Swiss Logging

[ruel]

Saw this cool video of some Swiss loggers the other day. I thought their little woods camp was delightful, sort of reminded me of stories I've heard about old Maine logging camps. Moving logs by river was made illegal here 40 years ago, the last log drive was in 1976. Any euro folks know if this is standard practice?

<iframe src="https://player.vimeo.com/video/248072306" width="640" height="360" frameborder="0" webkitallowfullscreen mozallowfullscreen allowfullscreen></iframe>
<p><a href="https://vimeo.com/248072306">INS HOLZ (IN THE WOODS)</a> from <a href="https://vimeo.com/mythenfilm">mythenfilm</a> on <a href="https://vimeo.com">Vimeo</a>.</p>

 

[MasterBlaster]

Watching now - interesting!!!

 

[MasterBlaster]

Wow, sliding down the mountain, hitting the river... I want that guy in the skiffs job!!!

 

[Buddy]

That was cool and a tough way to make a living. It reminds me of a book I read a long time ago called the hand loggers (I think that?s correct). They did the same thing on the west coast of Canada and maybe Alaska. It was a great book and I can?t seem to find it anywhere on the internet.

Found it, it?s just called Handloggers

Thanks ruel, that was good watching

 

[stig]

Thanks for posting this.
It was very interesting to someone who have logged in Schweiz.

These guys are working in a State or " Gemeinde" owned forest.
I worked private land.
We sure didn't have a 9 o'clock sausage breakfast ( Der N?ni)

But back then ( 1980-81) I was astounded by how few logs we got out every day, compared to flat Denmark, that I was used to.

I worked in Berner Oberland, this is either Zug or the country side surrounding Luzerne. ( look up Luzerne, if you want to see a beautiful city, don't forget to look up the " kapellenbr?cke, while you are at it)

I think the latter, because the place they landed the woods, looked like the southern end of Luzerne.

Seeing how many people were there to welcome the log raft, I don't think this is actual logging, more of a yearly, cultural thing.
Also, there is no way in hell, those guys could make a living, working the way they did.

The swiss use helicopters to get the logs out today, in that kind of terrain, not Tirfor winches.

We did it it that way, and with horses, too.

That was a good time for me. I've had a soft spot for Schweiz ever since, and even ended up marrying a Swiss gal

 

[DMc]

Thanks for posting the video. Very interesting.

 

[Mick!]

Nice images, thanks.