Redwood Logging | 1946 | Documentary on the Giant Redwood Lumber Industry in California
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This documentary shows us the cutting, loading, transportation, mill sawing and finishing operations of the Northern California's redwood lumber industry in the 1940s.
Redwood Logging | 1946 | Documentary on the Giant Redwood Lumber Industry in California
NOTE: SINCE THE VIDOE WAS PRODUCED DECADES AGO, IT HAS HISTORICAL VALUES AND CAN BE CONSIDERED AS A VALUABLE HISTORICAL DOCUMENT. THE VIDEO HAS BEEN UPLOADED WITH EDUCATIONAL PURPOSES. ITS TOPIC IS REPRESENTED WITHIN HISTORICAL CONTEXT. THE VIDEO DOES NOT CONTAIN SENSITIVE SCENES AT ALL!
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Fantastic film, even at 61 years old I love to learn, I remember moving to Maine from northern New Jersey and got a job driving for a long haul trucking company out of Bangor, Maine but working locally, fetching trailers out of the mills (1980’s & 90’s) and also picking up trailers (heavy weight permit needed) of (for a better word) sawdust which I dumped at certain places they burned to make electricity and some was bagged as bedding for horses, pigs and other animals, what I learned is they use all of the tree is the point I’m trying to make !! Nothing went to waste.
I'm curious too know why they think Redwood is fire resistant? I live in Humboldt County California, just a couple miles away from Avenue of the Giants! Most of us live off the grid. And even people on the grid still favor wood burning stove to heat their homes? If you were to ask anyone on the road or wherever, what kindling do they prefer to use as a fire starter? I guarantee you, f****** guarantee you they're going to say Redwood!
Another thing I heard was Redwood don't rot? Naturally, it last longer than other 'wood based' building materials, however... eventually it will rot! In the last 20 years, I've personally replaced so much rotten Redwood for other people. If it was still usable, I could have used it too build 1800 square foot house with it? FYI, wear gloves when handling it! Because it splinters easy!!!
@@bjjthaiboxing =////======> So maybe it burns a lot better when chopped up for kindling? 🙂
@@TheSnoopindaweb Maybe? Plus we have several Trees still standing that were hit with lightning. They hollow out via fire! Plenty of standing evidence showing Redwood definitely burns!
I’m a builder and a Wood worker…..and feel some things were just intended to be left alone. It’s a shame we lost so many of these treasures.
me too….this was worse to watch than killing whales or buffalo massacres in the1800’s
Back then they didn't really know they were a treasure. Don't blame them. They didn't know.
@@anthonyweigand6377 The narrator actually acknowledges that these trees took thousands of years to grow, how can you say they didn't know.
Do you know how many were lost in the wild fire this summer. One way or another people and trees don't last forever. God made that very clear. Stop disrespecting the past. That's how they made a living. And that's how I make a living as well. We supply you with the wood products you need to keep you in a job.Yes I'm a logger. You want to keep your job. Don't disrespect mine. Cycle of life.
@@Mikeandlucy1 narrator is not the lumber
Don't blame the men cutting these trees. All these men knew was that they had a job that put food on the table.
Yeah fuck it man, let's eat...
@@lukewarmwater5320 Had to feed the kids.
Only in hindsight do we pitty those who knew no better.....
Stupid is nobodies fault but it's vessel's.
My opinion CUT EM FUXKIN ALL DOWN we’ll be dead soon enough
If you have never stood next to a Giant Redwood or Giant Sequoia tree you should try to make the trip to California from where ever you are. You can look at pictures and videos but you will never feel the true scale of how big they really are, they're amazing. I think it's sad that any of the Giant Redwoods or Giant Sequoias were cut down, go check them out and you'll feel the same. There were redwood trees over 300 years old and Sequoia trees almost 1,200 years old when Christ was born. The oldest known Giant Sequoia tree is about 3,200 years old and the oldest known Coastal Redwood tree is over 2,500 years old, wow!
Amazing! And unbelievably sad that there are people out there that want to kill them for a week's paycheck. Selfish beyond comprehension!
They die at old age, rot, and can not be used as lumber. Since new trees are propagated from the stump, the tree lives on.
The profligacy of man never ceases to amaze: the endless search for short-term profit over understanding. This is impressive and heartbreaking in equal measure.
As a carpenter in Santa Cruz CA, I've seen and pulled out a lot of redwood framing from old homes. Never seen termite damage in redwood. Recently pulled a 2x12 header from an old doorway that had over 250 tight grains. Must have been an ancient tree.
I live in Santa Cruz myself, it's sad to go to ben lomond and see so little of them left
preserve and reuse them for as long as we can
Y not just burn them, they're always more tree!?!? Trump 2025
@@willkidd291 some slick bait my guy
A stain on our history, nothing to be proud of
We have a giant Sequoia growing in the neighbors yard. It's about 40 years old so far, and still growing strong here in Washington state.😁 The only reason I know the age of it is because my mom planted it as a sapling.
@@jesusislord6545 your nuts It was angels who labored at the trees
Would LOOVE to see a picture of it somewhere! ❤
@@TheKingdied Whose nuts?
Cool. Yup,! G-G 😀
@@crispybacon6328 I live near the south entrance to Sequoia National Park.
The thought of these trees having been alive during the ancient Egyptians and still alive today is pretty astounding.
Yeah There aren't many left.....................
They aren't alive. They're all chopped down
and alive when Adam walked the earth, witnessing Eve made from de rib
@@pjo2386 Nobody, not even most Christians, take the Genisis creation story literally.
@@nathanv6798 the crazy imaginations of Krauss, Dawkins et al, that the universe came from nothing, or that man evolved from inorganic substances, eg rocks, is v close; i would say it words would be impossible to convey how God created it all so, something too high for man to comprehend....it wouldnt fit into the few hundred words, that Moses wrote; See Living Waters channel - when asked, top scientists at UCLA could not give a shred of resounding empirical evidence to prove evolution; adaptions are real - as in finches beaks, but they will always be finches
The topper part was crazy! The way he whips the massive amount of rope up that true and then cuts it down with an axe and only one line around the trunk!😮
It’s so unreal to see the old lumber mills in action
Yeah it's mesmerizing! And makes you appreciate having the luxury of seeing one from your coach for pleasure and not for work.
Bet that wood was cheap af compared to today's prices
So unsafe
U know back in the day people only saw stuff in 460p and in black and white. 👏
No doubt!! Crazy to see a slab of wood two, or three inches thick and wider than sheet of plywood
As an arborist I admire the skill and bravery of these men, as someone who loves nature it's saddening these trees were ever even considered to be felled 😭
I think that's a really interesting career. I'd love to get paid to frig around with trees all day.
hemp based bulidings could have saved all these :(
@@imissdetroit that was boring. Any luxury I may or may not have would be off the back of hardwork, being a self made man from a working class family with 9 children in it. Those big trees the settlers "harvested" where there for thousands of years alongside the native Indians and they managed to eek out a life without them. As the Indians once said only when the last tree is felled, the last fish taken out the river and the last bird shot from the sky will man learn you can't eat money. As I say great skills and bravery by the tree men.
@@billycrotty4102 this is very true. I live in an area once known as the most dense wildlife population in North America. In the 1860s the Kankakee River was dredged draining off a 500,000 acres wetland. Wiped out over 1/3 of the waterfowl
It’s hard for me to get on board with “saving the redwoods”. There are some in my literal back yard. If I go up the road a few hundred yards there’s a HUGE old growth (never logged) forest filled with nothing but these suckers. Not some preserve park with lots of people, just regular forest. Beautiful to explore with no trails and what not. There’s just so many here I wonder why people think they’re like almost extinct or something. At the same time these people let fire wipe out tons of forest. You think I’m crazy saying they let forests burn, but I assure you, they do. Multiple crazy leftists have been proven to have started forest fires, but oh, right, it’s good for it.
I worked for 9 years in an old aircraft hangar made of redwood up in Santa Rosa, CA in the mid 80's, early 90's. Built about 1942 the redwood had no issues from bugs.
Some additional facts. The Sierra Redwood is no longer in the genus Sequoia but has been renamed Sequoiadendron. Areas you see being cut in this film in 1946 would now be forested with redwoods between 4 - 6' in diameter and about 200' tall. Redwoods grow back from the roots after cutting them down and grow very fast. In 1946 you could have purchased the land after logging in this film for $1 per acre. It was believed that younger redwood was valueless because the light colored sap wood does not have the rot and insect resistant properties of the red heart wood. There are some wealthy people on the north coast who bought hundreds or even thousands of acres that way. It is really impossible to determine the age of a redwood because it grows back from the roots and may have been cut down or burned many times. You can age the top of the tree but not the original root system.
Interesting. Didn't know that.
Thank you. Very interesting. I'm originally from Indiana; now live in Ogden Utah. There are a few Sequoia trees growing here in Ogden. Several years ago they were planted , being brought here as very small trees.
Woooow!
WOW.
I live in Alabama, (eastern United States) where most of our pine trees hang around the 100 *feet* tall range. Even watching this and seeing photographs of the width of a redwood tree's trunk (with people standing nearby for frame-of-reference) , it's _still_ hard for me to envision that trees this size exist.
It's crazy going to the redwoods now, i couldn't imagine seeing it before all the logging.
its despicable. previous generation just lived on a different planet then we do now, its just sad
@@theoriginalcast299 No. They had millions of people to supply wood for a booming California and now the entitled folks whine about it! Even after they saved thousands and thousands of trees for you to go stare at!!
@@montuckyman4982 ahhhhh see they did do some things right. For example Shipping retards like you upstate and forgetting about them
There's still sections of old growth that never got logged lol
I work as an operator in a modern saw mill and I can tell that it is still quite a dangerous job. Cant even imagine back then without all the safety measures we have today.
all safety measures have been implemented to create jobs . office workers inspectors and the biggest scam of all the W.S.I.B workman's safety insurance board as every registered place of business has to pay them...they have made billions and fucked the injured workers out of collecting it so that they can stay in their expensive luxurious offices and flirt with their secretaries. these peolpe are scum and have never worked a day in their lives and are parasites
I wonder how many people stacking lumber 40 feet high fall to their death tripping over the boards as they lay them down crazy man crazy.
@@patrickmckenzie9919 very few actually ... unlike today you paid attention when you worked or you were dead ... and then your family starved these days we have the tide pod eaters who cant even make good decisions and expect to be paid top dollar for crap work and NO experience
@@patrickmckenzie9919 cutting down this amazing tree! We will never will have something so precious in our lifetime for sure. This people knowingly destroyed 1000 year old tree. Monster
I’d imagine a lot of these men are fearless after going through ww2
I was born and live among these majestic giants. There are more of them than you think and just like every other living thing Redwoods die. My family has a tradition of every year we drive around looking to see which ones have succumbed to nature. Nothing humbles a person more than laying under one of these beautiful trees and looking up though the branches.
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It’s one of my dreams to come to the USA and see the giant redwoods.
I have been to these old forests, I've stood on top of the stumps of these old cut trees. Stumps are the size of houses.😲
The next harvest will be in 5048.
Can't wait
Redwood is one of the fastest growing trees on the planet, it's harvested every year.
I doubt we will be around to cut them next time.
@@jaydunbar7538 haha your a dum ass
😭😆
I have some redwood planks made way back. They stayed in the open beside a old shed for around 30 years. I salvaged them and they were barely touched by rot or bugs. Best wood I’ve ever used. I’m glad they don’t cut anymore like they used to though.
I believe God gave us a great responsibility when he gave us the giant redwoods. He intended that we not only to preserve these trees but that we use these trees so that man can use them to make many products needed to increase the quality of our lives.
@@walterknight2947 I believe that too, if we replanted when we harvested the future people could have at least seen the cycle over many generations as it is. We didn't take the path we should have, our ancestors like us continue to rape the land. I'm not an activist by any means, it's just an easy statement to make by past clear cutting thinking that we could never run out. Forward thinking still isn't put forth like it should be, and the believe in the Lord has been thrown to the side, way to the side, in that most churches are really only society type meeting places choosing what they want to take from Gods word. There will be a price to pay for that, it wasn't what we were meant to do or become as a people. Thank You for inspiring me to make a comment, I agree.
@@walterknight2947 shut up
They do still cut Redwood, they just don’t cut old growth anymore. Now the Redwood you can get are 2nd and 3rd growth.
@@walterknight2947 And how do you think we are doing in fulfilling that responsibility? (on the preserving of these and other trees, and the maintaining in good health of the other life forms we share the planet with?). And if facts might be useful in answering this (as opposed to blind prejudice, belief or conjecture), look up the history of Emerald Ash Borer in the US, Dutch Elm disease and Ash dieback in Old England, cane toads and feral cats and foxes in Australia, mice on Gough Island..... Sometimes, my friend, belief is a poor substitute for evidence in understanding the world.
It's so sad to see those beautiful trees being cut down. It is one of my dreams to see giant sequoia in person.
All things meet death eventually.
@@stuckmannen3876 yea, but natural death is different than being killed
There is a lovely giant sequoia in my local park.
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It's worth it, you should go.
The redwood forests of northern California is probably the most amazing thing I've ever seen in life. Magical
It is little known, but Ash trees on the East coast of the US also grew to be this big. They were all chopped down long before photographs were invented, and the only surviving records of their size are a few pencil sketches from the late 1700s.
Seems like ash trees are dying out here on the east coast too. I bet we cut 50 dead ash trees last year. It's a shame
@@rc-dailythere is a disease killing them.
The chestnuts also got this big
So are my nuts.
So glad to hear some off those old ones got saved.
These men had balls of steel and backs of titanium. It’s backbreaking work to cut “normal” trees with modern equipment. To chop down these absolute mammoths using nothing but manual saws and axes is incredible.
4:25 definitely not Manually cut into sections but still absolute legends for all there hard work
the people who owned the land the trees were on paid them a pittance to do back-breaking work day-in, day-out for years of their life. the profits of this work were never even seen by the people who did the work; they often got paid only enough to feed their families and themselves (or sometimes, didn't get paid at all even when an agreement had been made and were stiffed by the logging companies.) We'll never know where the money went and ended up; we only know the people it *didn't* go to.
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When I lived in Visalia we went all the time to see the amazing giants
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The biggest trees know to man (redwoods), are called “The Grove of the Titans”. It’s a spot around where I live where there are the actual biggest trees mass wise we know of I’m the same general area. Previously, not many people knew where they were. There was no real trail or signs or anything like that. Me and my family found them just by hearing the rough location and exploring for a while. Now that their location spread over the internet, the government has decided to make the thing like a zoo with raised metal platforms that you walk on. I personally don’t like it. That said, there’s still plenty of old growth (never logged) redwood forest with no trails, etc.. There’s nothing like looking down a hill covered with nothing but 1000 year old redwoods untouched by man. I enjoy that much better than a man made trail where the wild becomes the zoo.
Actually the largest tree mass wise is a sequoia
@CanlEatit I recently found another "grove of sugar pines" as I am calling it. Near Calaveras Big Trees State Park. Some of the trees I found were larger then at that state park. Some of those trees had a diameter larger then 12 ft! There are still giants to be found!
@@AlpineHiker the largest tree mass wise is called General Sherman. We visited this summer before the wildfires.
yes
Hey from Brookings I know where you're talking about and its sad how the internet creates the traffic the way it does.
From a kid in a small town in WI you really don't know how big these trees are until you see them in person
Documentaries like that were once the voice of our time.
I just spent 2 days in the Avenue of the Giants walking among where some of these trees still exist. CA Park service says less than 4% of the original trees are still with us. They are majestic creatures. I am also a wood worker. But it still grieves me to see "many of the tallest and oldest trees on earth" being cut down. 20 houses from 1 tree. I also have seen the clear redwood boards inside the homes in SF where much of the milled lumber went. Still...sad to watch.
Are any timber companies growing plantations of Redwood for future use, Or to replace what they stole from nature?
Hey Eric... I was working in San Francisco about 15 years ago fixing a Mosaic on the front porch...A young lawyer had just bought the house...the whole front entryway was cut out of a Giant Sequoia..one solid piece... amazing! He took me for a tour inside...the library was amazing! Redwood...
@@anthonylawrence3265 nature is here for humans to utilize as we see fit.
This is a very cool vintage video. The way these men worked back then just blows my mind. I've tried cutting a tree12 inches round with a axe and could barley do it lol. These guys probably could cut 2 or 3 40 ft round trees a day. It's like there hands were made of steel. If they did get a blister or callus on there hand they'd power through it. I guess if u do anything long enough you'll get good at it.
Yeah, I cut down a 10” hardwood without power tools last year. It took way more effort than I imagined. I’ll never do that again, but wanted to experience it.
Yall some sissies for real lol I had to cut down 4 15" Oak trees with nothing but an axe when I was 15 I'd love to see how long y'all softies last building scaffolding with me
If you knew me, you'd know I'm no sissy. I just wouldn't do this by hand. I'd go buy a chainsaw plan and simple
@@shaggy1531 Why are you here?
@@stevegarmier563 post the video, nerd
Alot of these men are fresh from the war. The Greatest Generation. Real men.
Why? Your comment makes no sense
@@bryanandhallie Why what?
_Alot_ is a town in India.
gattling gun and nerve gas fodder, don't you mean
I remember working with redwood trim back in the 80's such beautiful wood
"trim". Nice.
Wow my old stomping grounds. It's incredible how different it all looks even from the early 80s until now. Back then it was really a paradise to me and now that I live on the east coast and have been back it's all been overdeveloped.
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When I was a young kid in the early 50's my dad worked for Northern redwood lumber company in Korbel Ca, in fact we lived in the company town and house. The company had a train that ran up to the logging ares and would bring the big redwood trees back to the mill and dump them in a big pond. Some times just one tree would be a rail flat car load, 2 smaller log would be placed each side of the big log to keep it from rolling, sometimes the log was so big that only half of it came on one rail flat car. Right before we moved away Simpson Lumber purchased the company and removed the train tracks and replaced it with a haul road for the giant off road trucks. Our entire house was made of redwood and it had a lot of vertical grain clear heart redwood.
thank you for sharing ... I bet everything smelled clean and fresh around there.
Your dad was a piece of trash and he’s burning in hell right now.
My neighbor was retired logger, and i remember that he was so strong in hands that was amazing ( he was 68 years old before 20 year's ago ) and he always jokes that strength is from axe and he was correct. Look this worker, with axe and human strength cutting trees down. Today machine doing hard jobs like this one.
@J.B. Who cares ?
Amazing stuff to actually get to watch it going on like that back in the day, but also good how those trees are protected now as they are special :)
🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡
The physical labor needed to fall one large Red Wood is astonishing and would be for younger men 20s through 40s. Logging was very dangerous then and labor intensive and is safer today but still one of the most dangerous one can get into along with commercial fishing and farming. Much respect to the men who logged the early Old Growth for lumber to build the first subdivision housing for the soldiers who came back from WW 2.
I find it amazing how it would take 20 years to grow the equivalent of a few oak as it did to use a 2000 year old tree, to make the same amount of houses etc, I'm not a hippie but it just seems very ignorant to use trees that can't be replentished for over 20 generations
Richie Hanley redwood grows much faster then oak, you may want to recheck your math. I agree we shouldn't be cutting down the old growth, but back when this was done all they had was old growth so it wasn't even a question. Redwood is one of the best options available for sustainable lumber farming do to its extreme growth rate.
@@jaydunbar7538 No it doesn't grow fast stop lying it takes damn near a life time if not longer
@@thenightstalker6165 they can grow feet a year, but with old growth taking the sunlight they can grow only inches a year. Fact check me if youd like.
@Batflip 09 reforestation doesnt require planting new trees. These coastal forests are chock full of saplings and removing old growth allows the saplings substantial energy to grow large.
@@jaydunbar7538 shut up
For anyone interested, Lumberjack Sky pilot is a great PBS doc about logging in the Adirondacks in the 30s & 40s.
Though it breaks my heart to see those giant, century’s old kings. I’m still amazed at the technology they used to fell those monsters!!
An Ax
Huge respect for the skilled people felling these massive trees. Way beyond what most of us ever come close to doing. Although I learned from an unlikely source just how much one person can do with one axe. My grandmother (as one of the elder children) became her family’s baker at the ripe old age of 8 years. To get the baking done, she needed to be able to chop down trees. By age of 10 she was felling & chopping up trees 3-4 feet in diameter unassisted. She was a tough old matriarch and though she died in 1989, I miss her greatly. (by crikey, did she know how to put an edge on steel - as would every worker pictured in this vid). Kind regards from Oz 🇦🇺
in Islam a girl at the age of 9 is considered an adult, your testimony confirms that,
@@haidaralhumaidialshumari868 Thats disgusting bro, I hope you dont make them bed with males at that age, they are still children
If you havent seen the redwoods in person, definitely recommended
I would love to, but I live in Europe...
I’ve been to the red wood national park and i am very impressed that we were able to save these giants
Why, he said right in the video they were planning on saving a bunch of the trees for future generations. It's not like they went out and said "okay, lets clear out _all_ these mighty, impressive trees, fuck the future!" "Impressed" isn't even the correct word. What is impressive about the fact that the trees were preserved? You are relived, glad, happy, grateful, thankful, not impressed. It is impressive that they managed to fell these with axes and hand tools.
@@justforever96 they should not have ever cut even one of them.
Saved less than 5% of the original perhaps
We haven't saved them at all. We've destroyed them. 95% are dead and gone and the rest are burning to cinders. Another generation or two and trees that once stood for 2000+ years will have disappeared in the blink of an eye.
@@AsTheWheelsTurn It's disgusting to see how many they cut. I would say thin the forest a little bit in some places which would actually be good for them but im talking a thinning of 5% of the redwoods not deforesting 95% of them.
Reminds me of when I was a kid back in the 50s growing up at the extreme north end of the Englewood Railway in the married quarters of Camp Vernon. I used to either take a speeder or a crummy 25 milers to Camp Woss to go to school every day. My dad ran the coffee shop which was very big they had a large counter area 2- 6x12 pool tables, 2-3 pinball machines, and a Jukebox. was a place for the loggers to unwind He also worked in the cookhouse cooking for about 250 loggers, My mom worked in the post office. My uncle Olie Germberg was the camp superintendent. They logged virgin West coast Douglas fir which was huge. On the Englewood Railway, they had 2-3 old steam engines. We left there when I was 9 years old back in 1963and I returned in the late 1980's. The valleys were logged right out about 3/4 ways up the mountains, The stumps were massive.
What a shame .
saw this film 15 years ago, im a tree surgeon and forester. farmer too. every time I see this it puts me in awe. but can you imagine what damage weve done to mother earth since this fil was made? enlightenment almost untill the last blade of grass ...
We humans are not the best caretakers are we... It's like intelligence hobbled the planet
Easy enough to look back and judge now. Just imagine what they'll say about us.
I've never seen trees that big moved to Hawaii when I was 3yrs old from Georgetown, California an old mining town. Anyway we lived on 108acres my father used to go deep into the forest and cut wood for winter. He found a couple old saws back in there one of them is double handled. He died in 2016 but I still have those saws. It amazes me how much has changed in the last 50yrs. They certainly don't make men like that anymore I believe my father's generation was the last of them. How proud I am to be his daughter how I wish he was still here with me he was my best friend, hero and the one I turned to when I had questions about anything he always had the most logical answer. Miss you dad love you always aloha a hui ho Jt........
You could never find anyone to work this hard today
Fascinating look at redwood logging in the forties...
Such a absolute crime, that people just 75 years ago were so fool hearty as to cut down trees that will never be replaced. Those trees stated to grow when Jesus was born...can’t people understand that?
@@mikebuchanan3532 Oh, you are one of 'those'
@@bryanandhallie one of who ?
Lived in Crescent City California and loved seeing these giant redwoods in person
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I’ve probably watched this video at least 20 times or more. I love old style movies like this.
The way the old generation use to works like machine, I love it, God blessed.
At around 1:30 and before: it took some some work to do that job with a tree of that girth and so high up using only an axe. They made them tough in those days.
Yeah I noticed their work also...those guys were Mega
the two-man saw use to be called the misery whip. an another saying was. this is the reason we'll never be able to cutt it all, referring to the two-man saw.
no fat boys in the old days of logging.
Hydro-Axe and grappled skidders have changed the course of loggers weight lol
im grateful i was able to spend some time up in norcal and visit the redwood national forest a handful of times. those solo hiking trips after a rainfall were just amazing. i need to go back
We'll leave a light on for you.
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Going to see the redwoods was perhaps the most amazing thing I’ve ever done
My brother & brother in law were both loggers in coastal California during the 50's.
Lived in Redwood country in 50s. Went into woods on logging trucks when very young to watch operations. Also logs dropped into ponds then cutting and stacking process. Great time and life.
nice that you enjoyed watching the destruction of beautiful things that no-one else will ever be able to see.
@@AsTheWheelsTurn "the perfect number of trees is however many existed at some totally arbitrary point in time"
I can't imagine only having an axe and not a chainsaw. There's no work like tree work especially back then
Chainsaws were a World War 1 invention - they had them. It took the Axe to drive a wedge in them to start the felling process.
That is hard work. Props to them guys!
Prop strikes
These men probably never imagined our civilization would start to rot and decay only 50 years afterwards.
I remember as a young kid moving to southern Cali and being taken to a carnival where they had a redwood that was carved out and made into a house,and we walked through it. I couldnt believe how gigantic the tree was. I'm here now wondering in some sorrow about how the forests looked across the U.S.A back when people first arrived here. Must have been very majestic!
Must have been Paradise and they've slowly turned it into a shithole
To say the least.
People ?
Amazing how they knew how important they were and still cut them down.
North american cheasnuts were simalar..😔
They needed lumber and cut what they had. They didn't have second growth timber to harvest because no one had removed the old growth before them
@@HabeasJ Stop defending your rich masters you dumbass.
@@biggusdickus9046 stop being ignorant and educate yourself.
@@zerozilch no, American Chestnuts did not turn out to be similar because the blight has now killed almost all of them. At least the good chestnuts were used before the blight wasted them.
I can't imagine standing next to one of these monsters with nothing but some rope and an axe thinking "ok this won't take too long". These men where a different breed
A speaker for the Earth First group came to my school and told his story of how he fought to protect these trees, a lot of the time they chained themselves to them to prevent them from toppling. He was clearly traumatized from seeing several go down. But he is really happy that they are protected, only the young small ones are sustainably logged now a days. As someone who has seen large redwoods several times while visiting family in CA, I’m grateful for people like him
My name is Ammar from Syria and I need work and I do not have the means. Can you help me or find someone to help me? Please do not ignore this talk.
The one species of tree that could survive for thousands of years,against insects,diseases,droughts and fire....and NOBODY had thought to stop cutting them down...
They stopped didn’t they?
Yeah that’s like saying you wouldn’t want the most reliable car to drive.
Many people thought to stop cutting them down.
Insightful!
they saved many of them, take a breath.
Man this is cool. I still can't wait to sew a redwood in person. 40 feet wide? I can't even imagine. 20 homes from just one tree is astonishing.
You will literally never see a 40 ft redwood in your lifetime. The largest known to exist is 30ft wide and you will die far before it grows to 40ft. 🥺 These should have never been cut so extensively.
They had smaller houses back then.
Can we just appreciate, the fact THAT these hard working MEN are cutting Redwood trees with Axe's and Saws.
no. They killed these trees
RIP... You had stood there for thousand years for couple of hundred years and gone in a blink of second..
They were some tuff old boys back then we have it so easy these days
No woman would be switching gender if they had to work like that
My mom's great-grandfather lost a leg in a sawmill accident in 1925. He continued milling, bought land in California for logging, and retired around 1950.
PMQ we really aren't built like we used to be
Wow, this is ignorant
Man I can't imagine swinging an axe to try and fell a giant redwood. The beauty of God's creation. Amazing.
the beauty of nature not man made fiction
My best experience in life was Working in SAWMILLS La DUKE lumber ERICKSON and others in FLORENCE OREGON!! in the 60's Cuting up a huge LOG into lumber in several sizes is awesome, in a few minutes!!,I was a puller on the Planer Chain. and GRADER
My father and uncles were certified graders in the old McCloud mill that ran seven saws during ww II. I worked in a small molding mill later, during college summer "vacation." The greenchain pullers worked outside. This was near Redding, California, where it gets a little warm. Tough bastards.
I'm a climber and a faller and boy is it crazy to seem em climb the redwoods exactly the same way we do today. I can't imagine ever having to top a redwood with an axe, though. Hard enough with a chainsaw.
I was a California kid in the 50s and 60s. They logged 95% of these trees and had to be forcefully stopped to leave the rest. They would've taken them all.
I was just thinking that as that b.s assurance from the narrator.
@@tootsitroll9785 for that part the narrator was speaking of Sequoia National Forest which was established in 1908
Feels like the lorax movie was based off some real ish 🤔
97% of the old growth, My grandmother said redwoods grew as far south as Malibu, Salmon ran up Malibu creek then too. Now it's refuge for the generic & gentrified elite from the wood of make believe, hollywood.
Really?95 per cent? There sure are a lot left.
I hear that the Santa Cruz Mountain Redwoods built San Francisco first, then after the 1906 earthquake, the city was rebuilt from redwoods from Marin, Sonoma and Mendocino.
In 1986 there was a big project to widen Highway 101 North of Eureka and Arcata. They had to cut down some huge old redwoods for the new freeway section. I was living in Eureka and bought some redwood chainsaw carvings from one dealer who said he bought a ''redwood stump''. I had just bought a redwood Indian, a woodsman with rifle, and an eagle, all 3-4 feet tall. It was a slow day so he asked if I wanted to see his redwood stump. We drove up there on a dirt road and it looked pretty big. But until I climbed the ladder and stood on top of that thing, I had no idea of how huge it was. Maybe 16 feet across and about 12 feet tall. His wood cutter had ben sawing out big blocks of wood to carve like it was in a granite quarry. The owner showed me where my carvings came from and said that the wood was probably at least 2000 years old. I regret not buying a redwood chainsaw carved bear from there. The carver was an artist with a chainsaw.
Thanks for showing me how to cut one down! Imagine the beautiful fields that would replace these monstrosities
Back when this film was captured, man was marveling over the power they had with turning the biggest trees into usable lumber. In 1946, this was very impressive. At any time in humanity, scaling a 100m (plus) tree with zero insurance, workplace safety, nor fear should be appreciated for what it WAS. They weren't to know.
Yes! And that was why 2 world wars were fought within 22 years
crazy history, but damn is it sad we can't see more of these around anynmore.
I mean there’s still tons of redwoods.
Bro before any logging they already only grew in coastal California and a little into Oregon. If you want to see them you can. Tons of them. People talk like we wiped out most of them and there’s only a few left lol. I’m looking at a huge old growth forest of them right now out my window. Around here you can hardly spit without getting redwood wet. Where there’s not redwoods around here, there’s houses and farm land. Society needed wood, and we took some of it. As someone who lives where they do, I can honestly say we didn’t take too many of the magnificent things. There’s nothing like exploring them where there’s no trail or people.
@@canieatit6815 "There are no more redwoods!" cried the ignorant
Turn your fucking computer off & go outside clueless clown 🤡 , they're everywhere. Don't breed either
I recently visited Fort Ross and admired looking at how well all the structures have withstood mother nature and time.
My name is Ammar from Syria and I need work and I do not have the means. Can you help me or find someone to help me? Please do not ignore this talk.
The picture of that vast sawmill pool made me gasp.
I spent most my life as a climbing arborist and timber feller occasionally doing huge trees. However....... its amazing how with old tools how impressed i am with how these men went about their work. Thats what i call “real” men.
Can't imagine the stamina needed to do that all day.
Can’t imagine how many arms and fingers were lost to those mechanically driven saws
I didn't see any that were overweight either.
Man gotta do,what a Man gotta do!
@@david9783 Exactly!
Thank you. Great piece of history! Funny... Redwood burns great BTW! The bark is fire resistant, lower branches drop off as it grows and can regenerate branches if a forest fire crowning the trees moved by fast! Makes the best kindling, it's straight grain makes it easy to make kindling from a log with a hatchet. On old growths, you can make uniform planks from bigger logs for walls and fences just as easily with a board wedge and a hammer. Cool bonsai trees too! Takes many years but that's the point of bonsai trees... I've lived quietly, off grid, in the redwood forest on my land along side a steelhead stream for 15 years. Definitely paradise X10² ✌💨 Thanks
So, you are “off the grid” but watching and commenting on YT videos. Hmm. 🧐
@@vincedibona4687 probably, off grid nowdays means there own supply of electricity and water through a well and a septic tank
Why are you burning redwood and making lumber out of old growth?
@@Trenz0 That's not illegal soyaknow! The lumber description was historical reference. Many early 1900s homes in the Santa Cruz mountains were made of old growth. I was a docent in the rural Boulder Creek museum. Logging town history. The Santa Cruz mountains CZU Lightning Complex Fire burned me and 1500 homes and Big Basin State Park, out! So never fear, I won't be interfering with any redwood tree hugging sessions anytime soon. ✌️
@@TheScmtnrider Wow crazy I just read your comment from 2 years ago and just saw your response 4 minutes ago! You sound like youve been living the life so many of us are looking for, Id love to see more people doing content on things like this but i know that kind of defeats the purpose for some
My father started setting slings and chokers behind a dozer when he was 9 years old. He was the oldest of 9 boys, and would cut school so he could make money to help his mother feed the family. He later helped clear cut the San Lorenzo valley and eventually became a tree surgeon. He used to get called to drop the really big trees, the ones no one else would do. I remember going with him when I was 5 and helping him with his equipment. His family came from Enid Oklahoma, they were part Cherokee, Choctaw and Arapaho.
My name is Ammar from Syria and I need work and I do not have the means. Can you help me or find someone to help me? Please do not ignore this talk.
As a carpenter it would be a dream to have some of that wood from those ancient trees, but as a human it breaks my heart to see all that history of trees gone extinct basically by being felled not by nature or forest fires but by Man kind for building materials. Something’s are meant to be untouched and protected but unfortunately the RedWoods we not that lucky and the planet is that much less whole without them around.
Excellent, informative, fascinating, documentary.
I just can't see cutting down Redwoods, those trees are... somewhat Jurassic. So big, so beautiful.
It's wood and we need lumber. We can't all live homeless in the streets.
Nice film of men of steel who helped make America great!
A lot of those old saws look much better than the saws of today!!
My late Grandfather Arley Albert Hurst, worked logging Redwoods in the early forties with the CCC for the war effort. He did this after getting caught trying to join the Army at 16 to go fight. He told me of how they would build their scaffolds as they went... All done with hand axes... And in a suit and tie. . I have an awesome photo of him, in front of a CCC sign in California in a suit and tie.. Damn they don't make men like that anymore. It's why our country has went to hell.
Have you gone to hell mr rat...
Yep, soy-boy nation.
I really doubt he worked felling trees in a suit and tie. That would just be stupid, you wore work clothes, the suit and tie was for going to town on Sunday. If he really did work in a suit and tie, I can guarantee the rest of the workers laughed at him and called him city boy and dude, and laughed when his clothes were totally ruined at the end of the first day. There is a reason pictures of working men always show them in trousers, shirt, suspenders, maybe a jacket if it is cold, and a soft cap. Not a suit and tie. That would be like painting a house in a tuxedo.
@@justforever96 No shit bro. He's wearing a suit and tie in the photograph.. I doubt he kept the tie and jacket on when felling trees. It was just an attempt at a witty observation of the dress of the time. Like in the 20s everyone wore a Fedora... In the 40, a Man wore a suit of some sort on most occasions. I think there is enough photographical evidence to substantiate that. AND IF yiu knew my grandfather.. I'l say it like this. If someone laughed at Arley Albert Hurst.. My Papa.. They only did so once. After that, they'd most likely wouldn't have much to laugh about.. Ever again.. Nothing humorous about having your meals served to yiu thru a tube the rest of your life
welp, thank-you to your Grandpa ... because even though the Army followed the rules and didn't let him in ... you Grandpa still somehow found a way to serve!
Those trees are so awesome I don't know how anyone could cut down a tree that old and feel good about doing it
+79tazman What did you eat today? SOMETHING gave up its life for that. steve
+79tazman It was all about progress back then.
sometimes times prusit of money is mistaken for the prusit of progress, it seems like some will never learn or admit this fact.
Carlos Paige You got the two swapped around by mistake.
Going home and watching your own children starving is reason enough. The men who cut these were not bad people, they were simply providing for their family.
one of the great tragedies of the 20th century...not to have the foresight to spare these magnificent irreplaceable trees
What is even sadder is that if we had saved them we could convert them into biomass and generate green electricity.
@@henkvandenbergh1301 nuclear
😢
If you cared to watch the whole video you would know that there parks full of old red trees that are protected from forestry.
They spared thousands and thousands of them! What are you talking about?! And they r growing back right now! There's an awful lot of them you can go stare at.
I worked at Harwood products back in the 70s. Green chain then moved up to Offbearman and finally the debarker operator. We ran about 100,000 board ft a shift
Santa Cruz here. I grew up climbing these things. Me and friends would find or hear about the biggest ones (some were closely guarded secrets, told only to certified locals) and we'd just go up there with a boom box and hang out in the canopy all day. Some are only accessible by going from tree to tree, climbing a smaller adjacent one to access the lower branches of a much larger one. The tallest one I frequently climbed we measured at 262 feet by dropping a roll of string down from the tip. That was 15 years ago, so it's probably right around 300 feet these days. Anyway, when the wind is blowing you can ride the very top. It'll sway a good 6-8 feet off center in every direction. Not for the faint of heart and incredibly dangerous (we never used any safety equipment) but few things will make a young man feel more alive than that. The spooky part isn't being really high up, it's the first bit where the branches are all dead. The first 60-80 feet or so. Once you get high enough, though, two things happen: One: The canopy becomes so thick that you can no longer see the ground, so any sense of vertigo or fear of heights sort of vanishes. You can only see about 20 feet down. Two: Above 80 feet, you're no longer really risking injury. If you fall, you're likely dead, so you don't have to worry about broken bones so much. Strangely enough, this is actually kind of comforting. Maybe one of these days I'll borrow a gopro and climb the Old Lady (as we called it) one last time, hopefully with some decent wind going. It's way too wild not to document and share.
Let me know when you do!!🌲🌿
That was good. There is a Redwood stump at the junction of Hwy 101 & 20 in Fort Bragg, Ca. that has numbered brass markers that describe their growth ring that corresponds to when the tree was growing. The markers range from the birth of Christ to the fall of the Roman Empire, World Wars and Etc. Yup,! G-G 😃😁
significant, now that is significant
disgusting that they felt it was ok to cut that down....
@@AsTheWheelsTurn Those were a lot harder times than You have it nowadays. Those Men had to take whatever work They could find. As the song goes "Walk a Mile in My Shoes" right❔ Yup‼ G-G 🪓🪵🪙🤨🤔😒👨👩👧👦💫👉☝👍👌👀👀
My name is Ammar from Syria and I need work and I do not have the means. Can you help me or find someone to help me? Please do not ignore this talk.
Great video- amazing how much work went into falling 1 of those giant redwoods
and the thousands of years in which 'man' has not been touched
@@dincadenis2975 POV: you don’t remember asking
…and how precise they were at not hitting the other trees in the process! Amazing!
I'm so glad they seen the need and documented this.those were the days....
"...and they actually resist fire." I completely destroyed a BBQ grill, by lighting the charcoal, over a bed of redwood pieces. We had put in a redwood fence, and I used some scraps to light the fire. Redwood "doesn't" burn, so hot, that the paint was burned off of this well used charcoal grill. Redwood doesn't make coals worth anything, but it DOES burn quite hot. steve
"Trees probably as old as our civilization", LET'S CUT EM DOWN!
I think greed grew from cutting trees?
I couldn't watch
I know. Amazing that people can be so stupid, destructive, and greedy.
Typical American, cut it down blow it up,
HECK YEAH
insects don't like redwood because of the high amount of tannic acid which gives the reddish color
i love how u showed both sides of the story