Old Timer Lumber jack made this

[yooper1]

After my father returned from WWII, he and his older brother opened a pool hall in town.

Occasionally, the local lumberjacks and iron miners would need a place to sleep after spending all their money on booze and women over in Hurley, WI.

My dad and uncle would sometimes offer rooms to those guys.

One of them was Gunnar Olafsson, a Swedish lumber jack from North Ironwood. (michigan). He worked out a longer stay with my dad. In return for the room, Gunnar made 12 of these.

There are small scaled lumber jack tools in the bottle. My dad supplied the bottles. (all the same) and Gunnar carved each item, and placed them into the bottles through the open top.

Amazing detail on the tools showing what skills those guys had. I guess the whittling and carving came from the evenings in the Lumber Jack camp after working 14 / 16 hours in the woods. They had to do something to keep busy.

 

[SamV]

Does anyone have the patience to do something like that today? That is a interesting keepsake from your Dad's business. Thanks for sharing the photos and the history.

 

[32shooter]

Very neat. Doesn't appear that some of those items would fit through the opening.

 

[powder smoke]

Very nice I can appreciate it, many hours went in to it. Wonder how he found the time.
I tended bar for some time after coming home from the service, meet an older guy
maybe in his 60's. Rugged and stocky he loved to talk about logging and his time in the woods. He didn't have much besides his stories. Give him a drink and he would entertain you hours. Very nice man wonder what ever happened to him. ps

 

[graygun]

outstanding!

 

[contender]

Many skills like this are almost lost or are lost. That's a great piece to keep & pass along.

 

[Fox Mike]

Amazing!

 

[bogus bill]

I also was raised in Wi. I recall a saying about "Hayward, Hurley and hell." Seems it was in reference as to them being well known redlight towns.

 

[caryc]

Very neat. Doesn't appear that some of those items would fit through the opening.

Of course. If they all could fit through the opening, any idiot could do it. :mrgreen:

 

[steveodtw]

I also was raised in Wi. I recall a saying about "Hayward, Hurley and hell." Seems it was in reference as to them being well known redlight towns.

I believe more than a few Michigan "Sporting men" helped support that reputation, through the U.P. Back before the Mackinaw Bridge was built, they lined up their cars and trucks to make the ferry crossing for deer season.

 

[WendyZXZ]

Now that is fun and very nice work!

 

[Merle1948]

kind of like the old "ship in a bottle" - I can't imagine rigging the sails thru that bottle top.... :shock:

 

[pete44ru]

kind of like the old "ship in a bottle" - I can't imagine rigging the sails thru that bottle top.... :shock:

The sails weren't rigged through the bottle neck/top, they were rigged outside the bottle, then the mast(s) were laid down with an attached loop of string, inserted into the bottle and the mast pulled upright by the temporary string.

I would think that the larger lumberjack tools were similarly assembled with tweezers after being placed inside the bottle.

Cool beans, for sure.


.

 

[eveled]

Amazing! Just having one tool inside would be hard to do, but the bottle is full. The top and bottom pieces are tied together.

 

[caryc]

kind of like the old "ship in a bottle" - I can't imagine rigging the sails thru that bottle top.... :shock:

The sails weren't rigged through the bottle neck/top, they were rigged outside the bottle, then the mast(s) were laid down with an attached loop of string, inserted into the bottle and the mast pulled upright by the temporary string.

I would think that the larger lumberjack tools were similarly assembled with tweezers after being placed inside the bottle.

Cool beans, for sure.
.

I'm going with the thousand monkeys and type writers theory. He put all the pieces in the bottle and shook it up. Evidently he got lucky pretty quick. All the pieces found their way into the correct hole where they were supposed to go.

He probably made the tools so the handles would only fit the tool head they were intended for. Is that cheating?