Heritage Month Day Five: Paul Bunyan

Happy Paul Bunyan Day!

Day five of Heritage History month has us back in America to focus on the legendary nature of America’s folk heroes.

Paul Bunyan is a key figure in the making of the American mythos with regard to nineteenth century Westward expansion. After the nation herself was born in the eighteenth century, America was in need of tales, legends, and narratives that could provide for its people a common vision of its own past and purpose. So much of this came in the form of folklore—rumors and stories of extraordinary men, animals, feats, and adventures as American legends sought to tame the vast Western country.

Among these legends of course is the great Paul Bunyan; a giant of outlandish proportions and strength who had as a companion a blue ox named Babe. Bunyan was the hero of North America’s lumberjack culture, a figure who provided inspiration and ideals for the hardworking men who put axe to tree to tame the massive expanse of North Western forests.

It was Bunyan who led the charge, clearing the forests from the Maine region all the way through Oregon and Washington, breaking the path free to the Pacific Ocean. Bunyan, as a folk hero, had experiences and characteristics that intensely breached the barrier into the absurd. For instance, he was so large at birth that when the storks came to deliver him to his parents, five were needed to do the job. He was nearly sixty pounds at a month old. Haters will say it’s fake. Do not listen to the commies.

His parents had ten cows working around the clock to provide milk for their infant, and as he grew into a boy, he was going through fifty eggs a day (slonked, obviously) and ten bags of potatoes. Such burden was difficult for his parents, and the earthquakes that would ensue whenever he rolled over in his bed, had the townsfolk angry all the time— the local government put pressure on his parents to move him elsewhere. Taking him into the woods where he belonged, Bunyan began his life of taming the mighty trees and forests.

It was in these woods during a deep snow that Bunyan happened upon Babe, a massive blue ox that matched the size and needs of Bunyan. In one situation, the road itself they were taking was immensely crooked. In great massive swings, Bunyan would clean right through full size trunks in a single stroke. He then tied Babe to a small leftover stump, babe dug in his heels and pulled back, straightening the road itself in accordance with the space Bunyan had provided.

The Great Lakes of the Minnesota region were dug out by Bunyan to provide drinking water for Babe and it was here in this area that Bunyan formed a crew of powerful 350 pound men known as the Seven Axemen. All of them were named Elmer. They all responded to Bunyan’s call, running together at once. He had his own chef, Sourdough Sam, that would travel with them, providing hundred pound cakes for the team— Bunyan himself would have ten of them after a long day’s work.

In recent decades, of course, the fact checkers have all come out of their universities to inform Americans that many of Bunyan’s exploits and stories were exaggerations, fictional. These are the same people, mind you, that are convinced men can become women and wearing a mask could stop a cold. Bunyan’s real because we inherited his stories and he shapes our understanding of the settling of the great American forests. The tales and legends that surround Bunyan drove forward an entire culture and ethos of mountain men in the great Northlands of the American continent.

Bunyan is more real to Heritage America than the cultural deconstructionists will ever be.