I took over the duties of the foreman when he wasn't there. That was after the war.

You'd go in the woods and place men. You would probably start off at a bog somewhere. You'd have a road so many feet wide, to the end of the cutting. The woods roads were all blocked out. Every man had a block to cut.

You also placed men in the woods when they came into the camp. If a man came in, if the camp wasn't full, you took him on. That was it. You filled up the camp, but after that there was no more hiring.

It was slavery. It was the worst job in the world. Because it was all contract work, or piece-work, whatever you mind to call it. If you didn't earn it, you didn't have it.

At that time, too, you had to go to the doctor. If he turned you down you didn't get in the woods. You had to have a doctor's recommendation to get hired in the camps.

Doctor Greene was always there in Deer Lake, far as I know, during the years I was there. He was a pretty good old rascal. You'd have to be pretty far gone before he'd turn you down. He knew there was nothing else for people to do.

Only the fittest survived. TB was a big problem, as well as back problems, strains and hernias.

At first, when you were using the bucksaws and that sort of thing, you had to use an axe for trimming. A lot of people got some bad cuts with axes.

But it didn't seem to bother me that much.