July 5, 2008
PUNCHING THE DONKEY
For those who asked on the Harlequin site about the Donkey Puncher trail sign (my blog is posted there as well as on Facebook, and less-frequently on MySpace), nope, it has nothing to do with punching poor donkeys …. This area of Whistler where I run (Lost Lake) used to be an old logging cutblock back in the day, and apparently Donkey Puncher is an old logging term.
When logging was first mechanized, a small steam boiler – called a ‘steam donkey’ — was introduced to power the winching-up of heavy logs mounted on a ‘donkey sled’. The operator of the steam donkey was called the donkey puncher … and that’s one donkey puncher pictured above, with his steam boiler.
Posted by Loreth @ 3:18 pm | THE WHISTLER LIFE,THE WRITING LIFE
