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Tall Tales and Legends

CEDAR shakes, described as "shingles that are the same thickness at bo:h ends," covered the log cabins of early Oregon. When Paul Bunyan's loggers roofed an Oregon bunkhouse with shakes, fog was so thick that they shingled forty feet into space before discovering they had passed the last rafter.

Paul Bunyan performed notable feats in Oregon, eclipsing the prowess of his famous predecessor Joe Paul, the Indian guide who lifted a barrel of lead from the floor to the trading post counter. He created Spencer's Butte, the Columbia River, and Crater Lake. Spencer's Butte, near Eugene, represents one wagon load of dirt, upset when Paul was making a road. The Columbia River was also something of an accident, being the deep, irregular furrow dug by Babe, the big blue ox, when he peevishly broke away with a plow and rushed headlong from the mountains to the sea. Into Crater Lake Paul dumped the last of the blue snow, where it melted and produced the azure phenomenon that greatly amazed early loggers.

Although Paul and Babe had ceased their exploits long before logging became important in Oregon, tales of "bull teams" continue to circulate. A bull-whacker for a logging company near Knappa found that sweet nothings, whispered in the oxen's ears, inspired them to prodigious feats, and he would race from one animal to another with his confidential endearments. In contrast was the far-reaching vituperation of Little Billy Ross, employed at Westport, whose voice could be heard for miles, and his stage-driving counterpart in Eastern Oregon, Whispering Thompson, whose ordinary conversational tones thundered across two counties.

Joe Gervais, descendant of an Astor boatman, gravely explained a Bunyanesque feat that he performed along the ocean. The Clatsops and Nehalems, a little tired of their constant warfare with each other, asked him to keep peace between them.

"I put the Clatsops at work on their side," he said, "and the Nehalems at work on the south, moving rocks and dirt. It was slow going