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Main Brook, is a fishing and lumbering community on the shores of Hare Bay on the northeast coast of the Great Northern Peninsula. While today Main Brook is world renown for its hunting and salmon fishing on the Ariege River it did not have any permanent settlement until the 1900's. English settlers began to trickle into the area, attracted by cod and salmon as well as by heavy forests. Local history maintains that Main Brook was founded by the Simms family in 1920. Later, Thomas Coates settled there and established a sawmill. By 1935 employment was almost exclusively in the forest industry and by 1944 the firm of Pomroy and Penney was cutting pulpwood for Bowater's of Corner Brook.During the Depression years of the 1930's, when the fishery in Newfoundland failed repeatedly, many loggers were still seasonal workers who fished during the summer and logged during the fall and winter. Only on rare occasions, when men were able to get work in the cut, haul-off, and drive, and then fish in the summer, would they obtain year-round employment. Newfoundland loggers were men who found work where they could in order to support themselves and their families.
Since most of the pulp and paper companies major logging operations had their headquarters inland, at towns in the western and northeastern and central regions of Newfoundland, loggers often had to travel great distances with their clothes and their bedding on their backs to get to the camps. By boat, sled or on foot, they moved to the cutting sites and then home again at the end of the logging season. In Main Brook the logging camp was in an area known as Burnt Cape. The camp contained bunkhouses and homes for the Superintendant and Foreman. It was also at the camp that the horses were shoed and all of the mechanical work was done.
Once a man arrived at the headquarters of the logging operation, he was signed on and assigned to a camp. The logger then had to make a journey through the woods to the cutting site. Once the wood was cut it was put into piles for the teamsters to collect. Haul-off teams of horses pulled sleds, which moved the wood from the camps' landing to the banks of the ponds and rivers where the wood was piled again until the spring drive. The haul-off usually finished by the beginning of March when the snow became too soft to work on with horses and sled. The loggers would usually return home and wait for the drive.
Before the drive began, men prepared the river by constructing "flood-dams" below the camp to build up water to drive the pulpwood. They would also build "wings" with logs and other material on the wide sections of the river to "quicken" the water and keep the logs or junks in the deepest channel; and finally, they used dynamite to blast rocks which would stop the flow of wood.
The drive began in late April when rain poured down for weeks. The drive consisted of two operations: rolling the logs into the river, creating a boom and guiding the wood once it was in the water. Once the flood-dam was opened the main job for the men was to accompany the pulpwood down the stream into the town of Main Brook. The pulpwood would then be placed on ships bound for Corner Brook and Europe.
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Mack and Clara Simms, one of the first couples to settle in Main Brook, Newfoundland. This wedding photo was taken in the 1930's.3
Mack and Clara Simms.1930
Main Brook, Newfoundland, Canada
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This photograph is of a logging bridge built across the Ariege River in Main Brook.5
Bowater truck.1940
Main Brook, Newfoundland, Canada
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The following photograph depicts the construction of a flood dam. As seen in the picture, on either side of the flood dam, wings built with logs and other material are constructed on the wide sections of the river. The objective was to keep the water moving quickly in order to drive the logs down the deepest part of the river channel.7
Bowater Dams.1940
Main Brook, Newfoundland, Canada
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This photograph shows a flood dam releasing the water at the dam site. Once the flood-dam was opened the main job for the men was to accompany the pulpwood down the stream into the town of Main Brook. The pulpwood would then be placed on ships bound for Corner Brook and Europe.9
Bowater Dams.1940
Main Brook, Newfoundland, Canada
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This photograph is the other side of the flood dam. In this photo the water has already been released as the water depth is considerably lower.11
Bowater wood operation.1940
Main Brook, Newfoundland, Canada
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We would like to thank Mrs. Ethel Patey for the photographs and information regarding this story. |
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