Caption
Each year the warm April sun bursts the ice on thousands of rivers and streams across Canada and the spring log drive, dramatic climax to the country's winter lumbering operations, takes place. Millions of logs go roaring down myriad waterways to the ever-growing number of mills dotted throughout the 10 provinces. There, the rich harvest of Canada's forests is sawn into timber for her booming lumber industry or converted into pulp for the country's number one dollar earner: the pulp and paper industry. Above, on Quebec's swift flowing St. Maurice River, skilled river drivers guide their craft through turbulent, foam-flecked waters, freeing logs that are hung up along the shore, and looking for log jams which they will break up with their long-handled pike-poles or with dynamite.
Credit Line
Library and Archives Canada, Mikan no. 205928