“Every lumber region has its lore. Thrilling tales of adventure are told in camp wherever the logger has entered the wilderness. The lumber jack is an imaginative being, and a story loses none of its interest as it is carried and repeated from one camp to another. ... Some say that the old type of logger himself is becoming extinct. It is my purpose in this little book to preserve at least a description and sketch of some of the interesting animals which he has originated.”

“It is common knowledge that America has grown at a tremendous pace, so rapidly in that much true folk-lore was born, lived and died with no chance of ever becoming a part of our permanent records. Without doubt this has happened to a good bit of woods lore. Things have just come about too fast.” ... “To those who have held the bag on a Snipe hunt, who have jumped sideways at the call of the Treesqueak, who have studied the trail of the Side-hill Gouger, and who perhaps have had a ringside seat at a Badger fight, this little collection, sympathetically dedicated.”

“Up in the great lonesome woods of the North the old guides have invented many yarns to explain to the tenderteet from the cities the strange tracks and weird noises, and all the other new experiences of the great outdoors. Mr. Childs was formerly a game warden in the woods of Northern Wisconsin. The stories which he tells here are stories he collected from the old guides themselves.”

“It was in the bunkhouses of the American lumber camps that the art of story telling reached its peak. No other industry has added so much to story telling as has the lumber camp. Throughout the country, Paul Bunyon [sic] has marched with banners flying, having been adopted in practically every state, where camps have been found. He stands out as the supreme mythical figure of the North American continent.” ... “It is the hope of the author that this book may give a little insight into the stories which were told in old camp days and that it may renew old memories of those who took part in the story telling sessions during those early years.”

“Inhabiting the big pine woods, the swamps, lakes and streams in the vicinity of Paul Bunyan’s old time logging camps were a considerable number of very wild animals.” ... “Tall tales of encounters with some of these mythical wild animals were often told in the lumber camp bunkhouses at night to create mirth or to impress and frighten the greenhorns. The information here collected concerning these Bunyan beasts, birds, reptiles and fish was obtained from various reliable, as well as unreliable and doubtful sources.”

“Having had our attention called to certain odd species of fish which make their home in the waters of Puget sound, ... we never dreamed of what really lies—‘really lies’, we think, is a good word—beneath the surface of our innocent appearing bay. After all, it seems the common citizens of Seattle can give any naturalist in the world cards and spades, then beat him at his own game.

“This lengthy lore is lifted from the lessons left from lifetimes of learning. It was those lone litterateurs who longed to log the language of laborers, laughed in the loquaciousness of liars, and listen to the last of the long-lived lumberjacks for later lovers of legend and lore.”

The stories that comprise this text take their inspiration from the tall tales of North American lumberjacks around the turn of the last century. In the evenings when the light grew low, loggers would sit around a cast iron stove and tell stories to regale their comrades.