Check out this Lumberjack Glossary- Definitions of words and terms from the yesteryears of Logging. And you can find Made Collection’s Lumberjack Store here.
1. All hands and the Cook
The cry that echoes through the logging camp when there’s a log jam. The lumberjack equivalent to “oh s**t, oh s**t!”
2. Ball Hooter
One who rolls logs down a hill. A dangerous job, with an awesome name.
3. Beaver
A lumberjack who’s bad at chopping. Also called a woodpecker.
4. Belly Burglar/Robber
A terrible camp cook.
5. Big as a bear and lazy as two
A very lazy lumberjack
6. Birling
The logger’s game of rolling often played on log drivers. Two players wearing calked shoes spun a log to see how long their opponent could stay on without being thrown into the water.
7. Cackleberries
aka Hen fruit. An egg, served by the logging camp cook at the cook shack. In our opinion, a single cackleberry sounds like paltry sustenance for someone who spends their days felling 100-foot pine trees.
8. Choke Strap
The lumberjack name for a necktie, that restrictive piece of fabric that people who don’t live in forests wrap around their neck, presumably as some sort of self-torture device.
9. Company Man
A logger who’s only out to please the boss, even if it hurts his fellow lumberjacks. He’ll often spy on the other lumberjacks, collecting information he hears after hours, and passing it on to the boss man for his own benefit.
10. Corks
Sometimes called “caulks”, these were the spiked boots worn by lumberjacks and in particular Flume Herders, who used them to walk from floating log to floating log. Hence, the beginnings of birling. (see above)
11. Deacon Seat
The classic piece of camp furniture, built on the outer end of muzzle loading bunks. Usually made out of half a log, the flat side up. Here Lumberjacks would gather round the fire before turning in, resting, smoking, and talking about all the trees they’ve loved and lost.
12. Flume
A V-shaped runway of lumber to bring logs out of mountains or steep hills or around falls. In the days before trains or automobiles could easily carry logs out of the woods, lumberjacks relied on mother nature’s help to bring the bounty of the forest to the rest of the world. Same as sluice, water slide, wet slide.
13. Gee and Haw
Commands used by oxen and horse drivers to indicate to the animal which way to turn. Gee means turn to the right. Haw means turn to the left. Who knew oxen and horses knew how to speak gee-haw-ese? Learn something new every day.
14. High Climber
Perhaps the most fearless of lumberjacks, the high climber, only armed with climbing hooks and a rope would scale a tree from top to bottom, cutting off branches on his way, before cutting off the top and rigging it with pulleys to make bringing the whole tree down easier.
15. King Log
The pivotal log in a jam. The one causing all the problems. Once the Flume Herder got that once loose, the whole jam would become loose.
16. Men Catchers
Recruiters from lumber companies that would comb cities, spreading tales about the riches to be had in the great northern forests. They would then gather up the willing and pay for their railroad fare to the logging camps.
17. Nooning
When there was no time to spare, lunch was held in the woods rather than back at camp. Camp cooks would carry hot meals to the lumberjacks there, but in extremely cold weather, the meals would freeze. Nothing like a piping-cold cup of stew to keep your strength up when you’re chopping wood all day.
18. Skid Row
We all know this term as meaning a rough, poor neighborhood. But the name comes from lumberjacking. Logs were often skidded downhill along log-planked corduroy roads to their destinations. One such road in Seattle was called Skid Road. Once the logging industry dried up there, out-of-work people frequented that road and, hence, Skid Row was born. English language, you crazy girl!
19. Swedish Fiddle
The lumberjack term for a cross-cut saw, a simple saw used for making straight cuts across the grain of wood.
20. Whistle Punk
The guy on the logging team responsible for safety. It was his job to think fast and warn other lumberjacks of falling logs and sudden, unspected movements of massive hunks of wood. Many a lumberjack’s life was saved by Whistle Punks, so you’d think they would have given them a better name.
21. White socks
Swarms of bugs, most often found in Alaska, that have a particular penchant for sinking their teeth into hardworking lumberjacks. The only defense these flannelled fortune-hunters have against this onslaught is to duct tape their shirt sleeve and pant legs shut, and pray for the best.
