There were a few blank looks around the room at the Conspiracy of Three the other night after a reading of a poem about a scaler. John and I, a couple of old-timers, knew exactly what the writer of the poem was saying about log scalers while some of the younger attendees required an explanation. The poet’s husband had been a scaler back at the beginning of the last century and some license was taken in depicting the scaler as a footloose fellow who liked to woo the girls as he travelled around the country. The reader assured us that his father was not that type.
After discussing the merits of the poem we talked about scalers. No, they had nothing to do with fish and only indirectly with weigh scales. Scalers, hired by the government or by a lumber company that bought logs, would measure the logs, and calculating in his head using what today we would call an app with logarithms, the number of board feet in a log of a given diameter and length. The number of board feet would predicate how much tax or duty was due to the government or what the purchaser should pay for the log. Scalers used a yardstick-like tool with a hook on the end for measuring diameter but most of them simply used their eyes and experience to calculate board feet. They stamped or marked the log and moved onto the next log. No, they did not use a calculator.
Scalers often had a related job as timber cruisers. They would walk a forest area in the fall, looking at the different species, the size and the quality of the trees. They would then submit their estimate of the number of logs that could be taken and then calculate the board feet the buyer could expect from the trees that stood in the woods. I have walked with my Dad and Uncle while they timber cruised a 200 acre wood lot. They compared notes at the end of the day it was amazing to me how close their estimates were. Uncle Gordon was a sawyer and he was used to ‘seeing’ how many board feet he could carve out of a log on the sawmill carriage. Dad was logger and had the eye for how many logs could be harvested.
I eventually learned how to scale in a diminished way as we had a small sawmill where I did learn to read a log and using a large circular saw, get some boards as well as slabs from a log.
As we discussed the poem I realized what the poet was doing was measuring the man – scaling his qualities. They were apparently satisfactory since she married him.
I guess we are all scalers. We take the measure of a person by our observations, multiply that by our experiences and the person’s potential and come up with a positive or negative result. Or more likely, a neutral opinion, awaiting further measurements.
With a log, a scaler looks for signs of rot, either at the heart or core of the log; looks for blemishes on the bark that may indicate bad wood underneath and the number of limbs that will indicate knots within that reduces the quality of the board. The logger has already looked at the fallen tree and made his own assessment of where to cut the logs, doing his best to present a valuable log to the scaler and the buyer.
It is not unlike writing a résumé – presenting a good picture to the employer. We all have knots and blemishes but it’s the very core of us that the employer wants to see. How have we weathered the windstorms, ice storms, or even lightning strikes? Did they toughen us or weaken us? As an employee or life partner will we be sturdy oaks or easily splintered spruce?
South of the border the scalers are having an easier job of scaling the Donald. The blemishes are showing through the veneer. It is a little more difficult to get the scale of Hillary. Back here, we are seeing the results of our choice as Prime Minister. Were we looking too much at the leaves thinking we were buying a good strong maple when we bought something else?
Speaking of softwood, how will the next President view that softwood dispute? We have plenty of knotty spruce 2x4’s for sale in Northern Ontario – all professionally scaled.
