Measure Of A Man; A Tale Of The Big Woods

In the logging camps of the northern forest, a lone figure moves through the smoke and snow, and Norman Duncan watches him with the amused eye of a man who has seen too much to be surprised by anything. This is a portrait of a singular individual, a man whose peculiar ways and stubborn independence set him apart from the rough fraternity of lumberjacks, yet somehow make him their heart. Duncan's prose has the dry wit of someone who knows that the grandest adventures often wear the dullest clothes, and his affectionate mockery of logging camp life reveals a world where men measured themselves against trees and each other, where character was forged in physical labor and tall tales. The book endures because it captures something true about American individualism, about the comedy and dignity of ordinary men doing extraordinary work, before the forests fell and the era ended.