Mailin Blair

September 13, 2009

                           Bin usin' a chainsaw

                           since I was 14 years old.

                           Kin hardly lift muh arms

                           above muh shoulders.

                           In th' evenin'

                           knees, legs, sometimes in knots

                           after climbin' through snow

                           in th' woods.

                           But if I walk up th' road aways

                           when I git home,

                           they're alright.

                           Muh mother says

                           t' put a bar 'a soap

                           under muh bed at night

                           an' I won't git them knots.

                                                                            - Mailin Blair

Loading Hardwood

This is Mailin and Bob Blair of High Forest and East Clifton.  These places won’t be found on many maps anymore, but people in this corner of Quebec know where they are.  In the ten years since 2000, these two fellas cut trees in the woods on Myrtle Rowell’s farm, harvesting logs, pulpwood, and four foot hardwood. 

In the months of February and March, I would draw them at work, Mailin falling the trees and Bob winching them out to a clearing where he would buck them into manageable lengths.  In the times I spent with them, I never heard a cross word spoken between them and I witnessed a calm, patient and orderly approach to all that they did.  And when they left the woods, a forest still remained.