Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of I Heart Radio. Welcome
Speaker 1: back to the show Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always
Speaker 1: so much for tuning in over there on the zoom.
Speaker 1: That's the one and only super producer, Mr Max Williams.
Speaker 1: Give him a hand, folks. Uh, they call me Ben.
Speaker 1: And oh and who's that clapping? Is that? You KNOWL? Yeah?
Speaker 1: That was my patented slow clap for max Um trademark. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's as I KNOWL. And today we're we're talking about
Speaker 1: the underappreciated Angelina Jolie hybrid animation and live action film
Speaker 1: of the early two thousand Sky Captain in the World
Speaker 1: of Tomorrow. Right close, close, close there, dang it. It's
Speaker 1: always always a bridesmaid, never a bride. What are we
Speaker 1: talking about today, Ben, We we are talking about lumberjacks.
Speaker 1: We're talking about religion in a way. We're also well,
Speaker 1: in a very on the nose way. We're also talking
Speaker 1: about something called sky pilots. Have you ever heard this
Speaker 1: phrase before? No, clearly I confused it deeply with Sky Captain.
Speaker 1: I thought it was a good film. It was fine, Yeah,
Speaker 1: it was, it was he was just once he was
Speaker 1: just the sky Captain. He was not one of many
Speaker 1: sky captains that was like his name, right, he was
Speaker 1: sky captain. You know, he certainly wasn't a sky pilot. No,
Speaker 1: he wasn't, because it turns out a sky pilot was
Speaker 1: a name given by lumberjacks to like traveling clergy who
Speaker 1: sought to convey vert them from their burly and intensely
Speaker 1: manly and potentially sinful ways. Yes, yes, it's a true story.
Speaker 1: So you might be familiar, folks with the idea of
Speaker 1: circuit judges or circuit preachers, people who traveled routinely throughout
Speaker 1: a given region or territory for one purpose or another.
Speaker 1: In those two examples I just named judges, and the
Speaker 1: clergy there would be you know, they'd be traveling for
Speaker 1: legal purposes or in this case, for spiritual purposes. These folks,
Speaker 1: these traveling holy figures, were called sky pilots. And it
Speaker 1: turns out the original sky pilot, as far as lumberjacks
Speaker 1: are concerned, is a man named Frank Higgins who worked
Speaker 1: across northern Minnesota for decades in the US see, I know,
Speaker 1: I was confused because Jude Law also portrayed him and
Speaker 1: the slightly less known and even more underappreciated film Frank
Speaker 1: Higgins and the Lumberjack sky Pilots of Minnesota. Yes, and
Speaker 1: there is a type of very popular pen called a
Speaker 1: sky pilot. I think it's a point oh seven, I
Speaker 1: can't remember. Oh yeah, this is my dad's favorite pens,
Speaker 1: the black ones, like with the nice little point point
Speaker 1: e jabby tips yep. And Jude Law is also set
Speaker 1: to play the main character in a Pixar film based
Speaker 1: on those pins. So he is nailing just the sky
Speaker 1: stuff and the pilot stuff in general. We're having a
Speaker 1: real judaisance. Yes, yes, yes, Jude direction if you know,
Speaker 1: cut that part. Where are we leaving it in? Okay,
Speaker 1: We're leaving it in Max. Okay, Max is on the fence.
Speaker 1: So travel with us if you would. Back to the
Speaker 1: late eighteen hundreds, there are an estimated five hundred different
Speaker 1: lumber camps in the rural woods of northern Minnesota, and
Speaker 1: this one guy, this Frank Higgins, is their sky pilot. So,
Speaker 1: like you said, Noel, the life of a lumberjack Monty
Speaker 1: python a side is a pretty demanding and at times
Speaker 1: hazardous existence. How did we how did we get here? What? What?
Speaker 1: Why did all these guys end up being lumberjacks in
Speaker 1: northern Minnesota. Yeah. I mean, you know, if anyone's seen
Speaker 1: the film Fargo, which takes place in North Dakota, and
Speaker 1: yet everyone sounds like they're from Minnesota, I think, to me,
Speaker 1: it's what it's demonstrating is much more of that kind
Speaker 1: of Minnesota tradition of logging and the fur trade. You
Speaker 1: got that big Paul Bunyan statue and all of that.
Speaker 1: Not to say this Fargo doesn't have a place in
Speaker 1: this story, but it really is centered and began in
Speaker 1: Minnesota as the fur trade in fact, was beginning to
Speaker 1: become less of a viable industry. And this is around
Speaker 1: the middle of an eighteenth century. You start to see
Speaker 1: these commercial sawmills around eighteen thirty nine, and this led
Speaker 1: to a real booming industry over the next um, you know,
Speaker 1: twenty or thirty years. Uh, we started to see big
Speaker 1: logging operations in places like still Water and St. Anthony.
Speaker 1: By around the very very late eighteen hundreds, Uh, it
Speaker 1: was beginning to move into other parts of the state
Speaker 1: as well, up north and even out west in Minnesota,
Speaker 1: and you start to see this lumber industry really start
Speaker 1: to boom. Yeah. Part of it is due to this
Speaker 1: thing called the DAWs Act and some associated legislation. Here's
Speaker 1: what these laws did. They allowed lumber companies to buy
Speaker 1: land that originally belonged to Indigenous people. And this DAWs
Speaker 1: Act divided up Indian reservations in the area, giving the
Speaker 1: families living there individual a lot of land. We're getting
Speaker 1: a lot of this, by the way, from our ELK.
Speaker 1: Cartwright writing over at m n O Pedia Minnesota Pedia.
Speaker 1: It's like a encyclopedia Minnesota. You get it. So this
Speaker 1: opens up what is euphemistically referred to at the time
Speaker 1: as quote unquote surplus land, largely for white settlers. And
Speaker 1: in Minnesota, this benefits the lumber industry, particularly near the
Speaker 1: reservations Red Lake and White Earth. So another big piece
Speaker 1: of this is that railroads have been built in this area,
Speaker 1: so if you're a logging company, it's super easy to
Speaker 1: transport this timber across the continent. And that's what drew
Speaker 1: people a lot of loggers at this time. A lot
Speaker 1: of lumberjacks were just going where the jobs were, from
Speaker 1: one state to the next, right, right, Yeah, Ben, do
Speaker 1: you think that the term timber come from the thing
Speaker 1: that people yell when the trees fall, or is it
Speaker 1: the other way around. I think it's I think it's
Speaker 1: the other way around. I think they were just yelling
Speaker 1: timber the way that you know, if they were if
Speaker 1: they were throwing pianos in the woods, they would have
Speaker 1: yelled piano. I guess you're right, Ben, I guess you're right.
Speaker 1: It's a fun thing to do. That's probably the most
Speaker 1: fun part of being a log logsman, uh of woodsman,
Speaker 1: lumberjack is to yell timber. You gotta hold it out
Speaker 1: all the way until the thing hits uh, And if
Speaker 1: you're not there, it definitely doesn't make a sound. That's proven.
Speaker 1: Doesn't Kesha have a song where she yells timber? You know, Ben,
Speaker 1: it's certainly possible. It sounds like something she might say.
Speaker 1: You know, Noel, I believe it's actually a pit Bull
Speaker 1: song featuring Kesha. Yes, back in her dollar signed days,
Speaker 1: but she has pivoted from But Kesha and Pipoli side,
Speaker 1: there was some problematic treatment of these these First Nations
Speaker 1: people and this kind of division, and we started to
Speaker 1: see these logging camps popping up and loggers were essentially,
Speaker 1: you know what you would call itinerant workers. Like you said, Ben,
Speaker 1: they would follow the job, you know, from place to place. Uh.
Speaker 1: Some came from as far as Maine, where there was
Speaker 1: a logging boom uh and bust before Minnesota started to
Speaker 1: see it's boom um. And then you had folks coming
Speaker 1: down from Michigan or even Wisconsin. Um. And a lot
Speaker 1: of lumberjacks came from other countries. We started to see
Speaker 1: people of Norwegian, Irish, French, Canadian, English, Canadian, Finnish or
Speaker 1: Swedish descent coming. We also started to see members of
Speaker 1: the Ojibwe tribe of the First Nations people. And at
Speaker 1: this point it was kind of the peak of logging
Speaker 1: in Minnesota. Uh. They essentially cut down enough trees to
Speaker 1: produce more than two billion feet of boards. I guess
Speaker 1: this would be like two by four type situation or
Speaker 1: whatever the kind of standardized measurement was for the time. Yes,
Speaker 1: And into this bustling industry come the sky pilots. It's
Speaker 1: a it's a cool term. It describes, as we mentioned earlier,
Speaker 1: clergyman who would travel through these often isolated timber towns
Speaker 1: or really just lumberjack camps. They would also visit miners.
Speaker 1: They would speak with members of the armed forces, and
Speaker 1: they would also visit prisoners. The thing is that we
Speaker 1: know the original sky pilot is this guy Frank Higgins,
Speaker 1: Francis E. Higgins if he's in trouble, but people still
Speaker 1: don't agree on the etymology or the origin of the term.
Speaker 1: For his part, Frank Higgins claims that the Lumberjacks themselves
Speaker 1: started calling him the sky Pilot because they would yeah,
Speaker 1: they would be living this brutal existence and he would
Speaker 1: come through with religious services, and then lumberjacks would say, well,
Speaker 1: come on, man, life is tough for us. Wait, wait,
Speaker 1: what are you doing here? Why why are you coming
Speaker 1: all the way out here? And then Higgins said, I
Speaker 1: want to pilot your souls to the sky. And so
Speaker 1: they were like, oh, okay, sky pilot over here, sky
Speaker 1: pilot over here. And then somebody yelled timber and everyone
Speaker 1: to the left like and then they kept going with
Speaker 1: a bit yeah, safety first, yeah, and honestly, you definitely
Speaker 1: want to save soul if you're gonna get pancake by
Speaker 1: a giant pine you know there. Oh yeah, it's a
Speaker 1: dangerous existence for sure, super dangerous and like you said,
Speaker 1: been super stressful and exhausting, which I guess accounts for
Speaker 1: a lot of the the hard living afterwards, you know,
Speaker 1: just to kind of like maybe not not not to
Speaker 1: say that lumberjacks were miserable all the time, but I
Speaker 1: mean I can imagine the stress and anxiety and just
Speaker 1: hard work of that day would certainly lead to wanting
Speaker 1: to unwind in a big way. And these ways were
Speaker 1: considered kind of counter to the teachings of Jesus, and
Speaker 1: so Higgins really was there traveling along with these itinerant
Speaker 1: folks from place to place, trying to save their soul.
Speaker 1: It's a pretty admirable goal, honestly, I mean, I gotta
Speaker 1: respect the guy for sticking to it in such harsh conditions.
Speaker 1: So let's let's kind of explore this a little bit.
Speaker 1: Why do you think that these, uh, these preachers felt
Speaker 1: lumberjacks in particular were in need of soul saving aside
Speaker 1: from the you know, constant threat of being crushed by trees.
Speaker 1: In eighteen ninety three, uh, Frederick Jackson Turner, who's an historian,
Speaker 1: gave a speech that kind of summed up, uh, this
Speaker 1: notion that the West might become a godless place, you know,
Speaker 1: because it was so far removed from the rest of
Speaker 1: the country, and there was a concern that, like the
Speaker 1: morals and ideals of America would perhaps kind of vanish.
Speaker 1: So he quoted this eighteen fifty editorial from a home
Speaker 1: Missions periodical. Uh and would you like to read that? Ben? Oh? Yes,
Speaker 1: of course, So Turner says, we scarcely know whether to
Speaker 1: rejoice or more and over this extension of our settlements.
Speaker 1: While we sympathize in whatever tends to increase the physical
Speaker 1: resources and prosperity of our country, we cannot forget that
Speaker 1: with all these dispersions into remote and still remoter corners
Speaker 1: of the land, the supply of the means of grace
Speaker 1: interesting phrase, there is becoming relatively less and less remote
Speaker 1: and still remoter corners of the land. So while you know,
Speaker 1: I mean, Minnesota isn't exactly the West, it's the Midwest, right,
Speaker 1: but it's certainly on that path to manifest destiny. Um,
Speaker 1: it would would have fallen into this category of being
Speaker 1: remote and wild in the sense of, like you know,
Speaker 1: being a godless land where men could lose themselves in
Speaker 1: that frontier life. So in particular we saw itinerant preachers
Speaker 1: all over in the days of the Old West of
Speaker 1: the frontier days. In particular, we see followers of Wesleyan
Speaker 1: Christianity that was the I guess, the flavor of Christianity
Speaker 1: that was founded by John Wesley. We would see them
Speaker 1: start to pop up around early nineteenth century in the Midwest.
Speaker 1: And it's interesting because Midwesterners it was such a common
Speaker 1: site that Midwesterners actually had almost a little saying that
Speaker 1: on bad wintry weather days there was something to see
Speaker 1: outside but quote crows and Methodist preachers. Yeah. Yeah. The
Speaker 1: British slang for this, by the way, would be a
Speaker 1: god botherer, someone who's persistently trying to uh to, to proselytize,
Speaker 1: to evangelize, to convert you to their religious beliefs. And
Speaker 1: this is where Frank Higgins really comes in. This is
Speaker 1: the context in which he occurs. He's born in Canada,
Speaker 1: in Toronto in eighteen sixty. His father passes away when
Speaker 1: he's quite young. His mother remarries and they moved to
Speaker 1: Ontario and their their idea this new family is to
Speaker 1: homestead this area. It's remote, it's the middle of nowhere
Speaker 1: in Duffering County in the woods. His stepfather is quite
Speaker 1: religious and Frank as a result of this. Pretty early
Speaker 1: on in childhood, he decides that he feels called to
Speaker 1: become a preacher. And there's a cute moment here. According
Speaker 1: to the story, he's walking around as a kid again
Speaker 1: in the woods, middle of nowhere, and he's practicing sermons
Speaker 1: on trees and tree stumps. He's telling some nearby cattle
Speaker 1: about the Joy everlasting. Doesn't this sound something like a
Speaker 1: mother would say that boys so into Jesus he'd give
Speaker 1: a sermon to a tree stump. Yes, yes, his mom's
Speaker 1: largely supportive of it. Uh. He you know, back in
Speaker 1: this time, rural Canada, there's not a ton of opportunity
Speaker 1: for formal schooling, right, So he goes to Toronto when
Speaker 1: he's about twenty years old and just by the way, folks,
Speaker 1: so you can get a sense of his physicality. He's
Speaker 1: not a small dude. He's maybe what you would call
Speaker 1: burly today, Like he wouldn't he wouldn't look out of
Speaker 1: place in a lumberjack camp. Well, that suits him fits
Speaker 1: right in until he gets his hooks in. You is
Speaker 1: Jesus looks But no, you're right. After around three years
Speaker 1: in public grade school and then two years in high school,
Speaker 1: he left Canada and went to Minnesota, and he was
Speaker 1: twenty five at the time. And after a few years
Speaker 1: walking around as a an un i guess anointed minister,
Speaker 1: a lay preacher in Annandale, he went to seminary. He
Speaker 1: went to Hamlin University and in officially was ordained and
Speaker 1: um started service at the Presbyterian Church in Barnum, Minnesota.
Speaker 1: And that's where he first that's where he first kind
Speaker 1: of ran into this community of loggers. Yeah, because he's
Speaker 1: he's ministering to this church and one of the church
Speaker 1: members says, hey, Frank, come visit this logging camp. I
Speaker 1: operate a lumberjack concern and let me tell you, these
Speaker 1: people need one thing God, seriously, they're going they're going
Speaker 1: wild out there. Uh, Frankie, gotta help me out. And
Speaker 1: so Frank goes with this church member and these loggers
Speaker 1: on what's called a log drive. That's where they go
Speaker 1: and find and harvest timber. And they have a day
Speaker 1: of pretty dangerous work and Frank's there the whole time.
Speaker 1: It's kind of like he's going on a ride along,
Speaker 1: if you want to think of it that way. And
Speaker 1: then he gets training kind of scenario. Yeah, yeah, pretty
Speaker 1: pretty much. Yeah, with a little bit less of a
Speaker 1: sinister crime vibe. God, nobody made him smoke PC or anything, right, right, right,
Speaker 1: And he's hanging out with these guys after doing this
Speaker 1: right along, and he grabs dinner with him, and he
Speaker 1: was surprised because while he's eating, one of the slumberjacks says,
Speaker 1: you know, hey, preach, uh, you know what, will you
Speaker 1: provide us the good word? You know, will you have
Speaker 1: a service for us? Will you minister to us? And Higgins,
Speaker 1: you know, in no small part flattered, I'm sure, says Okay, yeah,
Speaker 1: I'll do it, and they hold an impromptu church service.
Speaker 1: He's leading the group and singing some hymns everybody knows,
Speaker 1: and he talks with them about faith and about spirituality
Speaker 1: and Christianity right as the evening is beginning in the afternoon,
Speaker 1: leans lazily into sunset, and it works. These guys are moved.
Speaker 1: You know, maybe it's because it's something that breaks the routine.
Speaker 1: Maybe it speaks to them on a deeper spiritual level.
Speaker 1: But the next morning he spends the night there by
Speaker 1: the way. The next morning, several of these lumberjacks, who
Speaker 1: are also by the way, ridiculous historians known as river
Speaker 1: pigs in fight Frank to return River pigs. Did that
Speaker 1: stick out to you know? It definitely did. I just
Speaker 1: want to point out really quick too, that I think
Speaker 1: they were also just kind of floored by how quickly,
Speaker 1: uh and off the cuff he was able to deliver
Speaker 1: this sermon like it was they were just impressed, you know,
Speaker 1: like it was, Oh, this guy means business. And he
Speaker 1: did mean business because he followed them around out on many,
Speaker 1: many more of these logging expeditions and in which you know,
Speaker 1: he was putting himself in harm's way alongside the people
Speaker 1: that he was trying to minister to. So he was
Speaker 1: certainly putting his money where his mouth of of God was.
Speaker 1: That's a thing. But a river pig, Yeah, it's totally
Speaker 1: a thing. Um. There's in fact a competition, the Lumberjack
Speaker 1: World Championship, which I believe it still goes on today. Um.
Speaker 1: And And in that there is a competition called a
Speaker 1: boom run um. And it is where loggers display studying
Speaker 1: feats of speed and endurance and focus and balance, most importantly,
Speaker 1: when they run across a small lake by bounding from
Speaker 1: one floating log to another. UM. He may have seen this.
Speaker 1: It's almost like kind of a cliche of like lumberjack life. Well,
Speaker 1: around a hundred years ago, there are these men um
Speaker 1: who were known as river pigs that actually did this
Speaker 1: as a functional part of the logging trip um there
Speaker 1: us referred to as river rats, river hogs, or caddyman,
Speaker 1: but they actually drove logs down the river to the
Speaker 1: sawmill and sometimes the logs would jam up, and that's
Speaker 1: when these guys would would swoop in and save the day, right, yeah,
Speaker 1: and well they would try to save the day. This
Speaker 1: was a super dangerous job. We have some arborists in
Speaker 1: the audience. We may have some loggers in the audience
Speaker 1: as well. And if you if you have experienced professional logging,
Speaker 1: timber harvesting, etcetera, then you know that even with today's
Speaker 1: technological advancements, it is an incredibly dangerous gig, so much
Speaker 1: so that back in the eighteen hundreds when this story
Speaker 1: takes place, everyone was disappointed when they heard a river
Speaker 1: rat or a river boy, a river hog passed away.
Speaker 1: But they weren't really surprised and they didn't stop the
Speaker 1: operation because one passed away. No, they're basically like cannon
Speaker 1: fodder in the lumber industry. And just just to reiterate,
Speaker 1: they did do essentially what is done as a fun
Speaker 1: little competition in the Lumberjack World Championship, but they would
Speaker 1: do it for real as they were driving these logs
Speaker 1: down the river. A picture like just you know, back
Speaker 1: to back logs rolling down the river, downstream towards the sawmill.
Speaker 1: And occasionally one of the logs would get caught up
Speaker 1: in a bank or whatever would cause the whole thing
Speaker 1: to jam, hence log Jam or the amazing film within
Speaker 1: a film log Jam in in the Big Lebowski. But yeah,
Speaker 1: these river rats or hogs or pigs would literally run
Speaker 1: across the logs and use this pike or like giant
Speaker 1: kind of stick to poke them free. And you know,
Speaker 1: think about it, if that happened too quickly, if they
Speaker 1: became just lodged, become unstable, they'd get thrown off or
Speaker 1: maybe like crushed between these massive pieces of timber. Right, yes,
Speaker 1: And unfortunately in some cases their bodies wouldn't turn up
Speaker 1: for days and days after they disappeared. So there's a
Speaker 1: poetic part of a mental Floss article by Terse O'Neill
Speaker 1: called seven jobs were glad or obsolete, and in this
Speaker 1: article O'Neill notes that sometimes the only marker for a
Speaker 1: river pigs grave would be his boots tossed over a
Speaker 1: tree limb that was hanging somewhere near the part of
Speaker 1: the river where they disappeared. So life here was difficult.
Speaker 1: People needed inspiration. You know, you're you're you're literally waking
Speaker 1: up with a coworker who may not be there at
Speaker 1: the end of the day. And this means that life
Speaker 1: on an emotional level as well as a physical level,
Speaker 1: is quite difficult. We should also mention that logging operations
Speaker 1: mainly took place in the winter, so logs could be
Speaker 1: loaded on frozen rivers and then they could be sent
Speaker 1: downstream when the water thought. These people were miserable. They're
Speaker 1: huddled together in these like cold bunk rooms, and of
Speaker 1: course there's not a modern heating system, so it's cold.
Speaker 1: Let's add in you know what, No, let's just laundry
Speaker 1: list all the miserable things. Another thing, people are pretty dirty, right,
Speaker 1: there's lice everywhere. I don't know, Max Noel, you guys
Speaker 1: probably had to get checked for lice, maybe in grade
Speaker 1: school something like that. Yeah, Well, I mean as as
Speaker 1: a dad that's a big thing um with kids. Like
Speaker 1: when kid gets that, they hoped literally from head to
Speaker 1: head and we had a life scare or we had
Speaker 1: to we had to get that special shampoo and get
Speaker 1: rid of some clothes. It was not fun. But yeah,
Speaker 1: I definitely remember being checked. And I as a kid,
Speaker 1: don't the guy ever got it until I was an adult. Yeah, next,
Speaker 1: did you did you have the life experience where they
Speaker 1: like check every kid's head in your school? Oh? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean I had life when I was like seven,
Speaker 1: maybe eight. Alex and I both had life that like
Speaker 1: summer camp. It was not the cleanest place that we
Speaker 1: went to. But yeah, like you know, I remember like
Speaker 1: an elementary school, like, oh, I kid had lice. We
Speaker 1: all have doing and Alex and I generally always rocked
Speaker 1: her hair really long, so it was not fun to
Speaker 1: having out our heads completely shaved down, and I was
Speaker 1: like pretty tragic for me. That's Alex Williams, by the way,
Speaker 1: not fun fact not only Max's brother, actual facts biological brother,
Speaker 1: but also the creator of both this show's soundtrack and
Speaker 1: the excellent puer podcast of Femeral In fact, Noll, I
Speaker 1: think spoiler alert. If we make it through our own
Speaker 1: logging camp of podcasts. We might have Alex join us
Speaker 1: on an upcoming episode we had Disgusted. I think we're
Speaker 1: getting that locked in. I really look forward to it.
Speaker 1: That'll be fun. It'll be like a family reunion because
Speaker 1: you guys haven't see each other in years, right, Max, Yeah,
Speaker 1: we we totally don't work on a femeral together. Strange
Speaker 1: now just just strange. And they definitely definitely do work
Speaker 1: on a femeral. Max is an integral part of that show. Yes,
Speaker 1: he is ours, so it totally is a family A
Speaker 1: fair to look forward to that episode. But let's get
Speaker 1: back to the sky Pigs, well, the River Pigs, River Pigs,
Speaker 1: Sky Pilots. It's cold. People are dying left and right.
Speaker 1: Everybody's got lice. Uh, tons of people have injuries. They
Speaker 1: might be missing fingers. This is brutal. Everybody is sick too,
Speaker 1: by the way, because you know you're in a cold area,
Speaker 1: so you have to huddle together, right, for warmth, for shelter,
Speaker 1: which means an illness like lice, gets transmitted more easily
Speaker 1: from one person to the next due to proximity. And
Speaker 1: you know, again, these people are moving around, they're traveling
Speaker 1: where the work takes them and they're away from their families.
Speaker 1: These are men who are trying to provide for their families,
Speaker 1: so they're constantly missing their wives and their kids, who,
Speaker 1: by the way, most of them were not allowed to
Speaker 1: bring to the logging camps. I think there was an
Speaker 1: exception made occasionally for the foreman and the cook who
Speaker 1: were allowed to bring their wives for visits. Like that's
Speaker 1: very very very specific. But regular old loggers, including those
Speaker 1: river pigs, who are putting their life in serious risk
Speaker 1: every single day, we're not allowed to have access to
Speaker 1: their wives or families. And there was even concern because
Speaker 1: of this from the sky pilots that perhaps there would
Speaker 1: be some unholy uh sexual relationships forged between these big
Speaker 1: burly men, which is a very specific type of porn.
Speaker 1: Oh heaven forefend. So that's what the one thing the
Speaker 1: sky pilots are worried about. Not amputation, not not crushing
Speaker 1: mental mamma, or the very real danger of death. They're
Speaker 1: worried some people might be sleeping together hot burley lumberjack sex. Um.
Speaker 1: It's a it's a concern of the church. It's like
Speaker 1: on their list of top concerns. Um they have a
Speaker 1: prioritized list and that is weirdly at the top. And
Speaker 1: they're also the sky pilots are also keeping their eyes
Speaker 1: on other forms of sin. So if you are familiar
Speaker 1: with an industry, like working in an oil field, you
Speaker 1: know that there can be boom towns that pop up
Speaker 1: around these sorts of activities. And when lumberjacks are done
Speaker 1: with the logging season at this time, they often end
Speaker 1: up in nearby towns were cities, and they're kind of
Speaker 1: whiling out there on leave. You know, they haven't really
Speaker 1: been spending their money on anything. They're out in the
Speaker 1: middle of nowhere. They haven't really been talking to anybody
Speaker 1: except their colleagues who have survived that season. So they're
Speaker 1: often saloons. They're off rolling hot dice, they're visiting brothels,
Speaker 1: of course, and according to Higgins, the original sky pilot
Speaker 1: saloons are the only like social situation around. There's not
Speaker 1: there's not an alternative, you know, there's not really a
Speaker 1: community center or something like that. There's not an Internet cafe,
Speaker 1: so they naturally wash up at the local bar. That's right.
Speaker 1: They even get their haircut there. Oftentimes. You know, if
Speaker 1: you've seen the show Deadwood. Uh. That is also where
Speaker 1: brothels would would be as well. Like in some of
Speaker 1: these saloons there would be lodging that often would come
Speaker 1: with company, and you know, any of the other needs
Speaker 1: that they had met in terms of washing, getting haircuts,
Speaker 1: and obviously gambling and drinking. Um. So, Higgins tried to
Speaker 1: address the men in in terms that they could understand
Speaker 1: without walking down to them. Fellow kids, Hello, fellow kids,
Speaker 1: it is I Frank Higgins. I know your pain. I
Speaker 1: know the plight of the lumberman, and I know that
Speaker 1: it seems like an easy fix to turn to the
Speaker 1: drink and and and the gambling and the loose women
Speaker 1: of the evening. But it's not so good fellas. Think
Speaker 1: of your everlasting souls, think about your the reward that
Speaker 1: lies for you in the great beyond. Don't get your
Speaker 1: pleasure now, my friends, suffer now so you can have
Speaker 1: your pleasure later. It reminds me a little bit of
Speaker 1: that song you Got Trouble, you know, right here in
Speaker 1: River City over they're like, look, guys, I'm gonna be
Speaker 1: honest with you. It's me, your buddy, Frank. Now I've
Speaker 1: been tempted before, I've walked by a deck of cards.
Speaker 1: I knew what a jack of diamonds is. And I
Speaker 1: know that some of you are maybe making out, whether
Speaker 1: in a rothel or in a lonely night at the
Speaker 1: bunk house, and that's a big deal to be let me.
Speaker 1: Let me tell you I've been through similar things. My
Speaker 1: mom watches me leave home to come here and hang
Speaker 1: out with you in this miserable environment. But her prayers,
Speaker 1: he says, have followed me throughout my life. And my
Speaker 1: story is just like yours. It's just a mad lib.
Speaker 1: He didn't say mad lib. That wasn't invented yet, but
Speaker 1: he's like, my story is just like yours. All you
Speaker 1: have to do is change the names. I know we're
Speaker 1: in a crazy situation, but I guarantee you that somebody
Speaker 1: out there away from this camp still wants to know
Speaker 1: that you're alive. So write him a letter. You know.
Speaker 1: It makes me think of like Tracy Morgan, the comedian
Speaker 1: and actor from Dirty Rock and and all that I
Speaker 1: love him. You know, he was in a very bad accident,
Speaker 1: uh that he survived. But I saw him due the
Speaker 1: speech or I think is on a radio show or
Speaker 1: something like that, but he said something to the effect
Speaker 1: of true happiness is having something to look forward to.
Speaker 1: True happiness is knowing that you have someone that cares
Speaker 1: whether you live or die. And I think he was trying.
Speaker 1: Higgins was trying to appeal to that sense where he
Speaker 1: was saying, somebody out there cares about you, somebody out
Speaker 1: there loves you. Go home right now and reconnect with
Speaker 1: that part of your soul, with that part of why
Speaker 1: are you living in the first place, Why are you
Speaker 1: out here, you know, doing this work, putting in all
Speaker 1: this hard work, if you're just going to gamble and
Speaker 1: drink yourself into an early grave. And he's referring to
Speaker 1: I think friends and family says, go home, write a
Speaker 1: letter tonight. Yeah. Yeah, So that's that's what's happening. This
Speaker 1: guy is saying, Hey, don't get don't get lost in
Speaker 1: the timber game. Don't feel hopeless. People do care about you,
Speaker 1: you know, even if you can't talk to them right now.
Speaker 1: You can write a letter. You can be connected to
Speaker 1: the larger world and to the people you care about
Speaker 1: most because they care about you too. That seems like
Speaker 1: a pretty easy thing to agree to, but it might
Speaker 1: surprise some of us to know that these sky pilots
Speaker 1: didn't always get unanimous acclaim. True, some big lumber interests
Speaker 1: loved them and supported them. People like Thomas B. Walker
Speaker 1: thought these ministers were not just good for the camp,
Speaker 1: but so important to the camp that they should be paid.
Speaker 1: So in some cases it was not just a labor
Speaker 1: of love or spiritual duty. It was their job. And
Speaker 1: they thought, you know, if these workers have religion, they'll
Speaker 1: also conform and they'll they'll work more predictably, they'll be
Speaker 1: more efficient, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. And surprisingly, labor unions or
Speaker 1: labor activists at least who wanted to unionize logging camps.
Speaker 1: I thought this was a BS diversionary tactic for management.
Speaker 1: They said, you know what's really going to improve worker
Speaker 1: morale if we have better employment conditions, if these people
Speaker 1: can go out and know that they are not going
Speaker 1: to die between two logs on a swift moving river,
Speaker 1: which is a fair point, right right. There was a
Speaker 1: group called the Industrial Workers of the World i w W,
Speaker 1: or Wobblies. They were super against the sky pilots for
Speaker 1: that same exact reason. Um The Wobblies were one of
Speaker 1: the only early unions that wanted to organize lumberjacks, and
Speaker 1: they used the term skypilot as kind of a disc
Speaker 1: as a day on these folks. They believe that the
Speaker 1: working conditions of lubbage Dave could only be changed by
Speaker 1: improving conditions. Not with this whole again, suffer now get
Speaker 1: your kicks in the afterlife mentality, because it's the counterproductive
Speaker 1: not gonna lie. Yeah, I see, I see where they're
Speaker 1: coming from. Right, right, exactly. I think we're all on
Speaker 1: the same page. There still some lumberjacks found solace in
Speaker 1: the sky pilots, and a few even went on to
Speaker 1: become preachers or sky pilots themselves. One of the most
Speaker 1: famous examples of this is a guy named John Sornberger
Speaker 1: who was a murderer. It was it was a rude dude,
Speaker 1: a wanted killer, who with the help of Frank Higgins,
Speaker 1: turned his life around. Uh there's another guy. Andrew Stenstrom
Speaker 1: is also mentioned that min opedia article. Andrew Stenstrom was
Speaker 1: a lumberjack who converted to Christianity in seven he became
Speaker 1: super super devout. He left the logging game entirely, but
Speaker 1: a number of years later he came back, not as
Speaker 1: lumberjack but as a preacher. Uh think if you look
Speaker 1: into his biography, he's better known nowadays as a painter.
Speaker 1: But if you met him while he was alive, he
Speaker 1: was a lumberjack and then a sky pilot, not just
Speaker 1: any kind of painter, been a primitive painter, which would
Speaker 1: have referred to kind of that more rustic approach to
Speaker 1: UM creating kind of scenes at the lumber camps, which
Speaker 1: is an important way of documenting that stuff around the
Speaker 1: Minnesota's uh on the Pacific coast from you know, Oregon
Speaker 1: and all that, and uh in the dakotas of course.
Speaker 1: But what's interesting is where we focused a lot on
Speaker 1: maybe what could have been considered a bit of a
Speaker 1: cloying aspect of the sky pilots and the I'm just
Speaker 1: kind of saying, hey, you know, uh, cast off your
Speaker 1: sinful ways so that you can, you know, guard your
Speaker 1: soul against damn nation, but without actually addressing the problem.
Speaker 1: But they in fact did address the problem as well.
Speaker 1: A lot of these sky pilots provided more than just um,
Speaker 1: you know, absolute Lucian uh and and religion. There's certainly
Speaker 1: worse than lumberjacks that did not care for the presence
Speaker 1: of the sky pilots and that treated them like interlopers.
Speaker 1: But most of the people that lived in these camps
Speaker 1: lived the north in these camps appreciated the kind of
Speaker 1: i don't know, community building that the that the ministers
Speaker 1: did the sky pilots coming into town certainly broke up
Speaker 1: the kind of humdrum day to day of of the
Speaker 1: logging camps. And they would often bring you know, musical instruments, uh,
Speaker 1: and they would you know, lead uh the lumberjacks in
Speaker 1: singalongs of course, you know, gospel hymns and the like. Um.
Speaker 1: But it definitely was something that felt festive, you know.
Speaker 1: And the ministers would also bring a lot of books
Speaker 1: and magazines and things for them to read. I mean
Speaker 1: because again, you know, with the conditions and the close quarters,
Speaker 1: I mean, this is not that far off from a
Speaker 1: prison type situation. So you know, the library is is
Speaker 1: a really important part of any prison if you've seen
Speaker 1: like OZ or any TV show based in prison. But yeah,
Speaker 1: so they appreciate they were really appreciated for that, for
Speaker 1: bringing them stuff to entertain themselves and break up them anony. Heck, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's a show I mean for for a terrible comparison,
Speaker 1: if you've been to grade school, you remember those milestone
Speaker 1: exciting days. There was field day, there were field trips.
Speaker 1: You know, you might have career day. It breaks the
Speaker 1: two teachers. Always was was a big deal. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: it might be um. You know, it's like you said,
Speaker 1: it's a relief from monotony. It's a break from routine.
Speaker 1: And sky pilots also provided some social services, the things
Speaker 1: that logging companies didn't really bother with because of labor
Speaker 1: laws at the time or lack thereof. So, for instance,
Speaker 1: let's say lumberjack is injured but they're not dying. It
Speaker 1: would fall on the sky pilot often to take this
Speaker 1: person to the hospital, and Frank Higgins established this precedent
Speaker 1: using a dog sled. The dog sled became an ambulance
Speaker 1: functionally when people were hurt, or when they were sick,
Speaker 1: or in the rare case where a woman in the
Speaker 1: area was pregnant and needed to be rushed to a hospital,
Speaker 1: it would be a sky pilot with the dog sled.
Speaker 1: I didn't mean to make that sound like a turn
Speaker 1: in the board game Clue. It was the sky pilot
Speaker 1: in northern Minnesota with the dog sled with the dogs slab.
Speaker 1: You could definitely beat some of the death front of those,
Speaker 1: but that's not what they were doing at all. Then
Speaker 1: they were doing the opposite of beating people to death.
Speaker 1: They were saving their lives. Uh. And it's certainly admirable,
Speaker 1: and it's something that you see in ministerial outreach, you know,
Speaker 1: throughout history oftentimes. You know, a lot of times you
Speaker 1: could argue that it's a way of getting people trust
Speaker 1: and earning people's trust in the community and saying, you know,
Speaker 1: getting being more likely to make conversions, which just an
Speaker 1: inherently a bad thing, I don't think. But it's certainly
Speaker 1: not like all altruistic, right, But it is their job
Speaker 1: to help people, and I think help people. They absolutely
Speaker 1: did h both you know, in this earth and maybe
Speaker 1: the next, depending on what you believe. Um, So what
Speaker 1: happened to Frank Higgins? And why have we never heard
Speaker 1: the term sky pilots before? Uh? It seems to have
Speaker 1: faded out of of the history books to a large extent. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I first heard the term sky pilots in a song
Speaker 1: by the group called The Animals, which features Frank Burton
Speaker 1: I believe as the leader singer. Uh, They're they're most
Speaker 1: famous for covers of songs like Please Don't let Me
Speaker 1: Be Misunderstood or House of the Rising Sun. But yes,
Speaker 1: sky Pilot confused me because without knowing this background, it
Speaker 1: sounds like a very redundant title, does it not sky Pilot? Like?
Speaker 1: What what do you? What is there lands pilot? This
Speaker 1: necessitates the existence of a pilot for every kind of known,
Speaker 1: conceived of all thing. What is it? Is there a
Speaker 1: plateau pilot? That's that's that's a good point, Ben, And
Speaker 1: it's it's it's less, it's it's much more irritating than
Speaker 1: sky Captain. Again, not to not to harp too much
Speaker 1: on this, but you know he's the captain of the skies.
Speaker 1: Is this guy the pilot of the skies? He's piloting
Speaker 1: the whole thing? Come on, man, I don't understand. It
Speaker 1: doesn't make anything. But although it would be hard to
Speaker 1: captain an entire you know, where does the sky? Where
Speaker 1: does his jurisdiction end? Right? At what point space? Exactly? What?
Speaker 1: We need more specifics I think we need. Yes, we
Speaker 1: need more specifics. We need some more stats on this
Speaker 1: before we can make a determination. Sky Captain, Cloud Commander. Yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: So here's what happens with Frank. Frank is uh, Frank
Speaker 1: is living his best life in the spring of eighteen
Speaker 1: nine when he and his spouse Ever go to work
Speaker 1: at the Presbyterian church in a town called the Midge,
Speaker 1: which Noel I believe fellow Fargo fans will recognize. It's
Speaker 1: the first, specifically pioneer church in the town. And while
Speaker 1: Frank is getting ready for this, he still makes time
Speaker 1: to go speak and as I would say, share the
Speaker 1: good word with the lumberjacks. Sometimes his wife even comes
Speaker 1: with him and provides music. Again, this is a show
Speaker 1: for a lot of people, you know, whether regardless of
Speaker 1: their own spiritual beliefs, this is something they enjoy doing
Speaker 1: on a social level. Yeah, they had a cool little
Speaker 1: portable organ that's always seen described as but I gotta
Speaker 1: wonder if that means it's like a harmonium kind of
Speaker 1: situation where you pump it by hand while you're playing
Speaker 1: chords with the other hand, Because I mean, a true
Speaker 1: organ in these days there would be nothing portable about it,
Speaker 1: so it has to be something really clever. Um. I'm
Speaker 1: interested to do a little more digging on that, And
Speaker 1: you know, Higgins spent a good bit of time there
Speaker 1: in the Midgey Um. After he initially rely was denied ordination. Uh,
Speaker 1: he finally got his stripes or his what do you
Speaker 1: call it? What's that collar thing. There's a name for it,
Speaker 1: the caller. I think he's just called the collar anyway,
Speaker 1: that's more for a priest. He was a Presbyterian minister.
Speaker 1: I don't think they would have worn the collar. But
Speaker 1: he leads this effort to remodel the first Presbyterian church building.
Speaker 1: They want to make it bigger because he's like attracting
Speaker 1: more congregants. And in doing this he did it not
Speaker 1: by getting donations, not only rather by getting donations for
Speaker 1: you know, the stuff that would be required to build it. Um.
Speaker 1: He actually once again put his money where his mouth
Speaker 1: was and and participated in the work himself. This guy
Speaker 1: was was the real deal. And he would travel around
Speaker 1: all the while. He'd go and visit all these other
Speaker 1: lumber camps, nine in total. He'd visit three each week
Speaker 1: and then come back to his home base where he'd
Speaker 1: continue the work of renovating the church. Yeah, exactly. And
Speaker 1: this hard work pays off. By the early twenty century,
Speaker 1: nineteen o nine or so, Higgins has earned a reputation
Speaker 1: beyond the borders of Minnesota. Harper's Magazine writes about him,
Speaker 1: people are seeking him out for speaking engagements. Unfortunately, time
Speaker 1: takes its toll on us all. In nineteen fourteen, Higgins
Speaker 1: is diagnosed with cancer and he dies in January of
Speaker 1: the next year. And he's only forty nine years old
Speaker 1: at this point, but still he's had a profound influence
Speaker 1: on thousands and thousands of people. In fact, The New
Speaker 1: York Times in their obituary on Frank Higgins said he
Speaker 1: had quote taken the Gospel to more than thirty thousand
Speaker 1: of the roughest men in the world, and with that
Speaker 1: the legacy ends. So no, we went on a journey
Speaker 1: to figure out the origin of a term that I
Speaker 1: think really stuck out to both of us, and we
Speaker 1: found this amazing story within that. It is inspiring, I
Speaker 1: would say, whether regardless of anybody's own particular spiritual beliefs
Speaker 1: or lack thereof, it's it's a very human story, it is,
Speaker 1: And I think Higgins comes out looking kind of like
Speaker 1: an awesome dude through all of this, especially since he actually,
Speaker 1: you know, labored physically. He put himself in harm's way
Speaker 1: constantly for the benefit at least in his mind of
Speaker 1: of these loggers, and he and the folks that came
Speaker 1: after him or that he inspired, did things to try
Speaker 1: to help improve conditions in the logging camps, if not
Speaker 1: conditions in the logging industry. But I mean, what were
Speaker 1: they gonna do. I mean, that really is kind of
Speaker 1: best left to unions and in the government. There's only
Speaker 1: so much you can do, and the workers have to
Speaker 1: demand that. Um And eventually, uh they did technolog technology
Speaker 1: kind of caught up, and you know, Uh, it's still
Speaker 1: dangerous work, but I don't think we have nearly as
Speaker 1: many deaths as we once did. Yeah, agreed, And we
Speaker 1: wanted to end on some uh who want to end
Speaker 1: on a on a on a lighter note, right, So
Speaker 1: we found some lumberjack jokes. I think we'll share a
Speaker 1: few of those. No, Max Nolan, I were chatting offline
Speaker 1: and there is one lumberjack joke I love, but it
Speaker 1: is not safe for work. No, you and Max asked
Speaker 1: me to tell the joke, but we it would take
Speaker 1: so much editing and be being I'm really I don't
Speaker 1: want to hype it up. I just I think because
Speaker 1: of the premise, it's maybe not the best for this show.
Speaker 1: So here are some short jokes we can we can
Speaker 1: share together if you want to. If you want to
Speaker 1: hear the full dirty lumberjack joke just right to us
Speaker 1: on Ridiculous Historians or at our email. Is it the
Speaker 1: one about the lemon and the glass in the bar? No, No,
Speaker 1: that's a good one. That was filthy to um, what
Speaker 1: do we guys, Let's see? Uh oh, let's see. Lumberjack
Speaker 1: wants old me he's cut down two trees. I asked,
Speaker 1: how do you how do you know exactly how many? Uh?
Speaker 1: And then he says, easy, I keep a log. Or
Speaker 1: a lumberjack went into a magic forest in Canada to
Speaker 1: cut a tree. Bought arrival, he started to swing at
Speaker 1: the tree and it shouted, wait, I'm a talking tree.
Speaker 1: And the lumberjack said, and you will dialogue. Oh oh boy,
Speaker 1: a lumberjack says. One lumberjack says to another, you know
Speaker 1: I can cut a log just by looking at it.
Speaker 1: The other lumberjack says, that's not possible. The lumberjack then says,
Speaker 1: it may seem impossible, but I saw it with my
Speaker 1: own two eyes. Bum bump bump. So we're going to
Speaker 1: with much appreciation, called it a day. We would love
Speaker 1: to hear you were jokes about lumberjacks. We would love
Speaker 1: to hear your experience. If you have worked in a
Speaker 1: logging camp, or if you had someone in your family
Speaker 1: who worked in the logging industry, we can't wait to
Speaker 1: hear from you. We always like to round out the
Speaker 1: show by thanking our own logging camp of ridiculous historians,
Speaker 1: Uh super producer, Max Williams, Casey Pegram, Gabe Bluesier, our
Speaker 1: research associate. And let's see who else do we have
Speaker 1: on the docket today? No oh Man even in the family,
Speaker 1: Alex Williams, who composed our theme research or Extraordinaire Gabe Louisier.
Speaker 1: I only pronounce it that way because it rhymes with extraordinaire.
Speaker 1: And of course Jonathan Strickland a k. The quister nol
Speaker 1: wet better way to end today's episode with a hearty
Speaker 1: yell of Timber, I took the first one. You want
Speaker 1: to take us home, Timber. We'll see a nice time
Speaker 1: books m HM. For more podcasts from My Heart Radio,
Speaker 1: visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever
Speaker 1: you listen to your favorite shows,