Spiked Boots: Sketches of the North Country

Robert Pike is a very entertaining author, he writes well, his sense of humor comes through in his work, and in the two books I've read of his, the material itself is funny as well. But there's more to it than that, especially in Spiked Boots, there's A LOT of heart. This book is mainly the tale of the author's relationship with Old Vern ( a man who IS new england if there ever was one). Vern, and many of the other people Mr. Pike writes of are more interesting and special than any characters in fiction because they lived. This book helped me see New England in a different time, but it also allowed me to see what hasn't changed over the years. The book is less about the logging industry and more about some of the people around it; especially Vern Davison. He seemed like quite a man, I would have liked to have met him, and heartily recommend reading about him and others in this book.

This is a series of anecdotal stories of logging in New England. It is full of old Yankee wit and humor. If you like this sort of thing try any of the North Woods Reader series by Cully Gage, stories of the post logging days (early 1900's) of Michigan's upper peninsular. A more technical view of New England logging, and life back in the day is in Robert Pike's book, Tall Trees and Tough Men. These are all good reads for anyone who wants to learn more about life in the days of logging with axes, two man cross cut saws, and river drives.

I've spent 40 years working in the woods of Vermont and I can say that this book rings true. It has the flavor of a good storyteller as well as being accurate within it's scope of topics. I'll re-read it many times.

Really enjoyed this book. The author captured the flavor of the North Country (where I was born) in a way both entertaining and educational.

Good read!

great book good reading

Robert Pike's <i> Spiked Boots<i> is a rare sort of history book, one that a reader loves to come across in the arid sea of historical work out that chokes the shelves of book stores. Presented as a series of vignettes on subjects ranging from haunted hunting camps to Ginseng Willard and his homemade coffin, Pike provides an important insight into the history and society of the northern reaches of Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine. It is a presentation of a world that is now gone, pushed through the chutes in the style of the great logging rushes that Old Vern, the cagey ex walking boss and Pike's guide through this world, once worked. The presentation of this world is not of a Hesiodic Golden Age, when men were men and trees were more plentiful. It is a presentation of a world where some men worked hard, some women harder, and some not at all. It is a memoir of hard working lumbermen and guides -- how they worked, how they played, and for some of them, the mistakes that they made that took their lives. Pike was a fortunate man to have encountered Vern, for the history that was handed to him is beyond value as a vision into a bygone age and an area that is sometimes forgotten. And the characters are unforgetable also.

Spiked Boots is among a rare breed of books, either fiction or fact, that can take the reader directly into the minds of the characters and places the author is talking about. Robert Pike approaches the tales of Vern Davison, Jack Haley, and a host of others with such clarity you are transported directly back 100 years to the logging industry of the "north country." You sit in your chair reading the book and the words slowly turn into the wind rushing by your face as you are transported into the horse drawn carriage with Vern Davison and Robert Pike, and you find yourself slowly engulfed in another era.Not to be overlooked in the new Countryman Press edition is the foreword added by Helen-Chantal Pike, Robert Pike's daughter. The foreword adds a look into Robert Pike's life that only a daughter could bring into the book, from the tales of the original "peddling" trips, to the meaning of his writings to himself, to the intimate detail of Robert Pike reading a well worn copy of Spiked Boots over and over again during his last years of life.Also added to the new edition are several photographs culled from the Pike Archives featuring a rare photographic glimpse of the scenery and people that the tales of Spiked Boots originates from. One can fully appreciate the men spoken of as they gaze at the picture of Ginseng Willard next to the coffin he slept in for two years to, "get used to it."For fans of America, for fans of history, for fans of self-reliance, the new edition of Robert E. Pike's Spiked Boots is not one to be missing from the shelves of the library. It offers a rare glimpse at a by-gone era, of men and women that no longer exist in this form of ruggedness that made America what it is today.