1 00:00:00,459 --> 00:00:10,990 And now for a read aloud of Paul Bunyan 2 00:00:10,990 --> 00:00:14,270 Even as a baby, Paul Bunyan was mighty big. 3 00:00:14,270 --> 00:00:16,810 How big? 4 00:00:16,810 --> 00:00:23,29 Well, he was so big that his parents had to use a covered wagon for his cradle. 5 00:00:23,29 --> 00:00:28,29 As you might imagine, young Paul Bunyan had a big appetite. 6 00:00:28,29 --> 00:00:35,289 He gobbled up five barrels of porridge a day, and his parents had to milk four dozen cows 7 00:00:35,289 --> 00:00:40,59 every morning and evening just to keep his baby bottle filled. 8 00:00:40,59 --> 00:00:46,10 Paul was so big it caused some problems in the little town in Maine where he grew up. 9 00:00:46,10 --> 00:00:52,550 When he sneezed, he blew the birds from Maine to California. 10 00:00:52,550 --> 00:00:57,679 When he snored, the neighbors ran out of their houses hollering, “Earthquake! 11 00:00:57,679 --> 00:00:58,730 Earthquake!” 12 00:00:58,730 --> 00:01:05,479 After that, Paul’s father thought it might be better if Paul didn’t sleep in town. 13 00:01:05,479 --> 00:01:11,280 He built a cot on a large raft for Paul and floated it off the coast. 14 00:01:11,280 --> 00:01:17,229 Paul slept on the raft for a few nights, but the floating cot didn’t work out. 15 00:01:17,229 --> 00:01:23,320 When Paul turned over in his sleep, he created gigantic waves that knocked down houses along 16 00:01:23,320 --> 00:01:24,340 the coast. 17 00:01:24,340 --> 00:01:31,159 Eventually, Paul’s father decided that the East Coast was just too small for Paul Bunyan. 18 00:01:31,159 --> 00:01:35,409 The only sensible thing to do was to move out West. 19 00:01:35,409 --> 00:01:39,729 So the Bunyan family moved to Minnesota. 20 00:01:39,729 --> 00:01:45,289 In those days Minnesota was full of logging camps, sawmills, and lumberjacks. 21 00:01:45,289 --> 00:01:49,299 Americans were moving west and “building the country.” 22 00:01:49,299 --> 00:01:55,909 They had to cut down a lot of trees to make their homes, not to mention their schools, 23 00:01:55,909 --> 00:01:58,840 churches, boats, and furniture. 24 00:01:58,840 --> 00:02:04,590 When he grew up, Paul Bunyan went to work as a lumberjack, and what a lumberjack he 25 00:02:04,590 --> 00:02:06,740 proved to be! 26 00:02:06,740 --> 00:02:12,390 He made himself a giant ax, with a handle carved out of a full-grown hickory tree. 27 00:02:12,390 --> 00:02:15,970 He could bring down a giant tree with a single swing 28 00:02:15,970 --> 00:02:17,540 of his ax. 29 00:02:17,540 --> 00:02:23,130 As the tree tipped over, he would yell, “Timber!” so the other lumberjacks had time to get out 30 00:02:23,130 --> 00:02:25,530 of the way. 31 00:02:25,530 --> 00:02:28,950 Everyone looked up to Paul Bunyan—way up! 32 00:02:28,950 --> 00:02:31,420 The other lumberjacks were full of admiration for him. 33 00:02:31,420 --> 00:02:36,280 The bosses were grateful for the amazing amount of work he could do in a day. 34 00:02:36,280 --> 00:02:43,720 Paul had a big heart, too, but one thing he always wished for was a true friend. 35 00:02:43,720 --> 00:02:47,840 There simply wasn’t anybody else his size who could be his friend. 36 00:02:47,840 --> 00:02:52,510 That all changed during the winter of the Big Blue Snow. 37 00:02:52,510 --> 00:02:58,590 It was called the winter of the Big Blue Snow because it was so cold that everyone shivered 38 00:02:58,590 --> 00:03:00,800 and turned blue. 39 00:03:00,800 --> 00:03:02,220 Even the snow shivered and turned blue. 40 00:03:02,220 --> 00:03:09,60 One day, as Paul made his way through the blue snowdrifts, he heard a muffled whimper. 41 00:03:09,60 --> 00:03:15,830 He followed the noise until he saw two big, blue, furry things sticking up out of the 42 00:03:15,830 --> 00:03:16,330 snow. 43 00:03:16,330 --> 00:03:19,480 He reached down and gave a pull. 44 00:03:19,480 --> 00:03:26,800 It turned out that the two big, blue, furry things were two big, blue ears. 45 00:03:26,800 --> 00:03:31,230 And connected to the big, blue ears was a giant, blue, baby ox! 46 00:03:31,230 --> 00:03:36,590 Paul exclaimed, “The poor little fellow is half frozen.” 47 00:03:36,590 --> 00:03:40,350 Paul carried the blue ox home, wrapped him in blankets, and fed him. 48 00:03:40,350 --> 00:03:47,650 The baby ox was so content that he took a long nap in Paul’s big, strong arms. 49 00:03:47,650 --> 00:03:52,700 When he woke up, he looked up at Paul and do you know what he said? 50 00:03:52,700 --> 00:03:53,150 “Mama! 51 00:03:53,150 --> 00:03:55,590 Mama!” 52 00:03:55,590 --> 00:03:59,680 Then he gave Paul a big, slobbery lick on the face. 53 00:03:59,680 --> 00:04:05,90 Paul laughed and said, “Babe, we’re gonna be great friends!” 54 00:04:05,90 --> 00:04:06,220 And they were. 55 00:04:06,220 --> 00:04:14,730 In fact, Paul Bunyan and Babe the Blue Ox were soon inseparable. 56 00:04:14,730 --> 00:04:16,470 Everywhere Paul went, Babe went, too. 57 00:04:16,470 --> 00:04:20,729 The two of them worked together in the lumber camps. 58 00:04:20,729 --> 00:04:23,510 Paul chopped down the trees. 59 00:04:23,510 --> 00:04:28,990 Then Babe hauled them to the river and dropped them in so they could float downstream to 60 00:04:28,990 --> 00:04:29,479 a sawmill. 61 00:04:29,479 --> 00:04:34,40 Together, Paul and Babe did the work of a hundred men. 62 00:04:34,40 --> 00:04:41,830 The lumber company figured the best way to keep Paul Bunyan happy was through his stomach, 63 00:04:41,830 --> 00:04:45,50 so they hired a special cook to feed Paul and Babe. 64 00:04:45,50 --> 00:04:49,659 The cook’s name was Sourdough Sam. 65 00:04:49,659 --> 00:04:52,340 Sourdough Sam was known for the giant flapjacks he cooked 66 00:04:52,340 --> 00:04:56,719 in the world’s biggest frying pan. 67 00:04:56,719 --> 00:05:01,770 The colossal pan sat on an enormous cast iron frame. 68 00:05:01,770 --> 00:05:07,539 Every morning Sourdough Sam would build a raging forest fire underneath the pan. 69 00:05:07,539 --> 00:05:13,180 Then he would call for his two helpers, Lars Larson and Pete Peterson. 70 00:05:13,180 --> 00:05:18,710 Lars and Pete would grease up the pan by tying slabs of bacon to their 71 00:05:18,710 --> 00:05:23,590 feet and skating back and forth across the sizzling pan. 72 00:05:23,590 --> 00:05:28,770 Then Sourdough Sam would make a giant stack of pancakes for Paul and an even larger stack 73 00:05:28,770 --> 00:05:29,110 for Babe. 74 00:05:29,110 --> 00:05:34,310 Thanks to Sourdough Sam and his overgrown flapjacks, Babe eventually grew to be even 75 00:05:34,310 --> 00:05:37,210 bigger than Paul. 76 00:05:37,210 --> 00:05:43,889 He was so big that, if you were standing at his front legs, you had to use a telescope 77 00:05:43,889 --> 00:05:46,330 to see all the way to his back legs. 78 00:05:46,330 --> 00:05:53,349 In fact, he was so heavy that his footprints filled up with water and turned into lakes. 79 00:05:53,349 --> 00:05:59,90 In fact, there are more than ten thousand lakes in Minnesota today, and most of them 80 00:05:59,90 --> 00:06:04,389 were created by Babe the Blue Ox back in the frontier days. 81 00:06:04,389 --> 00:06:10,120 Babe and Paul helped the lumberjacks solve all sorts of problems. 82 00:06:10,120 --> 00:06:14,300 Once there was a river that was full of twists and turns. 83 00:06:14,300 --> 00:06:19,740 Sometimes the trees would get stuck in the turns and never make it downstream to the 84 00:06:19,740 --> 00:06:20,740 sawmill. 85 00:06:20,740 --> 00:06:24,729 But Paul Bunyan thought of a way to fix that! 86 00:06:24,729 --> 00:06:28,470 He went to one end of the river and sent Babe to the other end. 87 00:06:28,470 --> 00:06:32,520 Paul grabbed the river and pulled in one direction. 88 00:06:32,520 --> 00:06:36,20 Babe pulled the other end in the opposite direction. 89 00:06:36,20 --> 00:06:37,300 Then—snap! 90 00:06:37,300 --> 00:06:43,669 Just like that, all of the kinks were pulled out, and the river was as straight as an ax 91 00:06:43,669 --> 00:06:44,870 handle. 92 00:06:44,870 --> 00:06:49,289 Of course, this tightening operation left the river a good deal longer than it had been 93 00:06:49,289 --> 00:06:53,499 before, and there was a lot of extra water lying around. 94 00:06:53,499 --> 00:06:57,870 Paul and Babe worked together to dig five big holes 95 00:06:57,870 --> 00:07:00,0 to hold all the extra water. 96 00:07:00,0 --> 00:07:04,100 Nowadays these are called the Great Lakes. 97 00:07:04,100 --> 00:07:08,449 One day, the logging bosses got to talking. 98 00:07:08,449 --> 00:07:13,300 One of them said that the United States was a fine country, to be sure, but it could still 99 00:07:13,300 --> 00:07:16,610 stand a little improvement. 100 00:07:16,610 --> 00:07:20,540 For one thing, it could use a few more rivers. 101 00:07:20,540 --> 00:07:25,360 And what it really needed was a big river running right down the middle of the country, 102 00:07:25,360 --> 00:07:28,469 all the way from Minnesota down to New Orleans. 103 00:07:28,469 --> 00:07:33,449 “If we had a river like that,” the man said, “we could ship timber down to New 104 00:07:33,449 --> 00:07:39,599 Orleans and all around the world!” 105 00:07:39,599 --> 00:07:42,889 Paul Bunyan happened to overhear this conversation. 106 00:07:42,889 --> 00:07:46,690 He told the bosses he would see what he could do. 107 00:07:46,690 --> 00:07:50,960 He hitched up Babe and they started plowing south. 108 00:07:50,960 --> 00:07:55,870 As they plowed, they threw a great mound of dirt and rocks to the right and a smaller 109 00:07:55,870 --> 00:07:58,530 mound to the left. 110 00:07:58,530 --> 00:08:03,340 On the right side they made the Rocky Mountains, and on the left side they made the Appalachian 111 00:08:03,340 --> 00:08:05,749 Mountains. 112 00:08:05,749 --> 00:08:11,580 Paul Bunyan and Babe didn’t stop until they had plowed a channel all the way south to 113 00:08:11,580 --> 00:08:13,560 the Gulf of Mexico. 114 00:08:13,560 --> 00:08:18,300 And the river that flows in that channel nowadays, that’s what we call the Mississippi River. 115 00:08:18,300 --> 00:08:25,669 From that day on, Paul and Babe went around the country, using their size and strength 116 00:08:25,669 --> 00:08:27,889 to help anyone who needed it. 117 00:08:27,889 --> 00:08:34,830 Later, they dug the Grand Canyon as they made their way to the West Coast of California. 118 00:08:34,830 --> 00:08:40,930 And when the wind blows just right from the west, you can still smell those infamous, 119 00:08:40,930 --> 00:08:43,320 colossal pancakes cooking on the frontier.