In the early years, the vast, unsettled North American continent yielded what seemed like a limitless supply of trees for lumber to the colonists and timber merchants who began arriving as early as the sixteenth century. Settlers and lumberjacks built ships, roads, wagons, homes, churches, stores, and schools from the wood they cleared to build colonies and from the surrounding forests. Today, conservationists worry that irresponsible logging will wipe out the country’s forests, and the logging industry has had to devise ways to avoid cutting timber unnecessarily and to plant new trees to replace felled ones. The timber today’s loggers fell goes into buildings, furniture, paper, poles, pilings, shingles, and many other products. The logging industry is concentrated I the Northwest, Northeast, south, and Great lakes states. Trees are cut from designated forests or tracts in large numbers, cut into pieces for transporting and processing, conveyed to landings or loading areas, and loaded into trucks or trains for delivery to mills.
General jobs have been noticeable in its operation. To decide where to begin cutting, a worker called a cruiser, surveys a forest to estimate the value of a tract’s marketable timber. This worker collects data for use in determining the best and safest places to fell the tees and for determining how to set up a logging camp, locating the landing, and devising routes for getting the timber to the landing.
Several methods are used for moving logs to landings where a vast of labor employment is required. In skidding, logging-tractor operators drag logs to landings. In high-lead logging, workers fasten individual logs to steel cables and operate a winch to pull each one to the landings. By stretching a cable between two standing trees, loggers using skyline logging techniques hold logs aloft while they move to landings, reducing damage to young trees not ready to be cut. Using a cable-grappler, one worker picks up logs under the direction of another and sets them down at the landing. Rafters tie logs together and float them to the mill where log sorters sort and maneuver them into the mill.
As part of its labor jobs, forest engineers design and direct operations for cutting, and removing timber from an area. They decide how best to reach and leave areas, build campsites, and store cut timber. Logging superintendents oversee the entire operation of cutting in a particular area. Furthermore, fallers cut down trees, applying their knowledge of trees and cutting to control the tree’s fall so as to minimize damage to young trees and danger to other workers. These skills are important in selective harvesting, but in areas where loggers cut all trees in a tract, such judgment is less crucial. Fallers look for twists, rot, kinds of limbs, and the direction in which a tree leans to determine where to place cuts and how deep to make them. Using a chain saw or ax, fallers and brush clearing laborers clear debris and brush from their work area and from the path they plan to take to escape when the tree begins to fall. When they are ready to begin cutting, fallers score cutting lines with an ax and begin cutting the tree along these lines with a chain saw. They saw back-cuts to weaken the tree trunk so it will fall in the right direction, leaving enough sound wood to control the tree’s fall. While sewing, they insert wedges or jacks in the cut to give the saw enough room to cut. When the tree begins to tip, fallers stop their saws, pull them from the cut, and run to a predetermined location to avoid being hurt by flying debris and falling limbs as the tree falls and hits the ground.
Fellers and buckers may be instructed by a felling-bucking supervisor who trains these workers, tells them which trees to cut first, and gives them the cutting specifications desired by the sawmill or other customer. Logging supervisor workers also oversee falling and bucking operations, as well as the loading of logs at landings. Meanwhile, logging workers usually need a high-school diploma before they can be hired as full-time entry-level workers. Workers without diplomas can sometimes obtain part-time or helper positions. Because automation in this industry is continually increasing, workers skilled in using machines have the best chances for employment.
To find hundreds of listings about blue collar jobs, you can visit BlueCollarCrossing.com and grab a golden opportunity. Sign up now before it’s too late.
