Bateaux were navigated upstream by means of slender poles of spruce about 12 or 15 feet in length, with an iron point on the end. One boatman stood in the stern and one in the bow and they both poled on the same side as they went upstream. Sometimes a bateau was carried two miles over land. It was carried by three men, one at the bow with both gunwales on his shoulder and two men at the stern each supporting a gunwale. The boat weighed about 615 pounds.
In midsummer, bateaux carried supplies. In spring, they were used on the drive. Once logs were in the river, the bateau was used to carry men to where the logs had piled up and formed jams, to ferry men back and forth across the river to camp, and to transport the camp outfit as the drive progressed. Extra boats carried spare cant dogs and other tools and a portable forge so the blacksmith could keep up with repairs. When driving, the bateau crew consisted of six men; a bowman, a sternman, and four oarsmen. Their equipment was four oars, two paddles, two pick poles, a pickaroon, and an ax.
The earliest bateau used was the Kennebec. It had the greatest beam at the center of the boat. In 1860, the Maynard bateau came into use. It was thirty feet long. The widest beam was two thirds of the distance from stern to bow. It was faster and more stable and easily handled.
When the tote roads came into use, the bateau was used less. When gasoline engines came into use, the stern of the bateau was squared off and an outboard motor installed.
On the coldest nights, two men rode on a sled with a 500 gallon tank that watered the haul road, turning it into a sheet of ice. The water cart was a large wooden tank on a set of sleds which was used to spray water on the smooth, plowed surface of the logging roads. In cold weather, the water froze quickly and left the runner tracks solid ice. This was done to make hauling easier. Huge loads of lumber could be handled easily by one pair of horses. The water hole used to fill the cart was an opening 3 feet wide and 7 feet long cut in the surface of a frozen lake. The cart was filled by dipping a barrel into the water and hauling it up an inclined plane to be dumped into the tank. The plane consisted of two small logs, fastened together to form parallel skids from the water hole to the top of the tank. A rope extended to the other side of the cart where a horse pulled the full barrel up to the top of tank. To dump the water into the cart, a long pole was attached to the bottom of the barrel.
