."

Such were these lumberjacks. Their religion, their whole life, was to cut
and haul as many logs as possible, and then in the spring to drive these
logs down river to the saw mill. And he was greatest in the camp who could
fell a tree most accurately and quickly, pile logs highest on the sleds,
or ride a log in the roughest water. And the camp boss had to really be
boss: he must be able to handle obstreperous loggers, he must provide for
all the needs of his crew without any molly-coddling, and he must be able
to get out the round stuff. In all of these ways Paul Bunyan is the
idealization of the lumberjack.

But the stories reflect the weaknesses as well as the strengths of the
loggers and of the industry. This is best shown in the story of the Death
of the Blue Ox, which pictures Paul as a poor business man, opinionated
and headstrong, three traits which were by no means rare in the lumber
industry. After all, Bunyan never really did grow up, he was always only a
boy, with great loyalty to his immediate group, but with but little social
responsibility or provision for the future. He was a primitive man, never
fully civilized. It is significant that there is not a suggestion of love
in the whole cycle of Bunyan stories, and that we must go outside of the
genuine Bunyan stories to find anything such. After they left Bunyan some
of his helpers might fall in love, but not Bunyan or any of the men while
they were with him. To be sure, Bunyan was married, but there is no trace
of affection between him and his wife, and she rarely even enters the
picture. There was no place for such incongruous things. Bunyan was out of
place in the modern world. He was never a conservationist, never a
business man; in the pine woods and on the Yukon he was only after the
cream.

The reign of Bunyan is over and he has gone. Some say he is dead, others
that he has gone to Alaska, some think he has gone to South America or
Africa, but nearly all agree that he is no longer in the logging game in
the United States. A new era has come, and not the greatest of the
revolutions is the substitution of power machinery for the ox. The logger
is coming to recognize his social responsibility, timber is being utilized
as a social heritage to be managed for posterity, and the isolation of the
camps has been ended. The logging game is becoming civilized and Bunyan
was not able to make such great adjustments. He had to retire to other and
wilder haunts.