Starting before dawn, sleds with heavy runners hauled huge log loads from skidways to frozen banking grounds. Chains kept the logs on the sleds. One pair of horses pulled each heavy load down icy slopes. If a sled got going too fast, the driver jumped to safety, and the horses were left to race the sled to the bottom.
Teamsters vied with each other to see whose sled could carry the heaviest loads. Drivers perched on the top log ten or more feet off the ground. Some loads weighed many thousands of pounds.
On dangerous hills, a Barienger brake was often chained to a stump in order to ease loads of logs down the slope and take the weight off the horses.
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