Still Image |  | Picking a Jam with Batteau
Maine Folklife Center, Still Image
Photograph of a group of men picking a log jam, batteau being held in the current ready to take them off when the jam begins to go. Log jams were one of the primary problems in river driving. Once a jam formed, men would have to "pick the jam" in order to get the logs moving again. Picking the jam involved going out onto the logs in order to move them one by one until the men found and moved the one log that was holding all of the others in place. When this happened the jam would let go. At this moment, with many logs heading downstream at once, any river driver left on the river was in grave danger. The batteaux would wait in order to take the men off the logs as the jam let go.
Find Similar Resources | Boats and boating
Log driving
Lumbering
Lumbering
Rivers
|