Profiles

		Son of a Pioneer
		the stories of G.V. (Gerry) Stauffer

Frenchy

One man chainsaw gang.

He was one French ex-priest. I can still hear Porky Fraser say "Where in the hell did you get that guy? Is that the best you could do?". Well he could cut more line with two chainsaws than a whole bunch of Indians. That was it. We ended up with Frenchy cutting line while we're moving the equipment up ahead. You see you can't leave those logs laying there. You got to go get them out of there. They ended up with about ten or fifteen Indians cleaning up behind this one ex French Catholic priest.

(Why did you have to cut them).

Environment or something. We had to cut them all up and stack them up for firewood. This is way out in the boonies. You can't leave debris. You gotta clean up. You see, back in those early days they used cat tractors to cut these lines and they just pushed the trees out off the road. And the cats made such a mess that they made them go clean it up. And the clean up was much more expensive than just cutting down the trees.

When I hired this guy, he told me what he wanted. We only had a bunch of old chain saws. And he wouldn't take the job. He wouldn't go. He wouldn't even get in the airplane and come with me until he give me a list of what he wanted. And on this list was two McCullough chain saws and they had to be 36 inch. Mine is a 24 inch. And his was 36 which is a few inches longer. And he wanted a gasoline can and an oil can and a couple of dozen files and two or three chains.

Well I can't get men. There's nobody available. This is the only guy I can get. When I got into town I found him at the unemployment insurance place. So anyway I got him all his stuff and I took him in a cab all loaded with saws and Frechman and gas cans and oh, rum! Anyway I took him out to the airplane and got him loaded up and away we go.

When I arrive Porky was terribly upset with me. To bring just this one god damn Frenchman.

That night they could have run him out of his cabin. They put him in with a crew of men. These cabins were eight men to a cabin. Lots of room in them. Quite large cabins. This guy goes in there and he mounts his chain saws to his bunk. There he is with brand new chain saws and he's got the files out. Zrraah, Zrraah, Zrraah. And he's filing away on this chainsaw, on this blade. And the guys in there want to sleep. And they're cursing this Frenchman. And he only speaks French. But he's filing away. We're allowing this guy to hack away at this brand new chain saw with a bloody file.

Next day, his saws didn't cut sawdust. That's the thing I noticed. They cut shavings! When he cut through a log, the shavings were this long. Just like speghetti coming out of the blade. He'd walk up to a tree different. Cut a notch on the side of the tree, and the tree will fall into the notch, right? Not Frenchy. He walks up to the tree, grabs the chainsaw and pushes the tree over, you know, and then cuts it off. There's this long trail of shavings where he'd gone. You knew where Frenchy had gone.

So we gave the Indians all the other chain saws. To go and clean up, to cut the logs up. And you could see the smoke coming up out of the trees down there and these guys were down there trying to cut these logs with those chain saws so dull they wouldn't cut nothing. Because they didn't know how to sharpen them. But Frenchy, he didn't even show them how.

I don't know what happened to him. But they were just so proud of him. They'd have given him anything to stay with them. He stayed till the camp broke up. I don't know whatever happened to him.

He was a very clean person. He was equipped and ready to go at the unemployment insurance place. He had a big set of boots and he had lots of winter clothes. This was in the fall of the year. He was equipped for all winter. The guys go "Go buy me a coat" you know. This guy was prepared for what he was going to do. When he came in he'd go over to the wash house. And he'd go in there over on the grid and he'd clean with a big old scrub brush. He'd clean his boots and everything. You went into the cabin and his boots by the back door were all nice and clean. Every night after work he'd go and have a shower. He never went without one that I know of. A very clean person.

But this filing on the chain saw every night would drive you right up the wall.

I've tried and tried and tried and tried to sharpen my chain saw to make it cut shavings and I can't make it do it. He used the McCullough gage. He used that but obviously changed angles. I've taken the gage and moved it so many degrees and tried to cut. But I didn't try on green trees like he did, I've only had dry wood.