Paul Bunyan gets trees a lot of free publicity. But he is also famous for cutting them down in big numbers. Mythical, legendary, ugly numbers. Ecologist nightmare numbers. But there are few folk tales told about the adventures of a tree, or an ecologist, for that matter. Paul Bunyan is everywhere, and is much beloved.
His birthplace in Bangor, ME is marked by statue, but where you really fall all over Bunyan monuments are in the northern forests of Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan.
According to the legend, Paul Bunyan had super-human strength and speed, was smart and had a sense of humor. This uniquely American “tall tale” began somewhere in the lumber and logging camps of the early 19th Century. The Red River Lumber Company used this legend in its advertising booklets from 1914 through the 1930s.
The Gallery of Huge Beings lists only four Paul Bunyan locations:
Klamath, California
Oscoda, Michigan
Akeley, Minnesota
Bemidji, Minnesota
We spent a lot of summer vacations at Pike Hole Resort, just north of Cass Lake. It’s a short drive to Bemidji, Minnesota, the first city on the Mississippi River, where the famous 18-foot tall statues of Paul Bunyan and Babe the Blue Ox on Lake Bemidji’s southwest shore serve as reminders of the area’s logging history. I’m sure my Mom has some pictures of us standing in front of the statue.