Paul Bunyan (folklore)
Paul Bunyan is a legendary figure in American folklore, depicted as a giant lumberjack whose larger-than-life exploits symbolize the rugged individualism and pioneering spirit of the American frontier. Originating from a tradition of tall tales, Bunyan is said to have performed impossible feats, such as carving out the Grand Canyon with his ax and creating the Great Lakes for his blue ox, Babe, to drink from. His stories reflect the optimism and resourcefulness of workers during westward expansion in the 19th century.
The character gained popularity through various publications and advertising in the early 20th century, with roots possibly tracing back to real-life lumberjacks like Fabian Fournier, known for his size and logging skills. Bunyan's companions include his wife Lucette, the quirky cook Sourdough Sam, and his blue ox, Babe, who is central to many legends. Over the years, Bunyan has become a cultural icon, inspiring roadside statues and merchandise, illustrating his lasting impact on American folklore and identity.
Paul Bunyan (folklore)
Paul Bunyan is a legendary lumberjack in American folklore whose exploits were a symbol of the vitality and can-do spirit of the American frontier. A giant of a man, Paul Bunyan was reportedly so large that his baby carriage was a lumber wagon pulled by a team of horses and he was able to carve out the Grand Canyon with his ax. The legend is an example of an American tall tale, a type of oral folklore known for outrageous exaggerations and usually focusing on an exceptionally daring or courageous figure. The story of Paul Bunyan gained popularity after its publication in several newspapers, poems, and advertisements in the early twentieth century, but the hulking hero may have been based upon a real Canadian logger who lived almost half a century earlier.
The Legend
In the nineteenth century, the westward expansion of the United States prompted many individuals to move to the new frontier in search of jobs and opportunity. The legend of Paul Bunyan, and other tall tales of the era, were born from the idea of rugged individualism and reflected the optimism, strength, and resourcefulness that workers on the frontier saw in themselves. These larger-than-life stories usually were embellished with impossible and outrageous accounts of feats performed by heroic subjects. For example, as a newborn, Paul Bunyan was so big that it took five storks to deliver him to his parents. When he cried, the sound was so loud that it scared all the fish out of the rivers and streams for miles around.
According to the legend, Bunyan was responsible for creating the Grand Canyon in Arizona by dragging his mighty ax behind him as he walked. Similar tales tell of Bunyan's role in forming Puget Sound in the state of Washington, the Black Hills of South Dakota, and even the Great Lakes. In some of his other exploits, Bunyan was able to tame the Whistling River, a river so nasty it could rise to a height of two hundred feet and tie logs into knots by sheer force; he had a griddle in his kitchen so large that he needed teams of men with hog fat tied to their snowshoes to skate around its surface to keep it greased; and he once felled so many trees that people confused the piled logs with the Rocky Mountains.
Tales of Paul Bunyan include a number of companions, including his equally tall wife, Lucette; the clerk of his logging camp, Johnny Inkslinger; and the one-armed, one-legged camp cook, Sourdough Sam. His most famous companion, however, is his faithful blue ox, Babe. According to the tale, Babe was born during one of the coldest winters ever known—one so frigid that the snow turned blue and spoken words froze in the air and people had to wait until the sounds thawed just to hear what everybody was saying. While out walking during this Winter of the Blue Snow, Bunyan happened upon a baby ox that had turned blue from the tremendous cold. He took the ox home and warmed him up, but the ox stayed blue and soon grew to gigantic proportions. Legend has it that Bunyan dug out the Great Lakes for Babe to use as watering holes and that the ox's footprints created Minnesota's ten thousand lakes.
The History behind the Legend
Stories of a giant figure carving out geological features in the American landscape are obviously fanciful tales, but historians believe a real-life lumberjack may have been one of the inspirations for the Bunyan myth. Fabian Fournier was a French-Canadian logger from Quebec who came to the United States after the Civil War (1861–1865) to work in the forests of Michigan. Nicknamed "Saginaw Joe," Fournier was a large man as well known for his logging prowess as for his hard-drinking, brawling ways. Fournier was murdered in 1875, and the details of his rough-and-tumble life became public during his alleged killer’s trial. As time passed, the story of Fournier became interwoven with tales of another Canadian logger, Bon Jean, who was involved in an 1837 logging rebellion in Canada. Historians believe the French pronunciation of Bon Jean may be the origin of the name Bunyan.
Eventually, tales of a mythological lumberjack became commonplace around the logging camps of the Midwest in the late nineteenth century. These stories found their way to a Michigan newspaper columnist named James MacGillivray, who published the first recorded tale of Paul Bunyan in 1906. The story received more attention four years later when the Detroit News Tribune republished it and again in 1914 when the magazine American Lumberman reworked the story as a poem. In 1916, W.B. Laughhead, an advertising executive for the Red River Lumber Company, began using Paul Bunyan as a mascot in pamphlets for the company's products. These depictions of Bunyan were the first to portray him as a towering, ax-wielding giant and brought him to national attention.
Bunyan in Popular Culture
Bunyan's image and accounts of his deeds soon began appearing in other media, giving birth to an enduring American icon. In the following decades, monuments and roadside landmarks dedicated to Bunyan began popping up across the United States—from a statue in his mythical birthplace of Bangor, Maine, to a fifty-foot talking likeness of Bunyan in Klamath, California. A thirty-one-foot-tall statue of Bunyan in Portland, Oregon, was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2009. Alpena, Michigan, is home to a Bunyan statue made entirely of old car parts. In the twenty-first century, Bunyan and Babe even have their own line of T-shirts and athletic shoes.
Bibliography
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Browning, Jennifer. "Paul Bunyan and His Blue Ox, Babe." Ancestry Magazine Mar.-Apr. 2003: 19. Print.
"Kaiser Paul—Bunyan Made of Car Parts." RoadsideAmerica.com. Doug Kirby, Ken Smith, Mike Wilkins. Web. 8 Dec. 2015. http://www.roadsideamerica.com/story/2421
"Paul Bunyan." American Folklore. S.E. Schlosser. Web. 7 Dec. 2015. http://americanfolklore.net/folklore/paul-bunyan/
"Paul Bunyan: His Story." Lumberwoods. Thrill Land. 2013. Web. 7 Dec. 2015. http://www.fearsomecreaturesofthelumberwoods.com/paulbunyani.htm
Strickler, Jeff. "A New Paul Bunyan Legend: Being Hip." Minneapolis Star Tribune. Star Tribune. 20 Apr. 2013. Web. 8 Dec. 2015. http://www.startribune.com/a-new-paul-bunyan-legend-being-hip/203691631/