The most difficult thing for us, youngsters first going in the woods, was the flies. You had nothing to keep the flies off. You'd mix something up. A mixture of Stockholm tar and one thing and another but it was useless. In the summertime the weather would be so hot. You'd sweat so much, if you put it on, the sweat washed it off again. And the sandflies, they were in swarms, the no-see-ums, just like clouds.

After a while, you'd be sweating. With so much salt, your underwear could stand alone after it dried.

A lot of them used to make their own wooden frames, but most used metal frames. The company used to supply the frames. You'd buy your own saws.

You'd buy the saw and the file. The teeth were formed, but you couldn't use it until it was filed. You had to file the saw first before you could use it. It's an art in itself. It's something that you had to learn. If the saw is not cutting, you work that much harder trying to cut pulpwood.

A blade would last for months, provided you didn't break it. But it was such a narrow, thin steel. If you nipped it somehow, or if the tree dropped on you, you'd bust it off, because it was tight in those bow frames.

There were no changes until after the war. I went back in the lumberwoods again after I came back from the war, for a while. There was a certain amount of change, because the companies bought a lot of bedding left over from the war years. Most camps had mattresses and had metal bunks. Double bunks, one on top.

After the war, they got that DDT. That cleaned up the lice and that sort of thing in the camps. You didn't have to go through so much misery that way.

They either had oil or coal in the wood camps, another change. You didn't have to cut wood for the stoves and that sort of thing.