Logging: A Most Hazardous Profession

[oregonpackfan]

If you want to see in action how hazardous the profession of logging can be you need to start watching Axmen on the History Channel.

The show has film crews follow four different logging companies in the northern Coast Range of Oregon. The Coast Range is a very hilly, heavily forested, part of western Oregon. The most common tree logged is the Douglas Fir--a very tall, straight-trunked tree.

All the added equipment seems to add to the dangers rather than alleviate it. The skidders, yarders, trucks, etc. add many hazards to just the standard chain saw.

When I lived in northern Wisconsin, my brothers and I would venture out to the woods to cut firewood. When I look back on it, it's a wonder one of us did not get hurt with trees falling the wrong way, chain saws bucking, etc.

The show is worth watching.

[Freak Out]

The Larch.

[GrnBay007]

I've known only one logger...he was incredibly handsome.

:P

[twoseven]

Discovery Channel HD Theater has a series called Risk Takers. The loggers was an amazing show. It was shot in Oregon, followed a couple of different men through their days. Amazing process, and every single aspect of the job, no matter what your job as part of the chain of cutting down and removing trees, could kill you in an instant if you aren't careful and alert. I knew it was dangerous but had no idea until I watched it.

[Iron Mike]

Discovery Channel HD Theater has a series called Risk Takers.

Have they profiled the prison guards who get to transport the Hep B, C and HIV-positive inmates who don't give a damn about who they bite because they're lifers anyway to their free health care? All for a whopping $15.00 an hour?

[LL2]

When I was a kid our family lived in northern Wisconsin and we knew several loggers. They do not make squat for the hard work they do and the risk they take. When I was fifteen for the summer I followed a logger that cut down poplar trees, and I was a "peeler." My job was to peel the bark off the trees that were cut down, and I got paid $.15 cents a stick (a stick was an 8 foot log). That work was brutal, and never did it again.

I love watching those shows on History Channel. I also liked the one with the fishermen risking their lives out in the ocean.

[oregonpackfan]

When I was a kid our family lived in northern Wisconsin and we knew several loggers. They do not make squat for the hard work they do and the risk they take. When I was fifteen for the summer I followed a logger that cut down poplar trees, and I was a "peeler." My job was to peel the bark off the trees that were cut down, and I got paid $.15 cents a stick (a stick was an 8 foot log). That work was brutal, and never did it again.

I love watching those shows on History Channel. I also liked the one with the fishermen risking their lives out in the ocean.

Those poplar(we pronounced them "popple") trees were incredibly fast-growing softwood trees. In essence, they were tall weeds because you did not have to replant them after cutting them down. The offshoots seemed to just spring up out of the ground.

[Tyrone Bigguns]

The Larch.

And I thought you were so rugged! Poofter!...

[LL2]

When I was a kid our family lived in northern Wisconsin and we knew several loggers. They do not make squat for the hard work they do and the risk they take. When I was fifteen for the summer I followed a logger that cut down poplar trees, and I was a "peeler." My job was to peel the bark off the trees that were cut down, and I got paid $.15 cents a stick (a stick was an 8 foot log). That work was brutal, and never did it again.

I love watching those shows on History Channel. I also liked the one with the fishermen risking their lives out in the ocean.

Those poplar(we pronounced them "popple") trees were incredibly fast-growing softwood trees. In essence, they were tall weeds because you did not have to replant them after cutting them down. The offshoots seemed to just spring up out of the ground.

Yes, I think that would *EDIT wood is only used for paper products.