Gritty 1943 photos record Maine woodsmen on a dangerous spring lumber drive

A woodsman wearing spiked shoes opens up an empty boom at the upper end of Mooselookmeguntic Lake so it can be filled with more logs from the Kennebago River.

Image: Library of Congress

In May 1943, Office of War Information photographer John Collier traveled to the timber holdings of the Brown Company in western Maine near the New Hampshire border.

There, he camped out with woodsmen who were tasked with guiding thousands of heavy, slippery logs on the spring pulpwood drive down the Kennebago River and Mooselookmeguntic Lake toward distant pulp and paper mills.

In addition to making portraits of the workers at rest, he captured the men in action as they deftly used pikes to maneuver the pulpwood, even riding the logs themselves to usher them through treacherous waters toward their destination. Read more...

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