Timber rafting is a method of transporting felled tree trunks by tying them together to make rafts, which are then drifted or pulled downriver, or across a lake or other body of water. It is arguably, after log driving, the second cheapest means of transporting felled timber. Both methods may be referred to as timber floating. The tradition of timber rafting cultivated in Austria, the Czech Republic, Germany, Latvia, Poland and Spain was inscribed on UNESCO Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in 2022 [1]
Unlike log driving, which was a dangerous task of floating separate logs, floaters or raftsmen could enjoy relative comfort of navigation, with cabins built on rafts, steering by means of oars and possibility to make stops. On the other hand, rafting requires wider waterflows.
Timber rafts were also used as a means of transportation of people and goods, both raw materials (ore, fur, game) and man-made.
Theophrastus (Hist. Plant. 5.8.2) records how the Romans imported Corsican timber by way of a huge raft propelled by as many as fifty masts and sails. [2]
This practice used to be common in many parts of the world, especially North America and on all main rivers of Germany. Timber rafting allowed for connecting large continental forests, as in south western Germany, via Main, Neckar, Danube and Rhine with the coastal cities and states. Early modern forestry and remote trading were closely connected. Large pines in the black forest were called "Holländer," as they were traded to the Netherlands. Large timber rafts on the Rhine were 200 to 400m in length, 40m wide and consisted of several thousand logs. The crew consisted of 400 to 500 men, including shelter, bakeries, ovens and livestock stables. [3] Timber rafting infrastructure allowed for large interconnected networks all over continental Europe. The advent of the railroad, steam boat vessels and improvements in trucking and road networks gradually reduced the use of timber rafts. It is still of importance in Finland. In Spain, this method of transport was used in the Ebro, Tajo, Júcar, Turia and Segura rivers, mainly and to a lesser extent in the Guadalquivir. There is documentary evidence of these uses as early as the sixteenth century, and its use was extended until the middle of the 20th century. In Russia, the use of elaborate timber rafts called belyana continued into the 1930s.
Timber rafts could be of enormous proportions, sometimes up to 600 metres (2,000 ft) long, 50 metres (160 ft) wide, and stacked 2 metres (6 ft 7 in) high. Such rafts would contain thousands of logs. For the comfort of the raftsmen - which could number up to 500 - logs were also used to build cabins and galleys. Control of the raft was done by oars and later on by tugboats.
Raft construction differs depending on the watercourse. Rocky and windy rivers saw rafts of simple, yet sometimes smart, construction. For example, the front parts of the logs were joined together by wooden bars, while the rear parts were loosely roped together. The resulting slack allowed for easy adaptation for narrow and windy waterbeds. Wide and quiet rivers, like the Mississippi River, allowed huge rafts to travel in caravans and even be chained into strings.
These type of constructed log rafts used for timber rafting over long distances by waterways to markets of large populations appeared on the Atlantic coast about 1883. They were there sometimes referred to as Joggins-Leary log ships because they were financed by businessman James T. Leary and originated at Joggins, Nova Scotia. [4] [5] They seem also to have been employed on the Rhine River as early as September 14, 1888. [6] Their use on the Pacific coast was first contemplated by the capitalists James Mervyn Donahue of the San Francisco and North Pacific Railroad and John D. Spreckels of the San Diego and Arizona Railway when they formed the Pacific west coast Joggins Raft Company on September 21, 1889. [7]
Rafting was a principal method of transporting timber in the southeastern United States but, except on the Mississippi River, rafts were necessarily smaller than those described above. On Georgia’s Altamaha River, for example, the maximum width was about forty feet (12 m), that being the widest that could pass between the pilings of railroad bridges. Maximum length was about 250 feet (76 m), that being the longest that could navigate The Narrows, several miles of the river that were not only very narrow but also very crooked. Each raft had two oars forty to fifty feet long, one in the bow, the other at the stern. The oars were for steering, not propelling, the raft. The minimum raft crew was two men, the pilot who usually manned the stern oar, and his bow hand. Rafts usually had a lean-to shack for shelter and a mound of dirt for a hearth to warm by and cook on. The timber rafts on the Altamaha delivered logs to the port of Brunswick, Georgia, where they were loaded onto timber schooners and transported to international markets like Liverpool, Rio de Janeiro, and Havana. [8] Rivermen assigned colorful names to the various features and hazards along their route down the Atamaha. Among the many "riverman monikers" was Old Hell Bight , where the river marks the border between Long County to the north and Wayne County to the south, and is a particularly troublesome bend, with associated dangerous currents, where a pilot and crew might lose "their wages, their timber, and occasionally their lives" [9] [10] [11]
Most rafts were sharp-chute, that is, V-bowed, rather than square-bowed. Raftsmen had learned that with a V-bow a raft was more likely to hold together and glance off if it drifted out of control and hit the river bank. As one old-time raftsman put it: “With a square bow you were compelled to hold the raft in or near the middle of the river: if it butted the hill it would come to pieces. The sharp-chute could be put together so it would not come apart. And it saved a lot of hard work. Raftsmen didn’t mind letting it go to the hill. They’d say: ‘Let’er shoot out.’”
Rafts were assembled in sections. Each section was made up of round or squared timbers, all of the same length except for the outside, or “boom logs,” which extended aft a few feet to enclose the following section. Thus the sections were coupled together. A fairly typical raft would be one of three, four or five sections, each section having timbers twenty to thirty feet in length.
Most rafts were made up of squared timbers, either hewn square by hand or sawn square by upcountry sawmills. Some timbers were carefully, smoothly hewn, and there was a demand for them, especially in England, after steam sawmilling became common. On the Altamaha, for many years during the rafting era, most rafts were made up of “scab” timber, that is, logs roughly squared by broad ax for tighter assembly and for gang sawmills which could cut flat-face timber only.
Although, on the Altamaha, there was rafting to some extent before the Civil War and after World War I, the Altamaha’s rafting era is generally considered to have been the years between those wars. During those years, Darien, a town at the mouth of the river with a population of perhaps a couple of thousand, was a major international timber port. Reports of exports from Darien were included in the New York Lumber Trade Journal along with reports of exports from such large ports as New Orleans, Mobile, Jacksonville, Savannah, Charleston, and Norfolk.
The timber was transported by floating, down the current of the rivers, which required the work of cages and log drivers (Cajeux - Draveurs). The first types of trees cut were — Pin blanc L. — Pinus strobus. — White pine (eastern white pine)., shipped to Great Britain.
While the more technically challenging log driving down rivers declined from the 1960s and mostly ended by the early 21th century, timber rafting has continued to some degree along lakes. UPM and Metsähallitus continue timber rafting in the Vuoksi-Saimaa basin. [14] Timber rafting has experienced a resurgence following the Russo-Ukrainian War. Timber imports from Russia stopped, requiring their replacement with more timber to be procured from the upper reaches of Saimaa, while the Finnish truck fleet was however not large enough to accommodate this. Thus, timber rafting took its place. Timber rafting is 20% cheaper than transport by truck or rail. It is also environmentally friendly, with much lower greenhouse gas emissions than truck transport. [15]
A log flume or lumber flume is a watertight flume constructed to transport lumber and logs down mountainous terrain using flowing water. Flumes replaced horse- or oxen-drawn carriages on dangerous mountain trails in the late 19th century. Logging operations preferred flumes whenever a reliable source of water was available. Flumes were cheaper to build and operate than logging railroads. They could span long distances across chasms with more lightweight trestles.
A raft is any flat structure for support or transportation over water. It is usually of basic design, characterized by the absence of a hull. Rafts are usually kept afloat by using any combination of buoyant materials such as wood, sealed barrels, or inflated air chambers, and are typically not propelled by an engine. Rafts are an ancient mode of transport; naturally-occurring rafts such as entwined vegetation and pieces of wood have been used to traverse water since the dawn of humanity.
The Altamaha River is a major river in the U.S. state of Georgia. It flows generally eastward for 137 miles (220 km) from its origin at the confluence of the Oconee River and Ocmulgee River towards the Atlantic Ocean, where it empties into the ocean near Brunswick, Georgia. No dams are directly on the Altamaha, though some are on the Oconee and the Ocmulgee. Including its tributaries, the Altamaha River's drainage basin is about 14,000 square miles (36,000 km2) in size, qualifying it among the larger river basins of the US Atlantic coast.
The Wisconsin River is a tributary of the Mississippi River in the U.S. state of Wisconsin. At approximately 430 miles long, it is the state's longest river. The river's name was first recorded in 1673 by Jacques Marquette as "Meskousing" from his Indian guides - most likely Miami for "river running through a red place."
The Murg is an 80.2-kilometre-long river and tributary of the Rhine in Baden-Württemberg, Germany. It flows through the Northern Black Forest into the Upper Rhine Plain, crossing the counties of Freudenstadt and Rastatt.
Log driving is a means of moving logs from a forest to sawmills and pulp mills downstream using the current of a river. It was the main transportation method of the early logging industry in Europe and North America.
A bateau or batteau is a shallow-draft, flat-bottomed boat which was used extensively across North America, especially in the colonial period and in the fur trade. It was traditionally pointed at both ends but came in a wide variety of sizes. The name derives from the French word, bateau, which is simply the word for boat and the plural, bateaux, follows the French, an unusual construction for an English plural. In the southern United States, the term is still used to refer to flat-bottomed boats, including those elsewhere called jon boats.
A log boom is a barrier placed in a river, designed to collect and or contain floating logs timbered from nearby forests. The term is also used as a place where logs were collected into booms, as at the mouth of a river. With several firms driving on the same stream, it was necessary to direct the logs to their owner's respective booms, with each log identified by its own patented timber mark. One of the most well known logbooms was in Williamsport, Pennsylvania, along the Susquehanna River. The development and completion of that specific log boom in 1851 made Williamsport the "Lumber Capital of the World".
Saint-Stanislas, old name Deux-Rivières (Village), is a municipality part of Les Chenaux Regional County Municipality, in Mauricie, Quebec, Canada.
A disposable ship, also called raft ship, timber ship, or timber drogher is a ship or sea vessel that is intended for use on a single voyage. At the final destination, the vessel is broken up for sale or reuse of materials. Until the end of the 19th century, such ships were common on major rivers such as the Danube and the Rhine in Central Europe and the Mississippi in North America. There were also saltwater vessels that were primarily built for one-time sailing to break up. Some of the largest wooden ships in history were of this type.
In early periods of North American industrial development, an ark was a temporary boat used for river transport in eastern North America before slack-water canals and railroads made them obsolete. Because they could be built using relatively crude hand tools, arks were built in American colonial and early republic times, primarily to carry cargo downriver on the spring freshets, and especially to carry milled lumber, charcoal and other forest products and bulk agricultural produce to a city or a port downriver. While logs were often tied into rafts, on long trips which could take weeks, the rafts would be accompanied by such arks as crew support quarters. Deep rivers allowed large log arks as described below instead of less controllable rafts. Since by 1800, most eastern towns and cities were short on heating fuels, even badly processed timber or planks could readily be sold at the destinations.
The Susquehanna Boom was a system of cribs and chained logs in the West Branch Susquehanna River, designed to catch and hold floating timber until it could be processed at one of the nearly 60 sawmills along the river between Lycoming and Loyalsock Creeks in Lycoming County, Pennsylvania in the United States. The Susquehanna Boom was originally built under the supervision of James H. Perkins, and operated from 1851 to 1909, when it shut down for lack of timber.
Pointer boats were designed by John Cockburn and built by John, his son and grandson, from the 1850s to 1969 at their boatworks in Ottawa and later at Pembroke, Ontario, Canada. They were wooden, oared boats used for transportation along rivers such as the Ottawa River.
Traditionally, many different kinds of boats have been used as fishing boats to catch fish in the sea, or on a lake or river. Even today, many traditional fishing boats are still in use. According to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), at the end of 2004, the world fishing fleet consisted of about 4 million vessels, of which 2.7 million were undecked (open) boats. While nearly all decked vessels were mechanised, only one-third of the undecked fishing boats were powered, usually with outboard engines. The remaining 1.8 million boats were traditional craft of various types, operated by sail and oars.
The Ise is a 43 km (27 mi) long, almost natural river of East Lower Saxony and Saxony-Anhalt, Germany. It crosses the district of Gifhorn from north to south and discharges into the Aller at Gifhorn itself.
The Finkbine-Guild Lumber Company was established to harvest and market the virgin longleaf pine stands of southern Mississippi during the early 20th century. The main sawmills were located in Wiggins and D'Lo, Mississippi. When the local timber supply dwindled, the company tried to utilize redwood trees from California, but that operation failed because of high transportation costs. Other attempts were made at promoting a more diversified use of the cutover timberlands; some ventures were successful while others were not.
Pine Creek Gorge, sometimes called The Grand Canyon of Pennsylvania, is a 47-mile (76 km) gorge carved into the Allegheny Plateau by Pine Creek in north-central Pennsylvania.
The Ottawa River timber trade, also known as the Ottawa Valley timber trade or Ottawa River lumber trade, was the nineteenth century production of wood products by Canada on areas of the Ottawa River and the regions of the Ottawa Valley and western Quebec, destined for British and American markets. It was the major industry of the historical colonies of Upper Canada and Lower Canada and it created an entrepreneur known as a lumber baron. The trade in squared timber and later sawed lumber led to population growth and prosperity to communities in the Ottawa Valley, especially the city of Bytown. The product was chiefly red and white pine.The Ottawa River being conveniently located with access via the St. Lawrence River, was a valuable region due to its great pine forests surpassing any others nearby. The industry lasted until around 1900 as both markets and supplies decreased, it was then reoriented to the production of wood pulp which continued until the late 1990s and early 2000s.
A log pond is a small natural lake or reservoir used for storage of wooden logs in readiness for milling at a sawmill. Although some mill ponds served this purpose for water-powered sawmills, steam-powered sawmills used log ponds for transportation of logs near the mill; and did not require the elevation drop of watermill reservoirs.
On June 13, 1886, a log jam developed in the St. Croix River, close to Taylors Falls, Minnesota, and St. Croix Falls, Wisconsin. The river was used to transport large quantities of logs from the forests upstream to the sawmills, and log jams disrupted this business. The 1886 jam was described at the time by a local journalist as "the jammedest jam" he had encountered, and was very difficult to clear, with hundreds of men working for six weeks to clear it, eventually using steamboats and dynamite. The jam was also a major tourist attraction, with thousands of spectators every day. After the jam was broken up in July, cleanup work to remove the logs on the river banks continued until September.
Autumn and winter landscapes, portrayals of Aboriginal people and depictions of life in rural Quebec
At the time of the great voyages of exploration, the First Peoples provided assistance essential for Europeans to survive and settle in these lands
Media related to Timber floating at Wikimedia Commons