The Logging Cookhouse

              The cookhouse/eating space in GNP’s logging camps was usually a separate building, close to the bunkhouse and about the same size. The cook and his helpers (cookees) were among the most important workers in the early wood’s camps. If the men weren’t fed well, they did not work well!  John E. McLeod, in his seven-volume history of GNP, The Northern, The Way I Remember, describes what these cookhouses looked like in some of the camps.

            Most cookhouses with combined kitchen and dining room were usually in a separate building in the camp, close to the bunkhouse and about the same size. The kitchen might be to one side or sometimes open to the rest of the room where the men ate. There might be a counter separating the cook area from the eating area. A dingle or open shed, in the old days, was connected to the kitchen/dining room. In later times, up into the 1950’s, the dingle was divided into two parts, an unheated section where meat and supplies that would not be damaged by freezing were kept. A second section held (in later days) perishables and canned goods.  The cook and cookees bunked in a separate section of the cookhouse. That too, was heated by a wood stove.

            The dining room had long oilcloth covered tables each seating about twenty men on backless benches. The meals were served family style by the cookees (always young males). When finished, the men carried their own tin plates and utensils back to the kitchen. While eating, the rule of silence was in place. No talking was strictly observed.

            If the cutting crew was working nearby, they came in for lunch. Otherwise, it was carried to them by the cookees in boxes and pails or carried in a sack or on a yoke on the cookees shoulder. In winter, a single-runner sled equipped with plow handles for the cookee to push was used. The cook would go out a bit early to build a fire in the work area to reheat the food.

            The cook’s expertise varied. Some made delicious pies and cakes, but the meats and vegetables might not be as good. For others, it was the reverse. In some camps, the meals were heavy on oatmeal porridge, baked beans, boiled beef, fried potatoes and doughnuts. Other camps served mostly beef, ham, potatoes and eggs. Beer and liquor were not allowed in the camps, but it could usually be found somewhere around.  A barrel of drinking water was available, filled from whatever water source was nearby.

            In later years, the food was served cafeteria style, but the cookhouse continued to exist and the cookees no longer had the job of drying the “table silver” by shaking it in a flourbag!