Mauls

I used to chop a lot of firewood when I was a kid.

I didn’t always love it back then, mostly because I HAD to do it, and almost every day, too, but I have missed it since then, and almost every day, too.

When I was about 12, it became my job to keep the house, with it’s two large woodstoves, supplied with firewood. By that age I was already a veteran of the war for warmth, but that age was when it became ‘my’ job. I think that I complained about it more than my feelings about the job actually warranted, mostly because it got in the way of instant gratification. You know, I wanted to go and play with my friend, or go read, or do my homework, anything other than chores. But no, I had to split three loads worth of firewood in the woodshed, then wheel it up to the house in the custom plywood wheelbarrow, and stack it. Rain or shine, and, since it was Ucluelet in the fall, winter, and spring, it was usually raining.

Sometimes I felt pretty hard-done-by for having to do this job, and I’d grouse to myself while I worked about the fact that neither of my brothers had to do this. I couldn’t bring myself to complain about Dad not doing it because he did all the rest of it. He was often out in the worst of weather, teetering on his made-of-logs dock, armed with a pike pole, in order to snag whatever future firewood gem had broken loose in the storm, or that the storm-surge tides had floated off the outer beaches and pushed into the harbour. Gumboots, raingear, pike pole, slippery log dock, in a hurricane, and there he was, dragging some teredo-wormy hemlock into the beach. He can’t swim, but I know he was having the time of his life when he was out there.

My brother used to take the dory that Dad built and head out with Furthermore the dog to go beachcombing. Sometimes he’d snag a log that was good enough to sell to Pioneer Boat Works, and they’d mill it up, and either split the lumber with him, or pay him cash for it, but he also brought in quite a few firewood logs. Oftentimes our beach would be so crowded with logs that we’d have to have a firewood day. Firewood day meant that a bunch of men from church would come over and bring their chainsaws, mauls, and jerry cans, and they’d buck up all the logs, split the rounds into quarters, then chuck them up to the top of the beach, close to the shed. All the ladies would hang out up at the house with Mom, and they’d all visit and laugh it up, and make coffee and tea and snacks for everyone. Those were great days. We were all brothers and sisters, and husbands and wives, and needy and generous, and clean and stinky, and hard and soft, and loud and tender, and together, and united. Everyone showed up with a role to fill, and shit just got done with gusto and cheer.

I loved being down there, back when Fisheries didn’t care about sawdust on the beach, working with the men. I was still a little boy, but I split the quarters that I couldn’t lift, and I’d wheel barrow after barrow of wood up the ramp into the woodshed that was, and still is, just up off the beach. When that shed was full, there was over ten cords of firewood in there. I’d build the walls so thick that there was barely room to swing an axe. I was pushing a load up the ramp that one firewood day, when I heard Gil Sadler say that he was impressed at how hard I could work for such a young feller.

I’ve chased that feeling my entire life.

I used to look at the mounds of quarters, and stacks of rounds that were piled by a shake-blocker, and that I’d have to push over because the stacks were as tall as me, and each round weighed as much-or more-than me, I’d look at all of that work, and then I’d just do it. I was never daunted by the thought of hand-bombing an entire house package worth of lumber, in the rain. It never bothered me; it was just hard work, and I worked hard. I worked harder.

I’d spend some time complaining, of course, about the weather, and the boss, and women, and the radio station, and the work that had to be done. Bitching is just part of the culture of work in groups of men that are supposed to be working. It can get out of hand if it goes on too long, which is why coffee breaks need to end at 15 minutes when everyone is done stuffing their faces, and before they get to squawking.

Anyway, complaining or not, I always felt better when I was working, and the more complicated stuff I had going on in my life, the less complicated I wanted the job to be. For example, I love sweeping. I’m not talking about sweeping up around the living room with my slippers on, I mean after the roof is on but there’s still no windows or doors in the house yet, and someone’s got to clean up after the plumbers and sparkies sweeping. It’s best done on the weekend, when no one else is around. It’s just you and the almost home. You walk around a bit and just stare at stuff until you happen upon the broom, and remember that you’re there to clean up, not to just stare through walls and observe that unique silence that can only be heard in an empty frame-up. The smell is wet sawdust, and chalklines, and spilled coffee, and if you’re lucky, a dog or two.

Sweep sweep BANG, sweep sweep BANG. Push brooms get all clogged up when you’re sweeping up construction crud, so you’ve got to bang them on the floor to clear them. It also sounds really cool, the way the sound reverberates in the shell, and it’s important to establish a rhythm when you set your mind to so-called mindless work. Sweep sweep BANG sweep sweep BANG. Eventually, you will sweep into a wall plate that hasn’t been cut out of a doorway, but it’s the weekend, and you don’t want to go through all the trouble of running a cord from the pole, so you’ll just grab the rusty handsaw to cut it out.

Inevitably, someone comes by and finds you on your knees, sawing away with the dull handsaw, and makes some joke or comment about how they didn't think anyone was here, and that’s not very efficient, and you don’t want to get into discussing why the heck they're trespassing, and the fact that that’s the whole point, because you just want them to go away and leave you alone because you’re puttering.

It’s also inevitable that during the course of your sweep-up you’ll eyeball a wall and see a dog-leg in it, or a doorway that doesn't line up, or a header that's not flush, and maybe you’ll go get the piano tuner to give it a whack or two to straighten it out, or maybe instead you’ll just grab that pencil from the crud pile, and make a notes on the floor so it all gets sorted on Monday.

There’s nothing like it, in my experience, that solemn intimacy of a man and his pride, his satisfaction at having accomplished something uncommon, and the luxury of relishing it, of breathing it in. Breathing deep. Hemlock, Spruce, Pine, Fir, Cedar.

All those little blocks of wood.

Building.