From the archives of the Sault Ste. Marie Public Library:
For as long as industry has existed in the area, logging has been a huge part of it.
Almost every town along the North Shore had a sawmill, and in the early 20th century, the logging industry was booming. Mills and camps were busy and would be throughout the long, winter months.
One such camp was run by McFadden & Molloy, a logging company working out of Webbwood. In 1916, they sponsored a loading contest between area logging companies.
A competition of particular interest developed between the McFadden Company and a company run by the Foley Brothers, who worked north of the Sault. The contest was to take place at McFadden’s camp north of Webbwood. The Foley Brothers Company suggested they bring their crew to Webbwood and show J.J. McFadden and his men how to “deck” a record-sized load of raw logs.
The Foley Brothers crew loaded a respectable 275 logs—the best they could manage.. It was McFadden & Molloy’s turn to go second, they knew the number to beat.
Daniel Shanahan, a company foreman from Blind River and a life-long employee of McFadden’s, was chosen to represent the company as their best loader.
Loggers and bushmen from the district gathered at the camp to watch the loaders, and wagering began amongst the men about which company would prevail and whether the sleigh would even be able to start moving, as the runners would normally freeze to the snow during loading.
Had Shanahan accepted all the bets men were making, he could have made serious money—thousands were wagered that he wouldn’t succeed in setting the record for the largest load.
Confidence and experience led Dan Shanahan to choose Johnny Ryan and Martin Lang to deck the logs as he loaded. Denny Shea worked as a decking teamster and helped direct the placement of the logs in the deck.
Shanahan examined the sleigh he was to load, and he believed he had chosen the strongest. The sleigh they worked on had 12-foot bunks, or skis, and the load was secured by two wrapping chains, choker style chains, with one binder chain to tighten the wrappers. Shanahan had also considered the possibility of frozen runners and had prepared the sleigh by soaking its bunks and runners in kerosene before loading began.
Shanahan was confident; he asked McFadden’s logging superintendent, Jack Smith, how many logs were currently on the skidway. Smith told him there were over 300 logs, and Shanahan declared he would load them all.
The men of McFadden’s company delighted as Shanahan’s load gradually grew and eventually outnumbered the Foley Brother’s record load that day of 275 logs. As Shanahan’s load grew beyond their own record, the Foley Brothers’ crew left.
When log number 306 was loaded, Shanahan added a third choking wrapper chain and set a record in Canada for the largest load of logs to be drawn by a single team of horses.
A woman who worked and lived in the J. J. McFadden camp asked logger Dom Burns if there truly were 306 logs in Shanahan’s load, and she was told, “w-e-l-l, it’s near enough. As a matter of fact, there are 312 logs in that load, but we didn’t count some small ones.”
Two teams of horses were hitched to the very full sleigh, and the load was initially pulled as far as the camp's cookery, where the men stopped for a well-deserved dinner break.
After lunch, the record load still needed to be hauled another three miles across ice and snow. Many thought the sleigh would not make it under the strain of the logs.
One of the best teamsters in the North, Duff Fillion, volunteered to drive the load. Fillion started the haul with two teams but soon signaled for the lead team to be unhitched.
Fillion made a move to climb on top of the load, as he usually did, to direct and guide the team across the snow, but was ordered by a foreman to get down and work from behind the horses at the front of the sleigh. Fillion was a skilled teamster, but his foreman, Ed Hoover, said, “…if that load started to spill with him on top, he wouldn’t have the chance of a snowball in fire.”
A fellow logger, Jack Smith, observed the sleigh closely as it approached the dump site and ordered Fillion to jump clear of the load before the sleigh came to a complete stop. The weight of the logs had considerably increased the speed of the sleigh, and the load had gained a great deal of momentum approaching the dump, and there was some concern.
Fillion jumped clear of danger as the horses finally stopped the sleigh at the log dump site. A loud crack surprised the men, and suddenly the wrappers around the load snapped, and under the weight of the logs, the sleigh’s runners broke apart “as if they were made of match wood.” The heavy shoeing on the sleigh's runners bent and twisted under the weight and speed of the load.
The record-sized load was cleared by Smith and other workers. With that load, Shanahan set an international record in 1916 for the largest load of logs, 306, drawn by a single team, and held the record for decades.
After setting an international record that stood for decades, Daniel Shanahan returned to Blind River, where he lived with his wife and four children until his death in February 1950 at age 76.
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