Trying to ID some tools left over from log drive the 40-50's.

[Jeff]

Everything I ever learned said that a wannigan was a structure on a raft, most often the cookhouse and supplies for accompanying the river rats on drives.

Here is a photo from my stuff and there are a few more here:
Historic Logging and Milling Photos Thread

[Ernie_Edwards]

The local paper has a history article on saturdays. Yesterdays was about the old river log drives. The had a picture of a wannigan and it was just like in Jeffs picture. It was a real catch-all, the kitchen, supply room and carried the workers personal stuff.

Ernie

[frozenoem]

To Jeff and Ernie -
I don't doubt what your saying about most wanigan's - I've seen the references to them and they seem to have been common - everywhere - in the early days. Heck, check out a Labonville catalog - logging supply company - here - inside their front cover is a picture of a Brown company - camp and Wangan combined.

But, in Maine - it seems as the camp became fixed in place and the building stopped being hauled around on the ice in winter - The Wangan seems to have become a cooks house or company office and convenience type store for logging supplies or personal items for the loggers - through the 50's.

Nowadays at least around here - the loggers do seem just to jump in there Ram or Chevy - and drive the 30-50 miles to the store and get their gear. And yes, Maine hasn't changed that much between then and now - the timbered areas are still pretty much owned by paper or other interests - and some of the places like 7islands are still holding the land for themselves - and some for public recreational use.

Other companies are selling off their tracts in the millions of acres to foreign nationals - if you dig through enough paperwork of dummy corporations you see Bahranians, Saudi's  and Japanese. Maine still an outpost - heck, even back in the 40's - seems there were Nazi's (Germans) camping in Rangeley, ME in one of the lodges on a lake. At least until the FBI - arrested 'em - before we entered the war.

The pictures will be updated in my album - today- of some of the tools - just to make sure I'm looking for Railroad tools - today I may get an ancient river driver 84 with intact memory to see the camp and give me some history lesson's - thus far he has been right on - with where the capstan was placed in front of my boathouse for the booms.

Successfully edited and downsized my pictures to my album - which I think I left open, including one shot of the area lately - still pretty much as populated as it was in the 50's when it went from a logging camp to timber area and leased land camps. We don't really change that much in this part of the state - distance will always be in hours vs. go thru x,y,z, towns to the camp.