What do you think?
Rate this book
Out of the Northwoods: The Many Lives of Paul Bunyan, With More Than 100 Logging Camp Tales
Every American has heard of the lumberjack hero Paul Bunyan and his big blue ox. For 100 years his exploits filled cartoons, magazines, short stories, and children's books, and his name advertised everything from pancake breakfasts to construction supplies. By 1950 Bunyan was a ubiquitous icon of America's strength and ingenuity. Until now, no one knew where he came from—and the extent to which this mythical hero is rooted in Wisconsin.
Out of the Northwoods presents the culture of nineteenth-century lumberjacks in their own words. It includes eyewitness accounts of how the first Bunyan stories were shared on frigid winter nights, around logging camp stoves, in the Wisconsin pinery. It describes where the tales began, how they moved out of the forest and into print, and why publication changed them forever. Part bibliographic mystery and part social history, Out of the Northwoods explains for the first time why we all know and love Paul Bunyan.
Out of the Northwoods presents the culture of nineteenth-century lumberjacks in their own words. It includes eyewitness accounts of how the first Bunyan stories were shared on frigid winter nights, around logging camp stoves, in the Wisconsin pinery. It describes where the tales began, how they moved out of the forest and into print, and why publication changed them forever. Part bibliographic mystery and part social history, Out of the Northwoods explains for the first time why we all know and love Paul Bunyan.
- GenresNonfictionHistory
304 pages, Hardcover
First published October 19, 2009
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
November 12, 2011
I purchased this book after hearing Michael Edmonds speak at the WI Historical Society conference; he was so filled with passion and inspiration, I just had to learn what his research was all about. I had expected to learn about Paul Bunyon and, in the beginning, I was a bit disappointed that all I learned was how the Bunyon stories traversed the country. Then I realized how important that this folklore was to the loggers who chose this dangerous line of work to feed their families and I continued my reading to find the Bunyon stories I was looking for.
April 4, 2015
A wonderful, amusing exploration of American Folklore of the mid 1800s, Michael Edmonds gathered and chronicled for us tall tales that the lumberjacks of America's great timberlands used to regale each other in camp at night.
April 28, 2010
Interesting, thoroughly researched investigation into the origins of the legend of Paul Bunyan. A tad bit academic for the general reader, but still well-written.
October 4, 2025
I found some of the tales of research interesting. The most likely origin of Paul Bunyon is my hometown. I generally dislike tall tales but I fid like the one about the musky.
April 2, 2026
Lately, I’ve seen a little resurgence in interest in the prototypical “tall tale” icon of Paul Bunyan and his place in North American folklore, here in Minnesota and elsewhere, and Michael Edmonds’ exhaustively researched book Out of the Northwoods: The Many Lives of Paul Bunyan provides a deep exploration of the specific origins of the Paul Bunyan mythology itself.
With his focus on the culture of late nineteenth century lumberjacks working the rich woodlands of Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Michigan, reaching deep into primary sources throughout the Upper Midwest, Edmonds explores who told these stories and what part they might have played in their oral cultures, as well as why they caught on and persisted in US popular culture. All in all, he makes a compelling case that the Paul Bunyan character actually originated in an oral tradition of loggers sometime in the 1880s in Wisconsin, arguing that the Bunyan stories progressed through “overlapping phases of transmission” into the twentieth century to become the innocuous hero known to American children to this day.
Edmonds demonstrates how, as the northwoods already began to be devastated by the logging companies employing lumberjacks by the turn of the century, Eastern professional writers such as the adman W.B. Laughead of the Minneapolis based Red River Lumber Company latched onto these picturesque tales of wilderness work to romanticize a culture quickly becoming unneeded. Whether depicting Bunyan as a “self-reliant worker who needed no unions or government handouts” or a “symbol of the noble proletariat who provided the muscle and know-how to make America strong again,” depending on the perspective of the teller, Edmonds writes how Bunyan’s “progress from private joke to public hero is a case study in how knowledge was created, shared, and commodified in America during the twentieth century.” This is exemplified in how he describes Laughead’s utilization of the lore for his own purposes, framing Bunyan as a larger than life foreman and transforming him from a character invented by loggers as an “ideal woodsman” to an “ideal manager.”
I talk more about other books I read discussing how the Paul Bunyan stories developed and their cultural resonance in the Northwoods and the American Midwest and how they are being reimagined and recontextualized today at Harris’ Tome Corner, here.
With his focus on the culture of late nineteenth century lumberjacks working the rich woodlands of Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Michigan, reaching deep into primary sources throughout the Upper Midwest, Edmonds explores who told these stories and what part they might have played in their oral cultures, as well as why they caught on and persisted in US popular culture. All in all, he makes a compelling case that the Paul Bunyan character actually originated in an oral tradition of loggers sometime in the 1880s in Wisconsin, arguing that the Bunyan stories progressed through “overlapping phases of transmission” into the twentieth century to become the innocuous hero known to American children to this day.
Edmonds demonstrates how, as the northwoods already began to be devastated by the logging companies employing lumberjacks by the turn of the century, Eastern professional writers such as the adman W.B. Laughead of the Minneapolis based Red River Lumber Company latched onto these picturesque tales of wilderness work to romanticize a culture quickly becoming unneeded. Whether depicting Bunyan as a “self-reliant worker who needed no unions or government handouts” or a “symbol of the noble proletariat who provided the muscle and know-how to make America strong again,” depending on the perspective of the teller, Edmonds writes how Bunyan’s “progress from private joke to public hero is a case study in how knowledge was created, shared, and commodified in America during the twentieth century.” This is exemplified in how he describes Laughead’s utilization of the lore for his own purposes, framing Bunyan as a larger than life foreman and transforming him from a character invented by loggers as an “ideal woodsman” to an “ideal manager.”
I talk more about other books I read discussing how the Paul Bunyan stories developed and their cultural resonance in the Northwoods and the American Midwest and how they are being reimagined and recontextualized today at Harris’ Tome Corner, here.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews