A Book Review by Rory Bosanko
Photo provided by Rory Bosanko
Rory Finn Bosanko is a senior at Sterling College studying Natural Resource Management. In researching the history of logging and forestry in the Northeastern United States, Rory recently read and reviewed a book called Haywire: Discord in Maine’s Logging Woods and the Unraveling of an Industry to learn more about logging and sustainable forestry management. Since logging is one of the primary ways to manage forests, Rory was naturally interested in learning more about it.
One of the things Rory most enjoyed about the book was how the author, Andrew Egan provides the reader with a very solid foundation for understanding what the day to day aspects of logging are. Details about what equipment they use, working conditions, and daily practices inspired Rory to continue his research and expand his thinking about ways to find a balance between harvesting forest products and natural resource management.
Next, Rory plans to read "Dividing Paradise" by Jennifer Sherman and "The Beans of Egypt, Maine" by Carolyn Chute.
Photo by Rory Bosanko
Andrew Egan’s Haywire, published in 2022, provides a historical overview and contemporary look into one of Maine’s most archetypical industries. After a career as a logger and landowner assistance forester in New Hampshire, Egan went into academia wherein he taught forestry in Canada, the Philippines, Nepal and now works at the University of Maine at Fort Kent where he is the Dean of Arts and Sciences and Professional Development.
Haywire begins with a history of logging in Maine with the initial settlement of New England wherein colonists started carving out fields from the forested landscape throughout the 1700s. Logging didn’t become an “industry” until the early 1900s when the value of agricultural goods increased to the point where farmers were less willing to take on winter forest work. Until this period, logging was done by farmers and farm boys who had considerably less agricultural work to do during the winter and which conveniently is when logging was most opportune as extracting logs was considerably easier on snow and ice.
Spring pulpwood drive on the Brown Company timber holdings in Maine. Collier, John, Jr., 1913-1992
Working in the logging camps during the winter served as a valuable period to make much needed cash and for many of the farm youth it offered an adventurous break from farming. Most of the harvested lumber was then sawn in local sawmills that more often than not were owned by the loggers themselves and who could spend the summer sawmilling. This form of logging that grew up from farmer-lumberers harvesting sawlogs during the winter gradually grew into a significant industry whereby large lumber camps were established along the major river systems such as the the Penobscot along which the ‘rivermen’ would drive softwood lumber down the river feed the mills in Bangor, Maine.
A large part of Maine’s logging story which Egan discusses throughout the book is that Maine loggers are in the unique position of directly competing with Canadian loggers, commonly referred to as “Bonds”, who work in Northern Maine. For centuries Maine’s forest owners relied on cross-border laborers from the poorer farming parishes in Quebec, many of whom worked on visas, but beginning in the 1950s a decrease in the available local logging workforce throughout Northern Maine encouraged the use of H-2B work visas. This visa is available only for the term of employment and is issued by the employer to potential employees only after it has been determined that no available local laborers are interested in the jobs even after preferential treatment is given. With the transition from company laborers to contractors, Maine loggers started to resent the bonded labor system and many consider it unfair and wrong that they have to compete with Quebec lumberers since they have national healthcare systems and are willing to be paid less.
A general view of the Tim Pond cabins. Starbird, E. R., [between 1883 and 1930]
Beginning in the late 1800s through the early 1900s advances in technology enabled large-scale paper milling using forest products became the focus of large corporations in Maine such as Great Northern. These corporations invested heavily in producing mill-towns like Millinocket; the focus of the industry in Maine gradually changed from producing sawn timber to harvesting pulpwood for paper products. Egan shows how change from sawn lumber to pulp had a significant impact on the local economies of these newly created timber towns as logging became an industrial occupation that became a full-time year round job with benefits and good wages.
Gradually though, after dissatisfaction with having to bear the significant labor and equipment costs and in a bid to become more competitive globally, the “company” era to end, as starting in the 1940s through the 1970s, the paper corporations got rid of their logging workforce and came to rely on “jobbers” and “gypos” (logging terms for independent operators) who worked for piece-rates based on the amount of lumber they could cut and extract. The transformation of logging employees to logging independent operators was not without significant turmoil as it was significantly more difficult and risky for an individual logger to finance their own equipment, trucking, insurance, certifications and workers compensation, throwing these costs onto individual loggers was a significant reason for the companies transitioning away from having their own crews.
As frustration from the low wood prices and competition from bonds grew after the post-war transition to being “gypos”, Maine loggers came to revolt sporadically during this period. The largest of this unrest was in 1975 when 3,000 Maine loggers, members of the Maine Woodsmen Association, struck against the paper companies and timberland owners. The short term changes that came from this strike were relatively limited outside of the number of bonds being hired falling by 75% for 5 years after the action yet decades later Maine loggers who still faced the same issues blockaded the Canadian border and raided logging camps hosting bonds in the early 2000s.
Yet another interesting element started to come into the picture beginning in the 1980s, as most of Maine’s pulp mills came to be outcompeted by international logging companies and those that stayed in business started to move their paper manufacturing to the Southern US where labor costs are cheaper and where conditions for growing softwood, particularly pine, are ideal. Towns all across Northern Maine started to decline as individual mills shut down leaving a huge hole in the tax base and the number of employed people in the local community. As the pulp industry has left Northern Maine, the remaining loggers have seen their markets shrink and overall there has been a considerable decrease in timber harvesting generally.
In our times, Egan highlights the biggest factors contributing to the decline of the forest products industry in Maine (and Vermont) are low price of wood, particularly pulpwood, high cost of equipment and repairs, lack of health insurance/benefits for employees, low wages and a lack of social prestige. One of the issues Egan highlights particularly, is the decreasing familial bond that loggers used to have which served as a pipeline into the forest products industry. As pointed out in Egan’s research from 2004, a majority of loggers had family members involved in the forestry and 71.4% of them had at least 1 generation of logging in their family line. Yet despite this, 69.9% of loggers wouldn’t encourage their kids to become loggers.
This is notable because given the rough work that logging entails, it’s a relatively unattractive career path without the background of established familial attachments. In comparison to other employment paths that involve skilled labor and equipment operation, Egan points out that construction and many other careers offer better benefits, wages and don’t come with the longer commutes that logging does. Logging continues to be dangerous (even though mechanization has reduced it somewhat) and involves a number of hardships including seasonal employment, significant financial risk, and pressure from development and land use.
Why don’t forestry professionals and rural communities abandon logging and focus on stewarding forests towards other objectives, particularly in light of the decline of the forest products industry? Egan poses this question in one of his last sections and for decades, forest management objectives and changing forest land ownership have led to a greater interest in recreation minded stewardship while managing for forest products declines across rural communities across the United States. Egan addresses this question by examining the Adirondack Park, a forest preserve made up of public and private parcels with land-use regulations varying between parcels in upstate New York.
Historically there was a greater forest products industry throughout the Adirondacks, but due to its isolation and mediocre wood supply the industry there has shrunk and now the economy is primarily dependent on seasonal work most of which are characterized by low wages, periodic unemployment and a lack of benefits. The park is seeing a significant decrease in population as individuals leave to pursue opportunities elsewhere which has only continued to exacerbate the rural poverty which most of the less mobile residents are left in.
Attempts to create similar publicly owned and managed forest preserves have been made in Northern Maine, yet they continue to be thwarted by local residents who are mainly concerned about the impacts they will have on the rural economy. One of the primary takeaways from the book is that no matter what happens as the forest products economy continues to decline, there will always be a need for logging because even though the value of conducting this work won’t be primarily done for the value of the forest products and will instead be done for the value of the wildlife habitat or recreational opportunities provided by the environment after these operations.
Ultimately loggers, scholars and forestry professionals have all come to recognize these issues and are looking forward to trying to remedy the ills facing the forest products industry. One of the attempts to rectify the decline in logging employment that Egan looks on with skepticism is to sponsor training programs for the newest generation of loggers with extreme skepticism as he points out that many of these programs have been tried since the 1980s yet they show little value in terms of employee retention. For generations the forest products industry in Maine tried to recruit and maintain skilled workforces from both native born Mainers, “Bonds” and immigrants yet consistently there have never been able to maintain the same workforce. One of the most interesting examples Egan provides in the book is when the Maine forest products industry recruited Tibetan refugees to work in the forest products industry.
Throughout Haywire a firm theme of realism emerges as Egan never ceases to criticize politicians and others who romanticize and extol the the future of Maine’s forest economy without providing substantial plans for its revitalization. At the end of the day, the future of Maine’s forest products economy doesn’t look bright and Egan’s examination leaves the reader with little optimism.
