective tree cover was removed. Sparks from railroad locomotives, saw mills and logger's warming fires easily ignited this humus layer and the extensive slash (wood too small to be marketable, such as branches and tree crowns) left behind by loggers. Fires repeatedly ravaged the area in the 1910s, scorching everything right down to the underlying rocks. All insects, worms, salamanders, mice and other burrowing forms of life perished and the area became a desert. The destruction was extraordinary. More than one-tenth of the area of West Virginia state was burned over, including one-fifth of the forest area. The complete clearcut of this ecologically fragile area, followed by extensive wildfires and overgrazing, as well as the ecological stresses of the elevation, have prevented quick regeneration of the forest.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dolly_Sods_Wilderness

You can see the spruce is making a comeback but if the topsoil had been left it would have been much faster

 

[hollowdweller]

A bit more because it's interesting:

If logging wasn't enough, the final chapter in the destruction of the Allegheny ecosystem was to be played out by the sterilizing element of fire. The first episode in a long chain of events that led to the complete destruction of the original forest occurred in 1863 when fire escaped from the campfire of Confederate scouts on the Roaring Plains in Randolph County. For many years thereafter, destructive fires swept through the region from the head of the Greenbrier River along the sides and top of Allegheny Mountain through Pendleton, Randolph, Grant and Tucker counties. The slash from the virgin forest (branches, and tree crowns with wood too small to be of marketable use) was extensive. These conditions created a tinder box waiting for a spark.

Consequently, fire followed fire until the remaining green timber and all reproduction were destroyed. This was especially true in the spruce areas, where even the deep humus was burned to bed rock. Many stands of virgin hardwood were not cut, but destroyed by fire spreading from areas of spruce slash into areas of hardwood.

Clearcut, then burned to bedrock by fire, this old photograph looks from Cabin Mountain into the northern stretches of the Dolly Sods Wilderness. Today, some eighty years later, the summit of Cabin Mountain is still devoid of trees and soil.

I'll try to find one of my recent pics of Cabin Mt at home.

 

[m. wohlwend]

just look at Hati if you want to see what happens when a nation cuts all of the forests down. All the topsoil has washed away, no way to raise crops. It is in our best interest to use technology to reduce our footprint on our enviorment... That way we can all have a wilderness to practice our skills in...

 

[Bushman5]

It's the natural way of things friend, if wood doesn't burn, it rots, and that's no good either. At least a good burn transfers plenty of nutrients into the soil to aid in the rebirth of the forest, whereas a rotting forest stinks and produces killer spores and looks ugly for 100 years before it gets to the point a burn will achieve in just a few hours.

much like all of BC canada!

 

[dboles]

Hey Hollow dweller What site can I use that you will be able to see my pictures.Photobucket is the 1st one I used so stuck with it.Like you Im much interested in the old stuff and history.You have turned up way more tha I have so far
Yesterday I went out yet again searching for the elusive steam era logging equipment.
I followed the old grade and it amazing where they took locomotives.Mostly contouring along the river bottom.
The stumps they left are amazing

Some are 15 ft across at the ground

Somewhere in the valley they must of had a camp. The location of the machinery is 7 miles from the old mill site So far I have only turned up small piles tin cans and this time a few glass bottles
This is an old cabin right along the old rail grade

Some tin cans

This is a small western red cedar.Bonus points if you can tell me what animal did this damage and when

The creek Im following

Old crosscut saw

More to follow

 

[Bushman5]

Hey DBOLES, head on over to the old Blueberry mine area near Riondel, and the old lighthouse near kootenay bay. that entire area is filled with olld mining and logging gear. WELL WORTH THE TRIP out there. Same with castlegar, moyie, ainsworth and kaslo areas.

(on the topic of Ainsworth, i remember when there was nothing more than a simple cement pool at the hot springs. 25 cents for kids to swim and go into the hotsprings caves. Now its a resort and no one can afford it.

 

[Bushman5]

this ol stove, ya should refurbish it (oil it with veg oil and stove black and use it)

http://img94.imageshack.us/img94/761/potcross.jpg

 

[dboles]

Fiddleheads This one is sword fern

This one is Oak fern

Here is whats called Canada Violet even though it has a yellow flower the leaves and flower are edible

Here is False Hellebore.The root can be dug and used as an insecct repellent.It works for a bit as I have tried it

A couple of the woods I travelled

Heading home

Things are greening up my window of looking will be closed in a week
Heres an old moose shed

Dan'l