Their work has been described as "romantic" - by people who never had to do it.

The work day, lasting from dawn to dark, was long and arduous. The pay was not exceptional ($20-25 a month) and the benefits few, although ample food was provided – out of necessity – for the workers.

LUMBERJACKS POSE for the camera atop a sled loaded with logs in an old area photo. Although the men are unidentified in the undated picture, it was doubtless taken 100 or more years ago. One of the men holds the reins to the horses. The other three each hold a “cant hook,” which was indispensable in the woods for moving logs.

The work was that of a lumberjack. For Leelanau’s first half-century or so, forest-related industries spurred the county’s growth and is reflected in census numbers, which hit 10,608, in 1910.

Thereafter, the numbers declined, and another half-century elapsed before the census was again up to what it had once been.

“The boom reached such proportions right after the Civil War that it quickly outran the supply of lumberjacks, raftsmen, and river rats, who had come on from New England and New York lands,” Harlan Hatcher, author and former U-M president, wrote in The Great Lakes.

The demand for lumber was spiked further following the Great Chicago Fire of 1871, and at least one (at Good Harbor) extra mill in Leelanau was put into operation to assist the city in its rebuilding efforts.

Working in the woods drew a number of young, single men, but family men worked there, too. Since, in the beginning at least, most of the tree-felling was done in winter months, working as a lumberjack could provide additional income for established county farmers in their “off season.”

The cutting was normally done in winter because “ice roads,” which accommodated huge sleds that were loaded with logs, provided the easiest means of moving products of the forest to strategic spots.

The workmen sometimes liked to see how large a load they could assemble on a sled. The practice was epitomized with the “World’s Fair Load” of 1893, which was exhibited at Chicago.

“A logging camp in the Michigan woods was no place for weaklings or the ladies,” Rolland Maybee wrote in Michigan’s White Pine Era.

“All season long these huskies fed on pork, beans, onions, biscuits, pies and coffee,” Hatcher wrote. “They sat on rough benches at a long table in the cookhouse and reached for what they wanted.”

It was said that “there was never a healthier lot of men,” which Hatcher attributed to their work. “The secret, of course, was long hours in the crisp, pine-scented air of the forest. For twelve hours each day, later cut to only ten, the lumberjacks swung axes, pulled cross-cut saws, and wrestled logs with their long handled peavies. They worked up the rivers of Michigan – with slaughtering speed.”

Later, logging railroads and Silas Overpack’s “Big Wheels” (the only “authentic” color was red) were used to haul logs from the forest to the mills.

Extending the logging “season” simply accelerated an already frenzied pace. Much land that had been valuable because of the timber on it was considered valueless and, in effect abandoned.

A century ago, in 1907, about one-seventh of the state was tax-delinquent. Owners who had become wealthy leveling the forests didn’t care if they lost the land on which the trees had grown and didn’t bother paying the taxes on it.

Many of the lumber barons had simply pulled up stakes and moved further west, although some stayed on and contributed to their respective communities.

On Dec. 11, 1865, the Manistee Gazette republished an article, attributed to the Midland City Sentinel, which described the life of a lumberjack.

“When the shanties are built and everything pronounced comfortable for the winter, a more arduous duty awaits him. In the dense forest, a short distance from the shanty, is soon heard the sound of the axe and the saw. There at the foot of a huge pine tree may be seen two stalwart men, the sound of whose axes echo through the wild forest, here are two men busy with the saw, and just discernible through the dark green foliage of pine and hemlock, the ox teamster, returning with his load, and his shrill voice as he calls his ‘go long, haw!’ resounds through the forest air, then mingling with the sighing of the wintry winds through the snow covered branches, and now and then the fall of a mighty son of the forest, the sound of which reverberates through the dense wilderness, presents a scene both grand and sublime.”

A day’s work done, the lumberjacks‚ evening hour are described.

“All gather around the camp fire; when with jokes, songs and jovial mirth, the evening quickly and quietly passes away, while the music of the winds as they sigh and whistle through the tall pine tops lulls them to a sweet and delicious repose made doubly so by the honest labors of the day.”

Finally, the close of the “season” is described.

“At the termination of the drive, a social chat is indulged in, and then a parting glass, shaking of hands, and, finally, parting, promising to renew departed scenes at some future day. Such is the life of a lumberman; who would not be one?”

The compilers of The Lumberman’s Legacy (Manistee, Mich., 1954), from which the above is extracted, had a more traditional view of the boisterous, often rowdy, lumberjacks and added the following editor’s note.

“The last paragraph smacks more of a pink tea function than a lumberjack’s hitting town after a winter in the woods. We are entitled to our opinion just as is the author. Maybe he was in the pay of some lumberman who hoped to enlist new recruits – who knows?”

Hatcher would have doubtless gone along with this second opinion.

“The only things a man wanted, they said, came in bottles and corsets. The sorry little one-street saloon towns had an abundance of both,” he wrote.

And all of northern Michigan once had an abundance of fine trees – until the lumberjacks arrived on the scene to transform the landscape.