RANGELEY — On Oct. 18, the students of the Rangeley Lakes Regional School alternative education class, called “The Naturals,” participated in a 3 1/2-hour program at the Rangeley Lakes Region Logging Museum.
The venture was a collaboration between Jeanette Jacobs, the alt. ed. teacher, and logging museum president, Ron Haines. The program was created as an immersion field trip, meant to excite the students learning about the history of the Rangeley Lakes Region.
Students participated in activities that taught them about logging “in the old days” and learned how to use tools of the same era. The museum is the perfect setting as it offers visual and hands-on experiences for learners.
Throughout the day, students got a chance to use a wooden framed buck saw, cut a four-foot piece of pulp, spend some working time with a pulp or scratch hook to stack pulp, getting leverage with a kantdog to roll a log, using an incline plane and balance points to move a full size 10-inch by 10-inch by 16-foot beam from ground level up four feet to the top of a pile, splitting hard wood into stove size with the maul, seeing the proper way to notch to fell a standing tree and also getting a chance to “power up” to modern times with a real high-performance chain saw.
Inside, the students got to hear about the men and women of the woods of Rangeley in the 1920s era, a time when men lived, as well as worked, in the woods in logging camps. They heard about the habits and difficulties that these woodsmen faced, as well as the “goings on” back on the farm where their families wintered.
Their lives of simple but tough times were easily seen in the clothing these men wore and had to care for each night back at the logging camp. As students toured the museum, they saw the tools that the hands of these men used in the woods, cutting ice in the winter and farming in the summer.
RLRLM wants a solid connection and open door feeling for schools, in Rangeley and other Maine schools. The museum invites any other educator to consider what this museum might have to offer toward resources, information, and activities, both at the museum, school or elsewhere.
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- Rangeley Lakes Regional School students participating in a program at the Rangeley Lakes Region Logging Museum were, Tim White, front, and Morgan Delay, standing in front; back, Bryna Thomas, Devon Clark, Jeanette Jacobs, Sheila Butterfield and Justin Butler. Participants not in photo were Brandon Belisle and Randy Thompson.
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