UNUSUAL HORSE OCCUPATIONS - logging

by Sarah Martin


Will Australia follow Canada's example and encourage the use of horses for logging as a means to a truly sustainable practice and a way to demonstrate commitment to 'green' forest management?

Babe and Jim gearing up

In the vast woods of northern Ontario, Canada, the pioneering tradition of horse logging is gaining new favour.
Babe's bottom seems nearly as wide as the utility truck parked in the nearby clearing. The 17 hh Belgian draft is chewing through her fourth bale of hay for the week, and she certainly needs the energy. One hundred metres down the boggy service road, a beer-bellied figure strides through the trees, chainsaw in hand. The machine roars to life and slices through the trunk of a dead pine, clouds of sawdust curling into the air. A short silence, and the tree crashes to the undergrowth. The logger makes his way up the road to the horse trailer, and grabs his other tool; a collar and harness. It's Babe's turn to do her thing.
This is not the Canada you see in glossy travel brochures and television specials. The mosquitoes, black flies, horse flies, sand flies and black bears make insect repellent and a watchful eye a daily necessity. However, there is a quiet, understated beauty to the endless vista of dark pines and pale poplars spread between thousands of lakes and marshes.
Even in the middle of summer it can snow, and the winters are bitterly cold. For nine months of the year, Jim Bruce and his horses will be somewhere in these woods, carrying on a Canadian pioneering tradition that is coming back into favour for its cost efficiency and minimal impact on the environment.

Jim and Babe working

Jim and his Belgian mare are a formidable team. They can clear fifty square metres of timber in a single fine day, and nearly as much when it's raining or snowing, as it tends to do quite often. It can be lonely, isolating work. The population density is about the same as central Australia, only with a lot more trees.
So many trees in fact, that the timber industry is one of the biggest primary industries in Ontario. The gold, asbestos and nickel mining industries have been the economic backbone of northern Ontario communities for most of the 20th century, but with countless mine closures and layoffs in recent decades, unemployment hovers around 15%. Horse logging is an industry set for growth and development, Jim says.
"There's plenty of work around, it's just finding people willing and able to do it. And it can be a well-paying career if you have good horses and good technique." The horse logging workforce in northern Ontario consists of a core group of generational loggers and a mix of ex-miners, ex-farmers and ex-city folk.
The loggers with the required skills and work ethic have found their way into a career that is surprisingly lucrative, and Government-guaranteed. The Ontario Provincial government requires that at least 2 percent of Crown-owned land be logged by sustainable means.
Private land is another huge source of income for horse logging teams. Many of these areas are too small or remote for conventional mechanical logging to be cost effective or even physically possible. These small tracts add up to good business for the horse loggers.
Jim fits Babe into her harness and bridle, and leads her into the recently felled clearing. He clears relatively small stands of timber at a time, and the selective logging techniques leave much of the undergrowth and young saplings intact. In less than a decade, maturing trees will fill this clearing.
Often, Jim is felling trees that have already died, tracts that were mechanically clear-felled over three decades ago and then unsuccessfully replanted. It demonstrates the damage caused by full-scale mechanical clearing, and the futility of 're-planting' destroyed forests with tiny seedlings. The natural balance is upset by the indiscriminate destruction, and several decades later the plantation trees inevitably weaken and die. Horse logging is emerging as a truly sustainable practice, and timber companies are clamoring for their services as a way to demonstrate commitment to 'green' forest management.
Jim began horse logging three years ago, after three heart attacks and a quadruple heart bypass forced him to give up smoking, drinking, and a high-stress job as a goldmine supervisor. He started with one horse, Babe, and now has a Percheron gelding, Jack, and up to four assistants at a time. A young woman works a nearby clearing with Jack. "Strength is not required to work these horses." Jim grins as he guides Babe around the logs. "It's common sense."
A draft horse at work is an awesome sight. Jim secures the hook and chain to the log and drops the reins, leaving Babe to power down the 50-metre slope, weaving gracefully through the stumps and saplings. This work is called 'skidding'. When the mare reaches the service road, she pulls up beside the woodpile, chewing the bit quietly. If horses can be said to enjoy their work, JimÕs horses clearly do.

Babe portrait

"Some horse-loggers ask their horses to skid too heavy a load, and the horses jack up on them; they get hard to control, hard to stop, hard to steer. I treat my horses well, and they treat me well."
When the pile numbers roughly 500 to 600 logs, (called a 'bunch'), a truck rolls in and hauls the load away.
"Then it's on to the next job." Jim guides Babe beside a high pile of wood and slides onto her back. He confides that his cardiac specialist does
"He knows I manage a logging company, which is basically true," Jim says, grinning.
He clucks the mare into an ambling walk and they make their way up the rutted track back to camp. It's lunchtime.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Sarah Martin is an Australian writer with Canadian heritage, who has travelled throughout Canada visiting relatives, including an uncle who has been logging with horses for over five years.