Logging Operation

Since the early 1800s, logging has been a major industry in the Adirondack region of New York. As early as the 1850s, logging camps had been established in the inner regions of the Adirondack forests. The Adirondack’s forest is full of Northern hardwoods such as sugar maples, yellow birch and beech trees. These hardwoods were ideal for lumber production. By 1870, paper making from wood pulp was brought to the United States, making all of the trees in the region valuable, regardless of size or species. In addition to the hardwoods, softwoods such as hemlocks, poplar, balsam, and spruce could also be cut down.

Logging was a three-season business despite the Adirondack’s harsh weather and the inherent dangers of felling and transporting the large trees. Generally, in the spring and summer the loggers would begin to fell the trees, which would continue into the fall. Also in the summer, lumber camps, roads, and skidways were built.  A skidway is a framework on which logs are piled for storage until they are shipped.

In the fall, loggers would remove the bark from the cut trees and transport the logs to yards for export. Then, the production would be slowed to a crawl between the late fall and January. However, by late January enough snow would have fallen to haul the logs on sleds to banking grounds where they would be stored to await further transportation by sled or river driving.

From the banking ground the trees could be transported in one of two ways. The trees could be loaded onto a sled and hauled down the mountain on the roads cleared the previous spring and summer, or the logs could be pushed into the river and floated down the mountain, a method known as river driving. Both methods were dangerous and hard work.

 

How does geography impact local economies?

 

Describe the scene in the photograph and evaluate the impact of geography on the local economy.