Low Down Articles
Echoes from the Past
Article 90 of 111
This article first appeared in the "Echoes from the Past" column of the The Low Down to Hull and Back News.
Reprinted with permission. Search complete list of Low Down Articles.
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The Pointer Boat
This vessel was more often just called a pointer, without the addition of the word "boat". It was used extensively in lumbering on the Gatineau, Lievre, Ottawa and many other rivers in the area as a floating workhorse, especially during the spring log drives when the winter's cut was sent downstream to the saw mills awaiting the thousands of logs coming their way.
The idea for the design of the pointer is reputed to have been suggested by John Rudolphus Booth, one of a number of enterprising "lumber barons" in the Ottawa-Hull area.
Taking the suggestion of Booth the first builder of pointers was a transplanted Englishman John Cockburn (1834-1908). Cockburn built a number of the craft under contract for Mr. Booth. These were built in Ottawa. As pointer builders Cockburn was followed by his son and grandson. At some period the construction of Cockburn pointers was moved to Pembroke, Ont.
The design called for a sturdy flat-bottomed vessel pointer fore and aft. This feature allowed the craft to be propelled in either direction with equal ease, a much needed manoeuvre when the movement of floating logs changed so rapidly in the currents of the spring run-off of melting snow.
The pointer had steeply sloping sides, and with its flat bottom would seem to make it very trippy, but this was not the case. During the 125 years of its use no other craft was devised to replace it. Their length ranged from 20 to 50 feet. It was known as the boat which could float on a heavy dew. A forty footer with a crew of eight on board drew only five inches of water. An empty fifty foot long vessel, weighing roughly half a ton, could float in one and a half inches. Propulsion was usually by oars but at times when oars could not be employed in a carpet of logs paddles were resorted to.
The raw materials were white pine for the planking, white cedar for the ribs, red pine or white spruce for the oars. Yellow birch or white oak went into the paddles. The wood was air-dried for a year in a shed which stood alongside the boat-building workshop.
The uses of the craft were manifold. A pointer got a team of lumberjacks quickly to a trouble spot where a long jam had or was likely to develop. Not always was it possible for men, in their caulked boots to reach the key log in a jam. Many a man's life was lost by not being quick enough to get to safety once the key log had been pried loose, bringing a tide of thousands of logs racing down-stream.
One pointer was often assigned to the cook and cookees at a shanty. Sometimes it was necessary to move from one shanty to another, depending upon the site of operations which shifted according to the cuts. When the cut had exhausted suitable trees in one area an exodus was made to another pre-selected site. In such cases food and other supplies were put aboard and the a crew rowed to the new shanty. By the end of the day's work a hot meal would be ready for the tired and hungry lumberers.
The pointer also served the pulp and paper industry, mining operations, and northern development of water routes made difficult by shallowness, rapids and floating waste.
It was a sad day when the last pointer was removed from the rivers and its silhouette, so well known no longer graced the waters, now only to be an artifact in a museum's collection.