Friday, April 17, 2015

Pond banks

We are resloping a few pond banks on Swan lake.  The banks above are being done to make it easier for folks to get in and out of canoes during camp week.  Erosion is terrible on our banks and the primary culprit in my opinion is the muskrat.  They are often seen in the lake and burrow in the banks leading to erosion.  Below, is a log we pulled out of the bank!  It was preserved in a waterlogged environment for 90 years!  To think that this tree was cut down when the lake was built (and course) in the 1920's is pretty darn cool!  This isn't uncommon...on the 10th hole, during some boulder work a few years ago, we found a log that had axe notches from where the tree was cut down.  That is neat considering in the 1920's, chainsaws were not as prevalent as they are now.  I did some research and found this:
The first portable chainsaw was invented in 1925 by what became the German company Festo in 1933. The company now operates as Festool producing portable power tools. Other important contributors to the modern chainsaw are Joseph Buford Cox and Andreas Stihl; the latter patented and developed an electrical chainsaw for use on bucking sites in 1926 and a gasoline-powered chainsaw in 1929, and founded a company to mass-produce them. In 1927, Emil Lerp, the founder of Dolmar, developed the world's first gasoline-powered chainsaw and mass-produced them.
If the gas powered chainsaw wasn't invented until the mid-1920's, I wonder if they even had them on site when the course was built?  Just think of the time it would take to clear a few acres for 1 golf hole!