Rigging Chic

A Lesson In Logging Couture

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My Baby Bro modeling his logging threads

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My brother popped over for a visit yesterday. His occasional presence is not an unusual occurrence, especially considering that my daughter's first basketball game of the season was yesterday as well. On his way over he had an incident at a local gas station that perplexed him a bit. You see, most of the time my brother is adorned in rigging wear, such as in the picture above. For most of my life in Alaska and the rural Pacific Northwest, clothing such as my brother is wearing was not an uncommon sight. These days however, our demographics be a changing, and with the influx of people has came an upswing in the staring and gawking at our family's normal threads.

In the name of community spirit and education, I thought I would offer up some logging clothes explanations:

Rigging Pants

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Rigging pants can be procured at many feed and farm stores, as they are usually heavy duty Carhart or Key pants with reinforced knees. Many of my family members would pick them up or order them from Madsen's, a professional logger supply store. They call them "logger's jeans" in Madsen's catalog. In our family we call them rigging pants. A legitimate pair of rigging pants will have the bottoms cut off, for you don't want to go around all day getting hung up on brush while you are busheling. Sometimes my uncle and dad used to use this stuff called Tug of War and glue their pants instead of cutting them off. I remember helping with that operation upon occasion.

Suspenders

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The next part of any logger's ensemble is most definitely suspenders. No one wants to stomp around in the brush all day, carrying a saw and saw jugs full of fuel, while hitching up one's pants. It just wouldn't do. All it takes is a hammer and some bachelor buttons, and you can install some handy, dandy grommets to your rigging pants so that you can attach your Stihl suspenders. They have to be Stihl suspenders too, for no self-respecting logger would fall trees with any other kind of saw. I am not even going to repeat how my logger family members refer to Husqvarna chain saws.

There are a few other accessories that can be worn to be even more authentic. A Hickory shirt for instance. When I was a kid, I didn't realize that loggers wore other kinds of shirts. I would often sit out in my Papa's saw shop in a sea of black pin striped hickory shirt bedecked bushlers. And I never saw any other model than the half zip up kind.

Footwear is an important bit of any logger's outfit too. When not wearing leather or Xtra Tough caulks, most loggers that I knew wore romeos. Romeo's are kind of like a slip on half boot. My dad always wore them when I was kid.

Not all loggers have beards, but if they happen to, I can guarantee you they will not be overly groomed. A bushler's beard is more like a burly, unkempt piece of man shrubbery rather than a coiffured bit of he-face fuzz.

The finishing touch for a complete rigging couture look would be to have a pair of White Ox Gloves dangling out of the back of your rigging pant's pocket. Authenticity on steriods!!

My Polynesian Princess Squeakerbell and her team annihilated the competition!

As we arrived at my girl's basketball game, I began to notice what my brother was talking about. I'm used to being stared at, as I am non-typical looking, but people, especially our new arrivals, were flat out gawking at my bro's rigging wear. We just started cracking jokes and took a seat at the top of the bleachers. It was while we were reclining against the gym wall that my bro related a tale from this past summer when he was heading to the logging camp in Southeast Alaska.

"So, I was in the tunnel in Ketchikan," he began,"You remember it, right? Just down the road from the cruise ship docks."

Of course I remembered the tunnel, you had to pass through it to get to the mall. You come out of the Alaskan bush and things like a mall are almost mystical places.

"Well, this elderly woman, really nice dressed gal, walked up to me and said, 'Excuse me. Excuse me young man?'" my brother said.

"Uh huh." I prodded.

"Well, she just asked me, 'Are you a real life lumberjack?' and I told her I sure as hell was." (My brother was dressed approximately as he is in the above picture.).

As my brother was relating his tale his face grew more and more animated, I knew we were getting to the crux of the tale.

"She just started hollering at her husband, 'Herb! Herb! This guy here is a real lumberjack! We gotta get a picture!'"

My brother and I busted up laughing, and he continued, "I stood there and let them take pictures with me."

"Did you work it a bit?" I queried.

"Sure did. I told them that I left my crosscut saws in the truck, but I took em to work everyday!"

The image of my brother, a person who can elaborate any tale into epic proportions (a family trait), bamboozling a couple of elderly cruise ship traveling tourists might have caused me to guffaw for a bit.

I'm sure there are lots of people out there in the world that have been judged by their clothing, both in humorous and not so humorous ways. Each region and many occupations probably have their own clothing norms, but dang, am I wishing I had my hickory shirt that I used to wear to school on hand. Maybe I could get away with packing some crosscut saws into the library if I were to wear that bit of logging couture. Talk about a conversation piece!

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And as always, all of the images in this post were taken on the author's currently not residing in some rigging pants iPhone.

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