Cutting Timber in Early Logging Days

Cutting Timber in Early Logging Days by Sarah Thorp Heald in 1933. Crow Wing County Historical Society. Oil on Canvas. 

This piece shows how loggers would use oxen in the early days to transport logs. The logs would be loaded onto a sled, and tracks would be made in the snow and then filled with water, so the oxen could easily slide the logs along the ice tracks (Gale 2022, 64). To the left, in the background, men saw a large log in half. To the right, we see men using a wooden ramp to roll logs up onto the pile. 

Gale, Ryan. Shanty Boys: the Lumbermen of the Upper Midwest 1830-1940. Manitou Free Traders LLC, 2022.