Print from the original woodblock, numbered 86/100

In 1931 Clare had the opportunity to spend some time in a lumber camp on the Quebec-Ontario border.  She had read Louis Hémon’s French Canadian classic ‚ÄúMaria

Chapdelaine‚Äùas an introduction to life in rural Quebec. The contrast between sparkling white snow and the darkness of the dense Canadian woods seemed especially suited to her favourite medium, and people at work had always been a favoured subject. At first the men of the camp were suspicious of this lone woman.  However, when she hid any fear at the howling of wolves and shared the men’s food and some of their hardships she won their respect. They told hertheir fantastic tales of Paul Bunyan, ‚Äúthe god of the lumberjacks‚Äù, and she was able to make numerous pencil sketches and notes. Clare’s diary, written at the time and copied word-forword below, shows her first impressions in a peculiarly immediate form. These notes and the sketches were the basis for her subsequent engravings on the boxwood blocks. The prints depict the lumberjacks’ life at a time when the only power in the remote forest lay in the muscles of men and horses.