"'The first thing to be done is to build some kind of shelter, for they must remain in the forest until spring, and the cold of those Northern winters is terrible. Their cabin--for it cannot be called by any better name--is built of logs of wood cut down on purpose and put together as rudely as possible. It is only five feet high, and the roof is covered with boards. There is a great blazing fire kept up day and night, for the frost is intense, and the provisions have to be kept in a deep place made in the ground under the cabin. The smoke of the fire goes out through a hole in the roof, and the floor is strewn with branches of fir, the only couch the poor hardworking lumberers have to rest upon. When night comes, they turn into the cabin to sleep, and lie with their feet to the fire. If a man chances to awaken, he instantly jumps up and throws fresh logs on the fire; for it is of the utmost importance not to let it go out. One of the men is the cook for the whole party, and his duty is to have breakfast ready before it is light in the morning. He prepares a meal of boiled meat and the hemlock tea sweetened with molasses, and the rest of the party partake heartily of both, and in some camps also of rum, under the mistaken notion that it helps them to bear the severe toil. When breakfast is over, they divide into several gangs. One gang cuts down the trees, another saws them in pieces, and the third gang is occupied in conveying them, by means of oxen, to the bank of the nearest stream, which is now frozen over.