Well snow conditions are very good right now and we have been cutting a few birch logs on the Petit Mecatina River. We got 4 today and 4 yesterday.
Very heavy and a lot of hard work but a day in the woods is never really work is it
Quebecnewf
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Nice pic's , brings back memory's of the strip cutting days, very hard work moving them around, my dad used to say it'll make a man out of you.
Looks like work, wearing snowshoes to stay on top and work through the brush.
But also looks like a good place to be working.
Thanks for the pics.
Are you going to float them or skid them out with an ATV or something?
We hauled them home to the mill by snowmobile. 2 logs on each sleigh makes a load. These will be the first ones I will saw come the spring. They will then go directly into the solar kiln and by Sept I should have around 400 ft of KD Birch.
This coming Suday the plan is to go in over the country about 30 miles to get some larch (juniper). There are none of these left close they were all cut years ago for boat building.
It will be a all day trip and some of the hills will require 2 snowmobiles tied togather to haul the loaded sheighs up . Very steep hills.
I will take pics and post here Sun night if all goes well
Quebecnewf
Nice pictures QuebecNewf. I was looking at google earth to see where harrington Quebec is. Would it be correct to say Harrington is about 55-60 miles to either Montreal or Ottawa? Looks to be a bit NE of Ottawa, and NW of Montreal. Or is google earth putting Harrington in the wrong spot?
That is Harrington Quebec . I live in Harrington Harbour Quebec. A small village on an island on the Lower North Shore of Quebec.
Quebecnewf
Well today was a great day sunny and cold -12C and we left a 6:00AM to go inland for juniper .
50 klm one way and lots of portages to go through
We were gone all day and got home at 4:00PM with 4 nice 8' larch (juniper ) logs. These will go in the solar kiln this spring.
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Quebecnewf
The green pin west of Newfoundland.
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looks like a long way to go for a few logs, but well worth it when you factor in the scenery and a day out on the snow
Who owns the land and timber? Do you get a permit to cut it?
That timber is so remote that it aint comercially fisable to have cut. There aint no roads built to get there and that would cost more then the wood that is available to harvest. The North Shore road stops a long way from where they are at.
I assume you can't just run down to the store to get some lumber if you weed nice boards and stuff like that. What a great place. Nice pictures.
No there are no roads into the area and the wood is free for the cutting. There is not much cutting going on . People cut what they need for fire wood and some people cut a few logs but that is all. We had more than enough wood to go round and enough logs as well for our needs.
A few years ago the hemlock looper paid a visit and ate large areas of our forest. If you look in the background of the pics where we are hauling the logs up the hill using two snowmobiles you can see the damage in the background.
Those loopers did more damage in one season than all the cutting we had done for a 100 years.
Thats nature I guess.
Quebecnewf
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You can see in this pic some of the damage they did .
You know,I always enjoy your stories and pictures.
well today was another excellent day weather wise. Snow conditions are great and so with that in mind we decided to make another expedition into the back country for more larch. Left Harrington at 6:00 am . hour and a half later we were in country trail conditions were even better than the last trip
Cut two loads of larch and one load of dry larch for firewood. Everything went like clockwork we were ready to start BACK HOME AT 10:30 . Someone said, and it might have been me that we should be home , if we had no trouble by 1:30 at tha latest. In hindsight that was probaly a mistake.
We started our journey home but within the first mile my freinds machine lost a "idler wheel" without going into details you cannot dry this type of snowmobile without a back "idler wheel".
We unloaded one load of logs and placed the broken snowmobile on that sleigh. Shortly after that one of the other sleighs broke in half. Droped another load. Hooked a small tree going through one of the portages, smashed the tree off ,fell down across my head no damage done (hard head) . Got stuck in portage due to tree across head. had to use winch to get out .
We arrived home at 4:30 . We have 2 loads of logs left 40 klm in the country plus one half of a sleigh so it looks like tomorrow will be a rescue mission.
Pic to follow tomorrow
Quebecnewf
Said with a wistful sigh---- sometimes I really do miss the snow and the snowmobiles :(
I know how freighting with snowmobiles goes haha if it was too easy, everyone would do it.
been on so many "easy" trips only to return in the middle of the night short a couple sleds or towing a few
me and my dad hauled alot of firewood over the years with a 640 alpine with steel log bunk sleigh and a skandic superlongtrack. I like the looks of the sleighs that you run, look like they would pull and turn nice. remind me of the old tractor train sleighs from long ago
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Here is a photo of the broken snowmobile perched on the sleigh we used to tow it home on. You can see on the other load of logs the front half of the sled that broke under the load of logs
Quebecnewf