Logging Legacy Timber Museum Gets Centerpiece, Dry Since ‘49

A weathered wooden rowboat that once carried only the bravest loggers down Priest River was dry-docked in a place of honor Monday.

Two forklifts set the old boat, now loaded only with memories, in downtown Priest River, making it the centerpiece of the town’s timber museum.

“It’s the last boat we know of in existence that worked on the great log drives around here,” said Diane Mercer, a resident who spearheaded the project.

“It is absolutely a significant piece of Bonner County history.”

The boat last saw water in 1949. That was just before Albeni Falls Dam was built, halting the massive log drives from Priest Lake down Priest River.

Loggers, called “river pigs,” piled into the 22-foot craft to follow the milelong boom of logs and free up jams.

“When the ice went out of the lake in mid-April, the heartiest, snoose-chewing, calk-booted veteran loggers in the Priest Lake country assembled to drive the logs down 60 miles of icy, swirling water,” reads the wooden plaque above the boat.

“The men, armed only with peavies, cant hooks and pike poles, used boats like this to fight the fearsome jams.”

Crown Pacific Lumber Co. had the boat stored at its Priest River mill. When the mill shut down in June, Crown Pacific officials decided to donate it to the town.

“It’s a part of history that needs to be saved. A lot of men lost their lives in those days working the log drives,” said Crown Pacific plant manager John Robb. “It was very dangerous work.” Frank Boncz, a 74-year-old retired logger, watched from across the street Monday as the boat was put on its new perch.

“It makes me feel real good seeing it saved. There aren’t any more of those boats around,” said Boncz, who used to skid logs out of Priest Lake with a team of horses.

“It brings back lots of memories. Them was the good old days of hard-working, courageous men.”

The boat, known as a bateau, now sits next to the Keyser House Museum, the first stick frame house built in Priest River. The 1895 home is being renovated to house a history of the timber industry.

It will include the only match-making machine in Idaho. The machine was used at a match factory that once operated in Coeur d’Alene. Mercer said the Diamond Match Co. owned much of the timber brought down in the log drives. The logs, trimmed to weigh 1 ton each, were sent to Ohio and Michigan to make wooden matches before the Coeur d’Alene factory opened.

“It’s important to have this history. If we don’t preserve it, it is going to be gone,” Mercer said.

One tradition that survived from the log drive days is Priest River’s Logger’s Celebration. At the end of the drives, which took more than a week, the loggers gathered to drink beer and swap tales of fighting the log jams.

The annual celebration is much more tame than it was in the 1930s, Mercer said, hugging some of the soon-to-be unemployed Crown Pacific workers who helped move the boat.

“The days of the log drives and proud river men have passed,” the sign above the boat continues. “But the memory of the last Priest River log drive will live here forever.”

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Color Photo