Calked Boots and Cant Hooks.

Calked Boots and Cant Hooks, by George A. Corrigan. Northword, Box 1360, Minocqua, WI 54548 (1986). Paperback, black and white photos, 265 pp., $7.95.

Under a picture of loggers sitting in the snow with their clay jug, cant hooks, and a two-man saw, a caption reads, "It's hard to believe men like this with just hand tools cut a giant swath across the north. "

When you're done reading Calked Boots and Cant Hooks it's not hard to believe at all. The author, like many of the men he describes, began cutting wood with a two-man saw at age nine. That was in 1905. He continued logging into the 1940s. This book is his memoir, a personal history of the logging industry undergoing its period of most rapid change.

Perhaps the best measure of men like Corrigan who logged the old way is not how much wood they cut but how they felt about their work. The style of this book is not elegant. It's conversational and comfortable. It is filled with a rich texture of land, trees, and working people. It is like a long, personal letter from an old friend who has weathered a hard life in good humor.