Paul Bunyan, Superhero of the Lumberjacks

Dave Jenkinson is a professor in the Faculty of Education at the University of Manitoba and the author of the “Portraits” section of Emergency Librarian.

First published in 1957, five years after the death of Dr. John Robins, professor of English at Victoria College, Toronto, the ten tall tales in the present collection are based on stories Robins told on CBC’s Trans-Canada Radio Show in 1951. The stories, language patterns and lumbercamp slang of the tales’ narrator, Ed Mandeville, supposedly an old lumberjack who worked with Paul Bunyan, derive from the years 1900 to 1907, when Robins worked in the lumberwoods of northern Ontario.

Though many readers may know Paul Bunyan via American titles such as Glen Rounds’ 01’ Paul, the Mighty Logger (Avon, 1978), Robins’ repatriation of the folk hero follows Paul from his birth in the Maritimes to his creation of Niagara Falls while clearing a log jam. Babe, the renowned blue ox, is joined by other remarkable creatures such as Lucy, Paul’s less well known giant cow, and a pup, Fido, who accidentally cuts himself in half only to be slapped together so that two legs are always in the air. Paul’s feats range from straightening a crooked road by pulling on it to taming the bumbletoes, a huge mosquito/bumblebee crossbreed.

Comparison with the original work, Logging with Paul Bunyan (Ryerson) reveals that Fowke, the editor of both editions, has made no substantive changes to the tales. Lengthy paragraphs have been broken up to produce pages with more white space. Some long sentences have been subdivided while the occasional unnecessary sentence has been deleted. A few difficult terms have had simpler words substituted (such as axe handles for axe-helves). An updated, enlarged bibliography, a four-page overview of lumbering as it used to be in Ontario, a glossary of lumbering terms and loggers’ slang, plus a revised note on Paul Bunyan and John Robins, complete the new work.

Drew’s dozen cartoon-like drawings, though competent, fail to capture Paul’s size. Instead of releasing readers’ imaginations, the illustrations act as restraints which diminish Paul’s superhero status.

Paul Bunyan’s tall adventures offer much reading or listening fun for anyone from age nine up.