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Foreword

by Ken Armson, R.P.F.

This is a story about a Canadian invention that relatively few persons in Ontario, or for that matter in Canada, have heard of, yet it had a profound effect on the effectiveness and economics of the pine-logging industry in Ontario. The Alligator Steam Warping Tug arose from a combination of two factors. The first was a need in the northern Ontario pine-logging industry of the late nineteenth century and the second was the existence of two innovative and entrepreneurial men, John West and James Peachey, owners of a foundry in the town of Simcoe in Norfolk County in southern Ontario.

The late 1800s and the first two decades of the 1900s were a period in Ontario’s history when the logging of eastern white and red pine was a major social and economic activity in the Ottawa Valley, Georgian Bay, and north shore of Lake Huron. When pine was logged in forests adjacent to fast-flowing rivers emptying into the Ottawa River and the Georgian Bay, the logs were driven down the rivers and then towed in booms to sawmills. After the accessible stands of timber were exploited, the logging moved into the hinterlands where the logs had to be moved through sequences of lakes and rivers until they arrived at the Ottawa River or Georgian Bay. The process of moving the logs in these lakes and rivers was tedious and expensive, and required much human effort.

Moving the logs down a lake involved building a cadge crib that had to be reassembled or a new one built on each lake in the chain of movement. Here was the need, and the answer to that need was to come from the energy technology of the time — steam power. Something that could move booms of logs on a lake and then be able to move overland under its own power to the next lake.

A lumberman from Norfolk County, Joseph Jackson, who had logging interests in the Georgian Bay pine country, told John West of the need and he, together with his partner James Peachey and staff at their foundry, designed and built the first steam-warping tug, which was unveiled in Simcoe in 1889. What is significant is the manner in which the need in the province’s north was communicated to those with knowledge and experience in the appropriate technology of the time in the south. It came from personal contacts and a mutual understanding and respect by those involved.

The two authors of this story in a way represent another form of coming together. The late Clarence Coons, a professional forester I was privileged to know and work with, had researched the history of the Alligator Steam Warping Tug and prepared a draft manuscript. Clarence grew up in Lakefield, Ontario, and in his youth heard many stories about white-pine harvesting in the Trent watershed and of the Alligators owned by the Cavendish Lumber Company at Lakefield. In 1982–83, I was the president of the Canadian Forestry Association, and, recognizing that his manuscript deserved editing and subsequent publication, I endeavoured to find financial support to have this done — without success.

The second author, Harry B. Barrett, grew up on a farm in Norfolk County and is a long-time resident of the area. In addition to farming and later teaching agriculture, he is a noted naturalist, conservationist, and historian. He was founding chairman of the Long Point Foundation for Conservation and has published books on local history, the most recent being They Had a Dream — A History of the St. Williams Forestry Station. This publication coincided with the celebration of the centennial of the station’s establishment in 1908.

The Canadian Forestry Association each year designates a Forestry Capital of Canada and in 2008 Norfolk County was so named. Associated with the recognition of the centennial of St. William’s was, naturally, a companion one of the importance of the nearby town of Simcoe as the birthplace of the Alligator Steam Warping Tug. What more fitting tribute than for Norfolk County to continue for the year 2009 as the Forestry Capital of Canada in honour of the first Alligator tug built 120 years before in 1889. The people of Simcoe responded and reconstructed an Alligator tug, the W.D.Stalker, and the Canadian Forestry Association seized the opportunity to have the story of this remarkable invention made public by asking Harry B. Barrett to co-author it with the late Clarence F. Coons.

Ken Armson, R.P.F.

Toronto, Ontario