By Kimberly Grist
Have you ever known someone who could take a perfectly ordinary story and make it just a little bigger with every telling?
My own mother could tell some whoppers. While her tales may not have reached Paul Bunyan proportions, she knew how to stretch a story enough to bring a smile, while leaving just enough truth tucked inside to make you wonder.
The art of stretching the truth for the sake of a good story is nothing new. Some of America's most beloved folk legends grew out of just such storytelling traditions, including those shared among lumberjacks in the northern forests.
Life in those logging camps was anything but easy. The days were long, the work dangerous, and the winters bitterly cold. Armed with axes and crosscut saws, lumberjacks felled towering trees, hauled timber through snow and mud, and often spent months far from home.
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The History, Folklore, and Tall Tales of America's Lumberjacks
After a long day of hard work, a good story could provide some much-needed laughter and entertainment. And when one lumberjack told an outrageous tale, you can imagine another trying to top it with one even more unbelievable. With each retelling, the stories grew a little taller, the feats a little grander, and the legendary lumberjack a little bigger.
And from those larger-than-life tales emerged one of America's most recognizable folk heroes—Paul Bunyan.
A Lumberjack-Sized Appetite
All that hard work required a tremendous amount of food. Early logging camps relied on pork, beans, and bread as staples, along with salt beef or fish, biscuits, flapjacks, and molasses. Fresh food was hard to come by, especially in winter.
As logging operations grew, so did the menu. Camp cooks served hearty meals of meat, potatoes, stews, vegetables, fresh-baked bread, pies, and plenty of hot coffee. A good cook was an important man in camp, especially considering that historians estimate loggers performing strenuous winter work could consume as many as 9,000 calories a day!
Of course, once the storytellers got involved, even a lumberjack-sized appetite wasn't quite impressive enough.
Paul Bunyan needed a breakfast as enormous as he was.
Now that's a lumberjack breakfast.
From Campfire Tale to Lumber Salesman
Paul Bunyan's stories eventually traveled beyond the logging camps and began appearing in print. In 1906, James MacGillivray published an early version of the legend, and a few years later, a Detroit newspaper ran an expanded story.
It was William B. Laughead, a former lumberjack turned advertising illustrator, who played a key role in bringing Paul Bunyan to a wider audience, showing how legends can shape marketing and branding efforts.
In 1914, Laughead put the legendary lumberjack to work for the Red River Lumber Company.
And what was Paul selling?
Lumber, of course.
At the time, the company faced a challenge. Lumber buyers in the East were familiar with eastern white pine, but many were hesitant to purchase pine harvested in the West. Red River needed to convince them that its California pine was just as dependable—and that its enormous lumber operation in Westwood could provide a steady supply.
That's where Paul Bunyan came in.
Through his humorous stories and illustrations, Laughead helped promote the company's lumber while introducing the larger-than-life lumberjack to a much wider audience. His work helped shape the Paul Bunyan Americans would come to recognize and even introduced his famous companion, Babe the Blue Ox.
Title page from The Marvelous Exploits of Paul Bunyan (1922). Text and illustrations by William B. Laughead. Published by the Red River Lumber Company. Source: Internet Archive / Wikimedia Commons.
And the Stories Kept Growing...
Once you have a lumberjack the size of Paul Bunyan, there's really no reason to let geography—or common sense—stand in the way of a good story.
According to various tales, Paul and Babe left footprints that became Minnesota's 10,000 lakes. Babe was supposedly strong enough to straighten crooked logging roads simply by pulling on them. And some storytellers even gave Paul credit for digging the Grand Canyon.
Were any of those stories true? Of course not, but perhaps that was never the point. After all, where's the fun in spinning a yarn if you can't stretch the truth a little?
A Little More Storytelling...
As you might have guessed, I inherited a bit of my mother's love for storytelling. While I can't promise any lumberjack-sized whoppers, I do enjoy spinning a tale filled with history, humor, romance, and sometimes a little unexpected mischief.
After all, Faith, Friends, and Good Clean Fun are at the heart of the stories I love to share.
And speaking of unexpected mischief, let me introduce you to Joshua Jenkins from A Sleigh Ride for Georgia.
Joshua is a livery owner who prefers the company of horses to people. Between running his business and caring for his younger sisters, he has plenty to keep him busy. The last thing he needs is a wife.
Unfortunately, his well-meaning family has other ideas. They've taken it upon themselves to arrange a marriage for him—without bothering to get his permission!
And Joshua certainly isn't interested in taking some young lady on a romantic, starlit sleigh ride.
But as any good storyteller knows, sometimes the best tales begin when things don't go quite as planned.
Now It's Your Turn
Did you grow up with someone who could tell a good tall tale? Maybe a grandparent, parent, uncle, or neighbor who could turn an ordinary story into something unforgettable?
I'd love to hear one of your family's favorite “whoppers.”
Fans of historical romance set in the late 19th century will enjoy stories combining History, Humor, and Romance, emphasizing Faith, Friends, and Good, Clean Fun.
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