Timber-Beast Donnybrooks
Mark Hatmaker
It's been a while since I've offered some combative observations culled from history, so today let's remedy that with a glimpse of the tough, tough men who logged the Pacific Northwest in the last half of the 19th century.
Loggers of this period (lumberjacks and lumberjills, to you and me) referred to themselves as timber-beasts collectively, although individual designations according to specific jobs abounded: Fallers, buckers, peelers, chokers, river pigs, et cetera--each task had its own skill-set and attracted those most able to perform that task. Needless to say, all tasks were HARD work and mighty dangerous.
We are talking about a profession that is still rated as the 2nd most dangerous occupation in the 21st century (right after commercial fishing). So I think it's easy to imagine how much more so for the 19th century logger pre-OSHA and advances in safety mechanisms. Some historical estimates place the casualty rate at approximately one death every 3 days.
Logging attracted (and still does) tough individuals who were ready, willing, and able to withstand the harsh mental and physical environments dictated by the job. Occasionally, among these competitive men there were altercations (surprise, surprise) and those altercations could take on a vicious character directly influenced by the loggers work.
Loggers, to a man, owned a pair of calked boots (pronounced "corked"). Calks, initially, were nails driven through the soles of the boot (points downward obviously) and then, eventually, became an add-on to the boot itself as a sort of removable spike or cleat set. Calks enabled loggers to better keep footing on bucking, rolling limbs, and logs in all sorts of weather. Let's keep these calks in mind.
To move logs out of the forest and down to a sawmill often located miles away from the logging site, if you lacked a waterway, ingenious methods had to be devised to save a bit of labor. One of these was creating a skid road, a series of logs half-embedded in the ground at right angles to the direction of travel (think railroad cross-ties and you're good to go). The timber-beasts would grease the skids and choke a chain to each log and begin the laborious process of dragging each log to the mill.
These skid roads were constructed along paths of least resistance, and, as I'm sure you have already gathered skid road became a euphemism for the parts of town that catered to vices of lowered resistance. (BTW--To the logger these parts of town are always called "skid road" and not "skid row"--apologies to 80's hair-band enthusiasts).
Skid Roads were crammed tight with saloons and bawdy houses ready to satisfy the loggers' appetites. Loggers often came to town wearing their calks as they traveled the actual skid road and the grip provided by the calks made the trip a little easier as a skid road requires a hop-step-shuffle to make each cross-laid log. Once in town the calks remained on where they chewed up many a saloon floor and bar rail. As a matter of fact the brass rail that runs along the bottom of many a bar today sprouted out of necessity to accommodate the timber beasts refusal to go calkless (or "barefoot" as they called it).
On to the nature of a timber-beast donnybrook. Logging camps and logging towns were less a gun culture than you might find in the ranching territories so altercations were less about the gunfight and more about some true rough and tumble scuffling. Fists were indeed de rigeur as was gouging and tearing (I've now read so many contemporaneous accounts of a timber beast with a missing ear mentioned as if it were a commonplace that I've lost count).
The primary goal in these donnybrooks seemed to be to get your man to the ground, but not to grapple (the grounded could only wish for such an easy outcome), but rather to "get to stomping'" with the calked boots until uncle was called or cooler heads stepped in to break up the "fun." Being on the receiving end of a calk-stomping was common enough to warrant it's own terminology for those who bore the tell-tale scars of being on the losing end, they called it "lumberjack smallpox."
Well, enough history for the day, but might I suggest if you haven't ever been to a lumberjack competition but have an opportunity to do so, do yourself a favor and go. Watch the chopping technique and learn a few things about good core rotation and power generation often from precarious base (spring board competition in particular). I've found lumberjacks and jills to be good folks who don't mind taking the time to show you a trick or two, and make no mistake, these modern day timber-beasts are some serious athletes. | 
