How do you get a tree to the river?

Video: How do you get a tree to the river?

Length: 1:00

Well, cutting down a 200-foot white pine tree takes teamwork!

First, an ax-man notches the tree in the direction he wants it to fall.

Then a pair of sawyers cut toward the notch until the tree falls.

[man shouts] Timber!

Men called swampers cut off the branches to make it easier for the sawyers to cut the tree into 16-foot logs.

Next, the skidder hooks up the log to a pair of horses and pulls it to the ice road.

There, the logs are loaded onto a sleigh and pulled to the river.

Now the scaler measures each log to figure out the number of board feet of lumber it will produce when it is cut at the mill.

The stamper swings a large hammer that stamps the log with the symbol of the logging company so the sawmill knows who to pay for the boards they cut.