RE: 1 million cords . . .

Interesting ! seems the wood would be better used for furniture or something other than paddles.

Interesting read. My grandfather actually traced our family heritage back to that area in the late 1500's my forefathers were cutting tall timber for masts of the royal navy's ships back in England.
I know all too well about that 36grit taking a knuckle off!

I hope this is a legit firm. There was a company doing it downstream on the penobscot river a few years back. They had to pay the local tribe a fee for every log they pulled up.

There was another firm that started out legit in the great lakes and got caught up with Wall Street folks. They pumped up the PR about the company, turned it into a public company, the original investors cashed out and the company went bankrupt.

On a different not check out the January 5th issue of the Berlin NH paper

http://www.laconiadailysun.com/files/pdfarchivenew/BerlinPDF/2012/01_January/

There is article about someone doing this on the Androscoggin River in 1964 on page 4 and 5.

I watched a show about underwater logging a while ago. Apparently the very deep, very cold water deprives enough oxygen to prohibit decomposition.

BASOD said:

Interesting read. My grandfather actually traced our family heritage back to that area in the late 1500's my forefathers were cutting tall timber for masts of the royal navy's ships back in England.
I know all too well about that 36grit taking a knuckle off!

Click to expand...

Great family history, though your granddad's dates have to be a little off. The earliest settlement in Maine was about 1620. Jamestown, the very first settlement in America, wasn't settled until 1607. But dates are less important than the link you have to your ancestors' trade. That is very cool to know this type of detail.

In the late 1600s and first half of 1700s, England was depleting its old growth hardwood forests. They claimed the huge white pines in Maine in the name of the king and shipped the timbers back to England for shipbuilding. This ended, of course, with the American Revolution.

woodsmaster said:

Interesting ! seems the wood would be better used for furniture or something other than paddles.

Click to expand...

Paddles of the sort described in the article can be objects of great beauty and a surgical instrument in the right hands.

These are not K-Mart Specials. I'd love to see the finished product.

Theres alot of value in that timber. If they are just grabbing it with a crane and barge blindly without divers, there must be a tremendous amount below the surface.

I am all for reclaiming these valuable logs, as long as some of the money gets put back into the resource and community. For an outside company to come in and make millions off a natural resource (public lake) they should have to pay a bond and pay fees per amount recovered. You simply wouldn't let a company go into a state forest and harvest trees without collecting. It should be on the up and up. Nothing in the article states that it's not.

I saw a show on discovery where divers were reclaiming logs and when they processed the logs - the wood was amazing. They were using it in luxury Jets and making Office furniture. The company would mill thin sheets of the wood grain and veneer it to make amazing pieces that sold for alot of money.

Pretty amazing. A single piece of wood can be a thing of beauty and contemplation. A MILLION cord of crazy quality old wood is astounding.

A University of Maine professor estimated that the log had been under water since 1589, according to Shafer.

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Really? Under water since 1589? How the heck did they arrive at that? Note: they did not say "late 16th century" or "over 400 years ago"

Seems like there is either a huge line of BS here, or a much cooler story than is being shared. Why not June 21st, 1589?

Thanks for posting that Jake. It is an interesting article. btw, I've seen 1 million cord of wood stacked and that takes a tremendous amount of room!

Danno77 said:

A University of Maine professor estimated that the log had been under water since 1589, according to Shafer.

Click to expand...

Really? Under water since 1589? How the heck did they arrive at that? Note: they did not say "late 16th century" or "over 400 years ago"

Seems like there is either a huge line of BS here, or a much cooler story than is being shared. Why not June 21st, 1589?

Click to expand...

I guess it's possible that that one particular log has been underwater since 1589 and if so, was most likely downed by a storm. There is no way in hades that a million cords of logs have been lost in that lake for over 400 years. Most of them were probably lost during timber/logging operations in the past two hundred years or less.

Kenster said:

Danno77 said:

A University of Maine professor estimated that the log had been under water since 1589, according to Shafer.

Click to expand...

Really? Under water since 1589? How the heck did they arrive at that? Note: they did not say "late 16th century" or "over 400 years ago"

Seems like there is either a huge line of BS here, or a much cooler story than is being shared. Why not June 21st, 1589?

Click to expand...

I guess it's possible that that one particular log has been underwater since 1589 and if so, was most likely downed by a storm. There is no way in hades that a million cords of logs have been lost in that lake for over 400 years. Most of them were probably lost during timber/logging operations in the past two hundred years or less.

Click to expand...

It's not that a log has been down there so long that surprises me. It's that some guy thinks he knows exactly which year. How does he know it wasn't 1588?

Forestry Forensics. Who Knew? That could be a new reality show, right after Swamp loggers.

Danno77 said:

A University of Maine professor estimated that the log had been under water since 1589, according to Shafer.

Click to expand...

Really? Under water since 1589? How the heck did they arrive at that? Note: they did not say "late 16th century" or "over 400 years ago"

Seems like there is either a huge line of BS here, or a much cooler story than is being shared. Why not June 21st, 1589?

Click to expand...

Maybe they looked at the pattern of the growth rings and decided it never grew in the 1590 season?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dendrochronology

Seems like there is more to it than counting rings. You can count rings on any tree trunk but that does not tell you the actual year it stopped growing, only that it reached a certain age. How could this guy determine that this particular tree had been in the water for the past 422 years, more or less?

KarlP said:

Danno77 said:

A University of Maine professor estimated that the log had been under water since 1589, according to Shafer.

Click to expand...

Really? Under water since 1589? How the heck did they arrive at that? Note: they did not say "late 16th century" or "over 400 years ago"

Seems like there is either a huge line of BS here, or a much cooler story than is being shared. Why not June 21st, 1589?

Click to expand...

Maybe they looked at the pattern of the growth rings and decided it never grew in the 1590 season?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dendrochronology

Click to expand...

Interesting. Need to reread that, but guess it seems they can get pretty accurate readings...

Really? Under water since 1589? How the heck did they arrive at that? Note: they did not say “late 16th century†or “over 400 years agoâ€

Seems like there is either a huge line of BS here, or a much cooler story than is being shared. Why not June 21st, 1589?

Click to expand...

Easy answer!

The guy that carved his initials in the tree only carved the year, not the month and day...

Rob

I think its a matter of how the reported worded it. Notice they said "started growing in 1589" It could be they pulled up a log that they can estimate was logged in the mid 1800s and looking at the growth rigns they know it was at least 300 years old when cut. I'm sure 1589 is just a best guess.

...but a guess thats not far fetched at all. We know that when the first settlers got here they were cutting trees 500 years old and more in those old growth forests. They would have been such a sight to see - imagine an oak 150ft tall or an Eastern white pine 180ft tall - our trees are puny by comparison. These at the kinds of trees they cut floorboards 2-3ft wide from back in the colonial era (which was actually a serious offense to build your house from one of the "King's trees" as kenster mentioned).

Kenster said:

BASOD said:

Interesting read. My grandfather actually traced our family heritage back to that area in the late 1500's my forefathers were cutting tall timber for masts of the royal navy's ships back in England.
I know all too well about that 36grit taking a knuckle off!

Click to expand...

Great family history, though your granddad's dates have to be a little off. The earliest settlement in Maine was about 1620. Jamestown, the very first settlement in America, wasn't settled until 1607. But dates are less important than the link you have to your ancestors' trade. That is very cool to know this type of detail.

In the late 1600s and first half of 1700s, England was depleting its old growth hardwood forests. They claimed the huge white pines in Maine in the name of the king and shipped the timbers back to England for shipbuilding. This ended, of course, with the American Revolution.

Click to expand...

You're right Kenster it was late 1600's. But the first settlement in Maine was 1604 by the French.

You're right Kenster it was late 1600's. But the first settlement in Maine was 1604 by the French.

Click to expand...

yeah, well.... the French don't count. ;-)

Well you know, Maine is the most "forrested" state in the country, hell even our lakes are forrested!

Mountains of old growth on the bottom of the great lakes and Torch lake in Michigan. I have been scuba diving around some huge piles(think mountain) of old growth trees in Michigan and you can find plenty of them with nuber plates and iron conectors pounded into them. All lost during the hayday of logging.

I, too, am facinated with the history of this type of stuff.

x2 on custom canoe paddles being amazing pieces of art and a joy to use.

carbon dating would presumably give the age quite well.....I assume the c14 and c12 ratio wouldn't be affected by some kind of water process....and I don't know how accurate these are. Probably quite good these days....