00-14AP Ready for the Mill Art PrintThe landing at sunset was a peaceful scene after all the activity of the working day. Bucked logs are decked and waiting to be loaded on trucks early in the morning for their trip to the mill.This was one of the many ways loggers rigged loading systems in the steam donkey days for yarding and loading logs onto trucks or railroad cars for transportation to the mill. The set-up shown in this oil painting was known as a "high lead" operation. The high lead system was widely used in those days; using a spar tree which carried the main line and haulback cables through blocks high above the ground. This was developed from rigging used on masts aboard sailing ships. High lead was a great advancement over the low lead, or ground lead method which it replaced because in the latter the logs were merely dragged on the ground. They seemed to hang up on every rock and stump on their way to the landing. In this sunset painting the donkey on the left was the loader while the other donkey was the yarder. The wood buck was kept busy cutting firewood for the donkeys as they consumed large amounts of fuel. Landings were usually located in an elevated area out on the nose or point of a ridge, where the lines could reach out long distances (sometimes over a half-mile) to yard in the logs. |
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