Timber rafting

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Timber raft by Frances Anne Hopkins, 1868.

Cookery on J.R. Booth's raft, circa 1880. The raftsmen cooked, ate and slept on these rafts as they floated down the river.

Modern rafting to Vancouver, B.C.

Timber rafting is a log transportation method in which logs are tied together into rafts and drifted or pulled across a water body or down a flatter river.

It is arguably the second cheapest method of transportation of timber, next after log driving. Both methods may be referred to as timber floating.

[edit] Historical Rafting

Unlike log driving, which was a dangerous task of floating separate logs, floaters or raftsmen could enjoy relative comfort of navigation, with cabins built on rafts, steering by means of oars and possibility to make stops. On the other hand, rafting requires wider waterflows.

Timber rafts were also used as a means of transportation of people and goods, both raw materials (ore, fur, game) and man-made.

This practice used to be common in many parts of the world, especially North America. The advent of the railroad and improvements in trucking and road networks gradually reduced the use of timber rafts. Increased boat traffic and changing economies all but eliminated this practice after the middle of the 20th century but it is still used in a few locations.

[edit] Timber raft construction

Timber rafts could be of enormous proportions, sometimes up to 600 meters (2000 ft) long, 50 meters (165 ft) wide, and stacked 2 meters (6.5 ft) high. Such rafts would contain thousands of logs. For the comfort of the raftsmen - which could number up to 500 - logs were also used to build cabins and galleys. Control of the raft was done by oars and later on by tugboats.

Raft construction differs depending on the watercourse. Rocky and windy rivers saw rafts of simple, yet sometimes smart, construction. For example, the front parts of the logs were joined together by wooden bars, while the rear parts were loosely roped together. The resulting slack allowed for easy adaptation for narrow and windy waterbeds. Wide and quiet rivers, like the Mississippi River, allowed huge rafts to travel in caravans and even be chained into strings.

[edit] See also

• International Timber-Raftsmen Association [1] with member organizations in 11 countries
• Timber slide
• Log flume
• Eight Hundred Leagues on the Amazon, novel by Jules Verne

[edit] Further reading

• Bowering, Ian How timber rafts ran the Long Sault rapids in Standard Freeholder (October 8, 1993) accessed at Cornwall Public Library, Ontario [2] June 21, 2006