Story Hour
PAUL BUNYAN – AN AMERICAN TALE
Written by Gene B. Williams
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This opening part is probably more for parents and older children.
Nobody really knows how the stories of Paul Bunyan began – although many claim credit. A writer in northern Michigan picked up on the stories, or something like them, in 1906. His name was James MacGillivray. Most give him credit for “inventing” Paul Bunyan. The town of Oscoda, Michigan claims itself to be the official home of Paul Bunyan because of these stories.
In 1914 a man named William Laughead used the idea for a logging company's advertising campaign. James Stevens wrote a book in 1925 which says that it all began during the Papineau Rebellion of 1837. He said that the name Bunyan comes from the French “bonyenne,” which means “good grief!” It’s interesting that Charles Schultz used this often in his Peanuts cartoons. (Schultz was from Minnesota.)
As the legend grew, people in Maine began to say that Paul Bunyan was born there. There is even a story in which Paul’s rocking cradle in the water caused a number of ships in the ocean to fall over and sink. Then someone decided that the east coast was too small and crowded so Paul moved west to Minnesota. From there it is said that he and Babe the Blue Ox went across the United States even to the west coast of Washington and Oregon. One story tells about how the two made the Rocky Mountains and another how they carved the Grand Canyon in Arizona.
Some say that the Black Hills in the Dakotas are there because that’s where Paul buried Babe. In Kelliher, Minnesota is the Paul Bunyan Memorial Park. Wausau, Wisconsin has Rib Mountain. Both claim to be where Paul Bunyan is buried.
How interesting for fictional characters – characters who never were.
Also interesting is that many of the stories have different versions. One story says that the Rocky Mountains were made when Paul and Babe wrestled. Another says that it was made when Paul dug the Mississippi River. But then another says that the Mississippi River was there, and that Paul and Babe made it straight. Still another tells of how Paul and Babe didn’t straighten the river, they straightened a road.
PAUL BUNYAN – AN AMERICAN TALE
See more about Paul Bunyun here
The basic story is that Paul Bunyan was a giant, more than 100 feet tall. He was a logger. He cut down trees with his mighty ax. With his size and strength, he cut trees the way you would cut tiny weeds. Babe was just as huge. He was blue because he was frozen when Paul found him. (The cold temperatures play a big part in the stories.)
Here are some samples. I’ve kept each very short. You can find more (and longer) stories and books in the library. These are just a taste. There are many others.
PAUL BUNYAN IS BORN AND GROWS…AND GROWS
Normally, the storks can carry quite a few babies each. Sometimes one stork will carry a dozen babies to be delivered. For Paul Bunyan, seven storks struggled with just him. His parents were thrilled to have a new son, of course, but they weren’t prepared for the size. The crib they had wasn’t large enough for even his foot. The cradle would just barely hold that huge hand. So Papa built something the size of a coral for the crib and got a rowboat for the cradle.
Babies grow. And babies get hungry. When Paul cried from hunger, it broke windows for miles around. A herd of cows were milked every morning and night to keep his bottle filled. A herd of sheep and a field of cotton made his diapers and clothes – and couldn’t keep up. They tried to use Papa’s clothes but Paul had outgrown them when he was two weeks old. By the time he started school, wagon wheels were used for the buttons on his shirt.
Can you imagine being that large? Paul had to sit outside the school house. He was too big to go inside. One severe winter the snow was so deep that the school was being covered. Paul picked it up like a toy and carried it to the top of a nearby hill where the snow wasn’t as deep.
In the winter, Paul would lift the children to his shoulder, like an elevator and let them ski down his arm. In summer, his schoolmates would jump off his head, or use his fingers like diving boards, into the deep pond. Of course, for Paul the pond wasn’t even waist deep.
BABE THE BLUE OX
It was a very cold winter. This didn’t bother Paul Bunyan much but the other loggers wanted to sit inside the cabins where it was warmer. The rivers were frozen. The ground was frozen and covered with snow and ice. There was no logging to be done. Paul was feeling lonely and so went for a walk.
In some parts there were still glaciers back then. Paul was walking along the side of one when he spotted something in the ice. He lifted his huge axe and chopped, then chopped more. The lumber camp used horses and mules and ox, but nothing like this! This ox was gigantic. Paul smiled because this ox was as gigantic as he was. And it was blue, frozen from the cold. Paul rescued him, warmed him, saved him, but Babe never lost that blue color.
That’s what Paul named the ox – Babe. They became the best of friends for the rest of their lives and had many wild adventures together, as you will find out.
ROUND RIVER
The loggers found a section in the woods that had never been cut. Nearby was a river. They thought it would be easy to cut the logs and float them down the river to the wood mill. Soon a great number of logs were in the river. The lumberjacks were very pleased with their work. They passed another logging camp and waved to the loggers on the shore. Before long they passed another logging camp, and it looked darned familiar. Then they passed another and this time even the loggers they waved to looked familiar. They finally realized that the river went in a circle around the forest and didn’t really go anywhere. They had been passing by their own camp over and over again.
10,000 LAKES
The night the fog was so thick that the loggers needed scissors to cut through it just to go to the well. In some places it was so thick they needed a chain saw. Some say that there was also a blizzard. Not even the best eyes could see more than a few inches.
Paul and Babe were caught in this and had to find their way back to the logging camp. Together they stomped around for hours, then days. This is how Minnesota came to be known as “The Land of 10,000 Lakes.”
THE CROOKED ROAD
The logging camp was far from any town or settlement. Rivers were used for much of it, but roads and trails still had to be used. Logs had to be carried out, and food carried in. (A LOT of food!) The main road twisted and turned. That would be hard enough just walking. With the huge carts the loggers needed, the trips were almost impossible – and it worse in the winter.
Paul got tired of all the extra work, and all the complaining. He had to find a solution, and he did. He put a harness on Babe with heavy chains. Thick hooks went into the ground on each side of the road. Paul shouted, “HO!” to Babe and Babe pulled. The sides of the road were pulled straight, just as you would straighten a ribbon. They pulled and tugged, and soon the road was easy to travel, even in snow and ice.
ST. LAWRENCE SEAWAY
One day Babe was pulling an especially large log, so large that only he could pull it. A giant bee stung him. Babe began to run, with the log digging into the soil behind. Before Paul could catch and stop Babe, the St. Lawrence Seaway was dug.
THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS
Paul and Babe loved to play. They loved to wrestle. There was a time when Paul and Babe went for a walk to the west. It was flat, and there weren’t many trees to cut. The two were getting bored.
A big fly landed on Babe’s nose as he slept. Paul slapped the fly. Babe didn’t know that Paul was trying to help him. He just knew that he’d been awakened by a slap on the nose. He charged into Paul. Paul put his big feet into the ground, and his big arms around Babe’s head and horns. With a twist he tossed Babe aside. A huge mound of earth was thrown up. Babe charged again and knocked Paul off his feet and pushed. Another huge mound was squeezed up behind him.
It didn’t take long before Paul and Babe were no longer angry. They were just having fun. Paul would throw Babe. Babe would slam into Paul. Each time, the hills of earth and rock got bigger – and the two laughed harder.
This is how the Rocky Mountains were formed.
GRAND CANYON
After their wrestling match that made the Rocky Mountains, Paul and Babe were feeling tired. Paul took that huge axe off his shoulder and let it drag in the ground as they walked. As the axe dragged, it cut a deep grove into the ground. They were tired, but Paul wanted to find new places to cut logs. After many miles Paul looked behind them and said, “That sure is a grand canyon. “ If you go to Arizona, you can still see the Grand Canyon.
LAKE MICHIGAN
Babe was thirsty. All the lakes and ponds that came from their adventure stomping in the icy fog of Minnesota that made the 10,000 lakes weren’t enough. Babe would get thirsty and could drain a lake. The loggers liked this because they could just walk into the lake and pick up fish for dinner.
Paul loved Babe and didn’t want to see her thirsty. He took his big axe, dug it into the ground and made the Saint Lawrence Seaway, so the water would come in. Then he shoveled out a big hole where the water could collect for Babe to drink.
It’s now known as Lake Michigan. (Some say that Paul did the same thing again and made Lake Superior, too.)
FROZEN WORDS
Maybe you’ve seen frost on windows, even frost when you breathe when the weather is very cold. This year it was so cold that when the loggers talked, their very words froze and went CLUNK on the ice – but the sound of that CLUNK also froze. It was a very quiet winter.
In the spring, the temperatures went up. Things began to thaw. It got to be very noisy as even CLUNKS and words finally melted. The loggers finally knew what they had been trying to say to each other all that time. With all those words melting at once, the loggers had to wear three pairs of ear muffs just to get to sleep.
PANCAKES
Logging is hard work and makes you hungry. Paul’s logging camp was the biggest of them all, just as Paul was the biggest of them all. His cook was Sourdough Sam. He got his name because he made everything from sourdough, except the coffee.
The table was ten miles long. A train went down the middle to bring pancakes and other things to all the loggers – and to Paul. The griddle to fry the pancakes was nearly a mile long. One crew operated the train. Another crew flipped the pancakes. Still another put bacon on their feet and skated that mile long griddle to keep it greased and to make the bacon for breakfast.
The griddle was so large that flipping the pancakes in the middle was hard to do. Sourdough Sam got an idea. He mixed popcorn into the batter. After that, the pancakes would flip themselves.
BEAN SOUP
As I just said, loggers get hungry. A huge cart of pork and another huge cart of beans was being taken around the edge of the Round River. They went near a hot spring where the loggers would sometimes take baths – at least those whose mothers made them take more than one bath per year. The hot spring was hot, naturally, but the road was slippery. The carts turned over and dumped all those beans and pieces of pork into the hot water. The loggers were a little upset until Sourdough Sam, the cook, threw in about a ton of salt and pepper, and another ton of carrots and 1000 bushels of potatoes. The loggers had hearty bean soup for months.
Next Time
Finding holidays and ways to have fun is easy. Here are just two links you can follow.
http://www.holidayinsights.com/moreholidays/february.htm
http://www.holidayinsights.com/moreholidays/march.htm
One of the biggest holidays in March is St. Patrick’s Day. In the next issue you will learn all about this, and some about Ireland. You’ll also be let in on a joke about another March holiday. No, I won’t tell you now what that is. You’ll have to come back to see it for yourself.
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