The Machine That Ended the Age of Lumberjacks

Before the chainsaw, it took a crew of men and a two-man "misery whip" saw to bring down a single giant tree. Then a small engineering shop in Vancouver, British Columbia built a machine that changed logging everywhere. In this documentary, we follow the history of the chainsaw and the loggers of the Pacific Northwest: from the hand-felling crews of the early 1900s, to the heavy two-man chainsaws from Germany, to the Vancouver-built saws of Industrial Engineering Ltd. (I.E.L.) and Pioneer that put one-man chainsaw power into loggers' hands across Canada, the United States and the world. You'll see how Canada became one of the world's top timber exporters, what daily life was like in the logging camps of British Columbia, Washington and Oregon, and how one invention turned a five-man job into a one-man job. Ordinary people. Extraordinary work. 📌 CHAPTERS 0:00 The Giants of the Pacific Northwest 1:10 Canada: The World's #1 Timber Exporter 2:34 200 Tons by Hand 3:51 The 1930s: A Brutal Industry 3:58 Germany and the Two-Man Chainsaw 5:30 I.E.L.: The Vancouver Workshop 7:38 Carry, Start, Work: The One-Man Saw 9:07 From 5 Men to 1 11:19 Life in the Logging Camps 15:00 Misery Whip vs. Modern Chainsaw 16:03 Joe Cox and the Saw Chain 21:08 1977: The End of an Era 21:17 Pioneer Moves to the United States 21:40 50 Years of Change 24:27 The Saw Never Decided Where a Tree Would Fall 🔔 Subscribe to Northern Timberline Canada for more documentaries on logging history, forestry and the people who built North America. #ChainsawHistory #LoggingHistory #Vancouver #BritishColumbia #Documentary