Who were loggers?

Interview with Normand Séguin, historian and professor emeritus at Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières (UQTR).

Text on screen: Who were loggers? 

Close-up of Mr. Normand Séguin. Text on screen: Normand Séguin, historian. 

Normand Séguin: They came from the region—maybe 80% of them—and the others came from the borders of the region, because the Saint-Maurice is so large and water flow is so abundant that the definition of region becomes arbitrary. Mostly farmers.

Images follow one another. The first image shows a wooden cart drawn by two horses in a lumber camp. The second image shows six loggers in front of a cord of wood. Two of the loggers are throwing logs on the top of the cord of wood. The last image shows six loggers of different ages posing inside a camp. Some of them are holding their saws, and one logger is sitting on a log. 

Back to Mr. Séguin’s close-up

Normand Séguin: When you had to enter the lumber industry, it was because the family felt that it was extremely important to get the extra income that I mentioned earlier. If you had sons of working age—between 16 and 25—then great, because it was less disruptive to the family. It still was a great deal of pressure on those who went into the forest because they would have to live in extremely harsh conditions.

An image shows the construction of wooden shacks in the middle of the forest. 

Back to Mr. Séguin’s close-up

Normand Séguin: Farmers, in peasant society, were loggers and builders, and they knew how to drive logs. They knew how to do everything, but when they were in the forest, they did these things at a level of risk that was intense.

Images follow one another. The first image shows two loggers delimbing a tree with an axe on a muddy road. The second image shows a large wooden building that was used as a hospital at La Trenche in 1951. The last image is an aerial view of a log driver directing logs from a boom. 

Back to Mr. Séguin’s close-up

Normand Séguin: If you swung the axe the wrong way and you got hit in the leg, it’s over for you. If you pushed yourself too hard and were bit older, you could have a heart attack. You could fall into the very cold water, and it would kill you in a matter of seconds.

The women had heavy hearts when they watched the men leave, and the men had a lot of time to think about their families, too.