Customer Reviews

Spiked Boots

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(4)
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This book is aptly titled as it concerns those hard-working, hard-living souls who were all but born wearing spiked boots and is a continuing saga of this section of New England known as the "north country". These true accounts of activity in the wood and lumber industry are well detailed from early in the 1800's until the last drive in 1915. Interspersed in these narrations are related stories of heroic deeds, impossible feats of skill, strength and daring; folk lore, superstition and camp fire tales all of which are skillfully described by Pike. These are so well presented that at times it is not easy to separate fact from fiction. Only after years of traveling in the north country, re-living the camp life and winning the confidence and respect of the woodsman was Robert Pike able to put together this story of a by-gone era. He tells it in true vernacular-a peavey is a peavey that was the the everyday tool of the woodsman. The bridal chain was the brake that held back the sled load of logs going down the mountain. His description of the lumber baron-good or not so good- is true to life. No artist could paint a better picture of those spiked boots living in that ice water for days, and weeks, on end. Hardy souls that respected their fellow workers is the tribute describing the strong men of the north country. Spiked Boots is one segment of our culture worth knowing and re-reading.

Spiked Boots is among a rare breed of books, either fiction or fact, that can take the reader directly into the minds of the characters and places the author is talking about. Robert Pike approaches the tales of Vern Davison, Jack Haley, and a host of others with such clarity you are transported directly back 100 years to the logging industry of the "north country." You sit in your chair reading the book and the words slowly turn into the wind rushing by your face as you are transported into the horse drawn carriage with Vern Davison and Robert Pike, and you find yourself slowly engulfed in another era.

Not to be overlooked in the new Countryman Press edition is the foreword added by Helen-Chantal Pike, Robert Pike's daughter. The foreword adds a look into Robert Pike's life that only a daughter could bring into the book, from the tales of the original "peddling" trips, to the meaning of his writings to himself, to the intimate detail of Robert Pike reading a well worn copy of Spiked Boots over and over again during his last years of life.

Also added to the new edition are several photographs culled from the Pike Archives featuring a rare photographic glimpse of the scenery and people that the tales of Spiked Boots originates from. One can fully appreciate the men spoken of as they gaze at the picture of Ginseng Willard next to the coffin he slept in for two years to, "get used to it."

For fans of America, for fans of history, for fans of self-reliance, the new edition of Robert E. Pike's Spiked Boots is not one to be missing from the shelves of the library. It offers a rare glimpse at a by-gone era, of men and women that no longer exist in this form of ruggedness that made America what it is today.

Robert Pike's <i> Spiked Boots<i> is a rare sort of history book, one that a reader loves to come across in the arid sea of historical work out that chokes the shelves of book stores. Presented as a series of vignettes on subjects ranging from haunted hunting camps to Ginseng Willard and his homemade coffin, Pike provides an important insight into the history and society of the northern reaches of Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine. It is a presentation of a world that is now gone, pushed through the chutes in the style of the great logging rushes that Old Vern, the cagey ex walking boss and Pike's guide through this world, once worked. The presentation of this world is not of a Hesiodic Golden Age, when men were men and trees were more plentiful. It is a presentation of a world where some men worked hard, some women harder, and some not at all. It is a memoir of hard working lumbermen and guides -- how they worked, how they played, and for some of them, the mistakes that they made that took their lives. Pike was a fortunate man to have encountered Vern, for the history that was handed to him is beyond value as a vision into a bygone age and an area that is sometimes forgotten. And the characters are unforgetable also.

Robert Pike grew up in northern VT at the turn of the 20th century, and steeped himself in the lore of that area and era: the loggers, the eccentric woodsman, the singular history of the most independent of the United States.

Throughout his long life, Pike wrote several books about the North Country. One book, "Tall Trees, Tough Men," has been in print since its original publication in 1967, but most of his other books were self-published out of his house in New Jersey.

"Tall Trees" is his most respected book among historians, but "Spiked Boots" is his most beloved. His love of the region and its characters comes out in full, and his penchant for story telling, especially tall tales, is razor-sharp.

"Spiked Boots" had been previously re-issued by Yankee Press. In this latest re-issue from Countryman, it is augmented with a new foreword by his daughter, Helen-Chantal Pike, and new photos culled from Pike's extensive personal archives. To read "Spiked Boots" is to truly travel back in time to a unique American era.

Robert E. Pike's "Spiked Boots" reminds us how marvelous is the human capacity for writing, in this case the capturing and the preserving of experience. The rough and romantic life of Yankee lumbermen was Pike's fascination, and he hands that world over to us. We're by his side as he absorbs the rich and often humorous lore around him and has a few adventures on his own. Suddenly it's *our* fascination too.

He takes us into the farmhouse of old Vern, who along with the author is the storyteller. Vern, with his down-to-earth manner and sudden wit, fills us in on his years in the north country logging trade and the ways of folks he's known. Take Dan Bosse, "the best man on logs I ever saw in my life." In an audacious spur-of-the-moment rescue, Dan once saved Vern from certain death. Or the moving story of Van Drew, back from the war, who had "enough shrapnel in him to sink a ship." And then there's the haunted camp, which one hunter in every party never left alive.

The captivating people and atmospheric stories keep coming until an intimate structure of lives and times is ours to know and keep. We've been there now. Well, we've been there sort of. It's called damn good reading. Because of Robert E. Pike and "Spiked Boots", folks such as old Vern Davison -- and the lives they led -- are not lost to us. They've made it through. And so has their world. "There's the stuff."

Spike Boots chronicles not only a history of the Connecticut River Valley that is gone and forgotten by all but Pike's characters who plied the river on their log rafts, it also documents and preserves the arduous and danger-filled adventure that was their lives. This is a good book, written with insight and verve. And it is especially good for those of us who know the landscape, the people, and who have tested the river in spring.

As someone who grew up listening to my Irish Grandmother tell tales of her Father sneaking out in the middle of the night to catch fish to feed the family which was illegal in enslaved Ireland at that time, I've always been a sucker for a good yarn. (Sorry for the run on)

Spiked Boots is like sitting on the front porch of some old timer who is telling stories to pass the time. In this case however, the listener must have dashed inside to jot everything down every 15 minutes or so. Wow the stories and information never cease. It's wonderful but sometimes the conversation is a little long, hence the 4 stars.

It's a lot of Northern NH and Maine logging stories but really it's all the interesting stories in an area whose main income came from trees at that time. Admittedly, a lot of my enjoyment of this book came from my life long connection to NH and Maine, 2 states I love. There is woods lore, ghost stories and a little ichthyology thrown in for good measure for the fisherman.

Worth your time if these things are of interest to you. I will read Tall Trees, Tough Men" next.

As a song reminds us, "Everything old is new again." Certainly the reissue of Spiked Boots, the classic anecdotal history of New England loggers, is a case in point. Robert Pike's colorful chronicle of early 20th century loggers and their world is a salutary reminder that history is not just charts, graphs, demographics, and footnotes, but is also portraits of unique individuals living and working in vanished environments.

The new edition contains rare, never before published photographs, and an insightful forward by the author's daughter - herself a journalist/historian - providing a portrait of the author - a complex, unique New England personality, as fascinating as any he chronicled.

Anyone interested in recalling or capturing fast disappearing regional history would do well to discover this remarkable example. Robert Pike served his fortunate subjects well. His book is a model for recording regional characteristics before they are lost forever.

B. Tomlinson, Ph.D. Princeton, NJ

I strongly recommend Spiked Boots. Now I know why it is considered a Yankee Classic. It is a yarn of the highest calibre, written by a man, Robert E. Pike, who was as fascinating a personality as the characters he wrote about. As I turned the pages, I met men with colorful names like Jigger Johnson and Dan Boss; real people who had worked hard and lived hard in the North Country so long ago. These characters even had their own language, tossing out words like besom, cant dog, wanigan and draw-tub. This new edition has a well-crafted heartwarming preface written by Robert Pike's daughter, author Helen Pike. Through her words, I learned even more about the man who penned this classic, and his fascination with the lost art of logging.