I didn’t fully appreciate at the time how close native sawmilling was to becoming extinct in the sense that excessive logging after World War 2 was leading to concerns that resources were rapidly being depleted and policies needed changing.
Someone at the top of the tree (pardon the pun) had listened, with selected logging being in place by the late 1950s and by 1977 clear felling of native forests had ceased. It’s not the object of this article to explore the history or to give detail of how this valuable resource was being managed but to provide a short visual window showing where the industry was at in November 1972.
On looking back, I didn’t know at the time where the bush workings were located but I remem ber going over the Poro-o-tarao Tunnel to Benneydale, then into the Waipa Valley northwest of Horokino. Today, even with the aid of maps, I doubt very much whether I could find where these bushmen were actually felling the trees that were fast disappearing. That area would now be farmland and hard to recognise.
On arriving at the workings, I was reacquainted with Brian Holster, a former Taumarunui bushman. He was the only person I knew by name and had no problem with my camera following him around. He was the crosscutter who features in most of the photos and during the day felled a mixture of five or six large native trees including matai, rimu, kahikatea and totara.
He warned me to keep my distance and while he was wearing a hard hat, I can’t remember if I was offered one. I probably would have mentioned that it would cramp my style but after he explained about the bushman’s biggest fear of being hit with a “widow-maker”, I was doubly conscious of the dangers.
Basically, it would be too late to worry as a widow-maker would have achieved its appropriate name by causing disastrous results. Widow-makers were also known as “sailers” with either term describing branches or limbs that were swiped off adjacent trees or snapped off as the felled tree was on its journey to the ground. Sometimes these branches would hang up in neighbouring trees for minutes before quietly releasing themselves for further devastation upon the unwary.
Make no mistake, being hit by a widow-maker meant death along with a sailer also meaning death or being badly injured. Either way, a hard hat or a safety helmet, which were unpopular when first introduced during the mid 1950s, would have given some protection but no guarantee of survival.
Brian also made sure he had an escape route cleared if anything went wrong at the stump. It could mean the tree not falling where it was meant to go or if it had a hollow-butt. Everything relied on the crosscutter putting the scarf in correctly. It had been an essential skill since day one when bushmen were using the old two-man crosscut saw, axes and wedges.
As time went on, felling was...
