THE FOREST AROUND US   
 
The first logger
 
by: Bill Moore
.......
And the Lord looked down
And he gazed all around
And he spake – we’ve made ‘em al.We’ve got bankers and bakers
And a handful of fakers.
We’ve got tailors and sailors,
Brewers and jailors,
We’ve got preachers and teachers
And all sorts of creatures –
But we haven’t got a logger!

So the Lord opened His book
And from a recipe took
The ingredients to cast the mould.
With a teaspoon of muscle,
A potion of hustle,
A few drops of toughness
And a smatter of roughness
Stirred in with a heart of gold.

Thunder and lightning cracked at the
dawn
Of the day this logger was born.
And with an axe in each hand
He said: Lord which land
Shall I chop down as soon as it’s morn?

Spake the Lord: Logger man,
Cut the trees from the plain
Cause we gotta have grain,
So Saskatchewan’s your first stop.
Then Africa’s land needs a lot more sand –
So every tree on Sahara you’ll chop.
Oh, and take from Sudan
Whatever you can – Keep swinging that axe till you drop.

Then run logger man as fast as you can
Cut the north and south polar trees.
Cause I made a mistake
And we need to remake
Those lands into a deep freeze.

And the logger chopped
And the trees they dropped
And he did as his lord had told
And the grain grew high
And the sand did fly

And explorers were froze in the cold.
Yea verily, this is how it all began
One logger
Who cleared those lands for man.
Like a tempest in a whirlwind
He would have cut all worldly trees
But –
The Lord made politicians
And they slowed him to a breeze

For the Lord had other work to do
And the logger
Was caught in the politician’s brew –
Of stumpage
And royalty
And guidelines
And tax –
And, friends, that’s what dulled the
First logger’s axe!

KEEP OUT OF THE BIGHT,

Bill Moore
24  ·  BRITISH COLUMBIA LUMBERMAN           APRIL       1984