What makes someone a logger ?

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Operators comes to mind . When one guy can fall and stack 30 loads a day with a fellerbuncher ,that would be hard to top doing by hand . so operator vs faller vs production .
 
Farmers once did most work by hand, then later with horses and now they use tractors and other equipment. Are they not farmers now?

Running a feller buncher, delimber, skidder, forwarder, etc all has its own challenges too.
Thankfully I can run equipment, as there's no way my back would handle manual labor all day.

I don't know of ANY logger that doesn't use at least some equipment aside for "old timey" exhibition shows. Not gonna pay many bills trying to work with just an ax and crosscut saw!
 
Think ya all are over thinkin this.

Its a name it happens to cover a bunch of individual job descriptions.

I fall timber but i wouldn't compare myself to modern fallers that call themselves cutters here or fellers elsewhere

I run a skidder, but i'm not a skidder op

I play with an excavator, i wouldn't call myself an opperator.

I can drive a cat/dozer, but i'm not a cat skinner

I can probably run a log loader too (only messed with one once...) but still not an operator....


All these things are part of logging, hence logger... though really i'm just a gyppo with a bunch of grand ideas.
 
I could see the name changing for the all mech operations now. They get a much better insurance rate. What I do is much different and more dangerous then a mechanized crew. When logging went to rubber tire machines is when it switched from lumberjack to logger. I'm often called a lumberjack here by the lay person. I used to get annoyed and say lumberjacks used axes and oxen. Now I just go with it. When I walk into an SFI meeting and I see all the guys in tennis shoes and clean clothes you can tell I'm not running joysticks all day. Hand cutters are a dying breed here as most places I would imagine. I know how to save out the big trees. That's definitely on the way out. I've seen woods that other guys around my age have hand cut and it looks like hack work. Busted ******** all over. Residual stand looks like hell. Ugly bore cut/short bar stumps. No respect it seems and lack of knowledge. The difference between timber cutters and timber fallers.
 
I think you said they were pilots ;)
Right! and some of those pilots are the prime contractors that own the machine and pay the Falling contractor, Loggers, and the captains...But they will always be a pilot as a captain will be a captain, a faller a faller and I trucker a trucker. ect
The difference being a logger only wants to be a logger. I never met a pilot yet that owned his/her own machine that turned down other work to go logging.
 
saws are not used that much for felling these days.

back in the old school pulpwood days we had probably 20 saws or more on the job at any given day. with probably ten guys running the be-jevirs out of them --

by the time i started pulling out of logging we might have had six on the job and only run one or two much in a days time.

i all ways carried one on the skidder --sometimes a small one --some times a big one--

work-mans comp increased fees so much they sort of ran the saws out of the woods.

i don't log much anymore , less i have a close by job.
 
Think ya all are over thinkin this.

Its a name it happens to cover a bunch of individual job descriptions.

I fall timber but i wouldn't compare myself to modern fallers that call themselves cutters here or fellers elsewhere

I run a skidder, but i'm not a skidder op

I play with an excavator, i wouldn't call myself an opperator.

I can drive a cat/dozer, but i'm not a cat skinner

I can probably run a log loader too (only messed with one once...) but still not an operator....


All these things are part of logging, hence logger... though really i'm just a gyppo with a bunch of grand ideas.

Unless you can take credit for torching off an epic conflagration like the Tillamook Burn, you're really not fully qualified as a gyppo. ;)
 
I think being a logger has a lot more to do with attitude, work ethic, and ability to make a deal and make good on that deal. One of the most powerful "loggers" here never fell a tree or loaded a log, but he owned half a million acres of timberland and one point, employed 1500 men.

the $$$ was all ways in the ownership of the timber. logging iron is just scrap if you don't have anything for it to do.

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