562 SEPTEMBRE/OCTOBRE 2014, VOL. 90, No 5 — THE FORESTRY CHRONICLE

Gib’s Scaler’s Manual of Scaling Instructions.

OLD GROWTH FORÊTS ANCIENNES

Kapuskasing Logging Camp 1936–1938Gib Carleton’s experiences as a youngman in the forests of northern Ontario,recorded in notebooks and later on cas-sette tapes by his son Neil over a 30-yearperiod between 1978 and 2008. Neil Car-leton is a naturalist and former teacherliving in Almonte, Ontario.

ack Tracy from Ardbeg, south ofSudbury, who married one of the

Simpson girls from Dunchurch, alsowell south of Sudbury, was the first onefrom the area to be a logging camp fore-man around Kapuskasing. When hewas home for a visit, Dad went to seehim about a job. Jack would tell you tocome to his camp to do such and such ajob, piece-work to start. If you knewJack, you might get a day job, paid bythe day, to repair camp windows andthings like that.

Jobs were scarce but not many boysin Dunchurch would go that far northto look for work. To get there, you’dhave to have enough money to stay in ahotel for a few days. At Kapuskasing,

you’d go to the woods department of theemployment office and ask for a specificcamp. You’d ask for Jack Tracy’s camp,#28. It was 48 miles from town and itwould take two days to walk into thecamp.

When Dad was hired on, the Assis-tant Foreman of the camp was CecilLaBrash (Mom’s first cousin) fromMaple Island, son of Jim LaBrash(Mom’s uncle). There were a few othersin the camp like Dad who started withday jobs.

Dad worked well with horses andwas later recognized for this. Not manypeople in the north, he explained to me,had horse experience. It wasn’t longbefore he was a teamster. Dad recalledhaving some choice in selecting horsesfor the camp, and remembered havingthe biggest team in the bush.

He told me about skidding logs onetime from a ridge of white and yellowbirch. The previous guys cut justenough to keep ahead. Dad and twoothers asked to take it on with a week of

good hard work. You had to show a lit-tle more interest, he explained, that youwere a little sharper and would take theextra step. He would cut too if there wasextra time. The logs were skidded downin lengths and the tree tops were toosmall for pulpwood. He mentioned thatthe guys in camp who fluffed it wouldhave to cut it out front for the cook-house with a bucksaw.

On Sundays he would fix any horseharnesses that needed attention and getready for the coming week. Van Simp-son and Dave Simpson from theDunchurch area were also teamsters atthe camp.

It was after Dad proved himself byshowing he was a good worker that hewas encouraged to work towards hisscaler’s licence, and write the test whenhe was ready. The scaler’s job was tomeasure the diameter and length of logsthat were cut, and to estimate any bigpile of logs because you wouldn’t havetime to get to them all. The best way toget the necessary experience was to betaken on as an apprentice with an expe-rienced scaler, usually a middle-agedman. With a waxed chalk, the scalerwould mark the log butts blue or black,as big as your thumb. The tally man, aseparate job, accompanied the scaler in

J

Gib Carleton before heading north to a log-ging camp, fall of 1935, age 20.

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SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2014, VOL. 90, NO. 5 — THE FORESTRY CHRONICLE 563

a logging camp to record log diametersand lengths - 8�, 12�, 16�. Pulpwoodwas cut in 4� lengths.

A cutter wouldn’t get paid for piecework until his logs were scaled. In areaswhere timber was scarce, you might getpaid by the day. You had to buy yourown axe and take it with you whereveryou went. The camp provided longcrosscut saws, and later bucksaws orSwede saws with steel frames.

In the bush you’d cut the tree justabove the snow, limb it and pile thelimbs up. A team of horses would skidthe logs out to a skidway, a winter road,where they were piled to be scaled. Thelogs would be hoisted up onto the pilewith a jammer, maneuvered by a teamof horses.

Dad obtained his scaler’s licence,and was later offered to manage a campwith 200 men for the Spruce Falls

Power and Paper Company. He wasonly twenty-one.

It was his friend Dave Simpson whotold Dad to leave Kapuskasing to get agood job in the mines of the Sudburyarea. Dad thought it over for a while, leftthe camp, and got a job in the fall of1938 working underground at Laveck,about thirty miles from Sudbury. Hewent to Crowley’s bunk-house andcookhouse to live.

NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL NEWS NOUVELLES NATIONALES/INTERNATIONALES

SC Canada is currently undergoingthe process to revise and align its

National Forest Management Stan-dards—National Boreal Standard(2004), Maritimes Standard (2008), BCStandard (2005) and Great Lakes–St.Lawrence draft Standard (2010) withrevised Principles and Criteria andInternational Generic Indicators.

In carrying out this important work,FSC Canada has assembled six Techni-cal Expert Panels to assist with thedevelopment of the Canadian ForestManagement Standard in six key the-

matic areas. These Panels will providetechnical guidance and recommenda-tions to FSC Canada to be consideredwhen developing normative measures,e.g., indicators and supplementarymaterials where needed.

The six Technical Expert Panels arethe following:• Principle 6, 9 and 10 (from the new

Principles and Criteria–v.5): Ecolog-ical and Operational Consideration

• Species at Risk (Caribou) • Pesticides, Conversion and Invasive

Species

• Principle 3: Aboriginal Rights,including Free, Prior and InformedConsent

• Community and Stakeholder Rights(legal and customary)

• Scale, Intensity and Risk, includingSmall and Low Intensity ManagedForests (SLIMF) FSC Canada is pleased to have a total

of 29 experts to participate in these sixpanels. For a list of the experts, see:ca.fsc.org/technical expert-panels.319.

FSC Canada’s Forest Management Standard Technical Expert PanelsF

SC Canada est actuellement en pro-cessus pour réviser et harmoniser ses

normes régionales d’aménagementforestier—norme boréale nationale(2004), norme des Maritimes (2008),norme de la Colombie-Britannique(2005) et norme préliminaire GrandsLacs St-Laurent (2010) avec les prin-cipes et critères révisés et les indicateursgénériques internationaux.

Pour réaliser cette étape importantedu travail de révision, FSC Canada amis sur pied six Groupes d’experts tech-niques pour aider au développement dela norme canadienne d’aménagementforestier dans six domaines thématiques

clés. Ces Groupes fourniront desconseils techniques et des recomman-dations à FSC Canada. Ces conseils etrecommandations seront considéréslors de l’élaboration de mesures norma-tives, par exemple, des indicateurs et dumatériel supplémentaire si nécessaire. 

Les six Groupes d’experts techniquessont les suivants: • Principes 6, 9 et 10 (des nouveaux

Principes et Critères–v.5): Considé-rations écologiques et opération-nelles;

• Espèces en péril (caribou); • Pesticides, conversion et les espèces

envahissantes;

• Principe 3: Droits autochtones,incluant le consentement libre, préa-lable et éclairé;

• Droits des communautés et des par-ties prenantes (juridique et coutu-mier);

• Échelle, intensité et risque, y comprisles forêts de petites dimensions etd’aménagement de faible intensité(PDAFI). FSC Canada est heureux d’avoir un

total de 29 experts qui participent à cessix Groupes. Cliquez ici ca.fsc.org/tech-nical-expert-panels.319 pour plus d’in-formations. 

FSC Canada présente les Groupes d’experts technique de la norme d’aménagement forestierF

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