The statue of legendary lumberjack Paul Bunyan stood for many years alone in Furtaw Field in Oscoda, Michigan. In the spring of 2023, he was taken down for painting and maintenance. What a good time to pique the interest of the community with the proposal to construct his ox, Babe, to stand beside him. Hence, I began work on a small clay model in April.
Why was it important for Babe the Blue Ox to accompany Bunyan, at Furtaw Field? In campfire stories that entertained the lumbermen in the 1800s, Paul and Babe worked together to achieve exaggerated feats of strength and endurance. These stories were recorded and published in the book Round River, by James MacGillivray, and published in 1906 by The Oscoda Press. In October 2005, the Michigan House of Representative officially declared Oscoda the birthplace of the literary legend of Paul Bunyan.
Round River means a river that flows back on itself. It is a metaphor for ecology. The1800s were a time of great change and expansion for the nation. At the mouth of the Au Sable River in Michigan was a vast belt of towering pines. These trees grew to heights of 175 feet, with stumps 8 feet in diameter, and were first lumbered using an axe and hauled to the river by oxen. Lumbering was a dangerous and lucrative business, and the Round River reference is made to the lumbermen who, as a collective, helped grow the expanding nation by changing the forest into farm land and communities.
Construction would consist of four stages. A wood armature, the skeleton, was to be constructed of plywood and dimensional lumber. Stage two was to flesh out the muscles with chicken wire. Then the ox was to be covered with West Systems fiberglass, epoxy resin, and hardener. The final stage was to paint it.
The dimensions would be seven and half feet high, nine and half feet long ( - head to rump), and 11 feet from head to a farthest hind foot. Also the ox’s head was to be lowered as if looking down from the platform upon which he would take his place by Paul.
Terry Lowell and I constructed a wood armature in my garage using plywood and lumber I had on hand. We used power tools to measure, cut and number the pieces for left/right positioning. We assembled it without glue, then disassembled it so we could reassemble in the Huron Shores Artisan Hall parking lot in Oscoda, where the community could watch the progress. We covered the ox with a tarp to protect it from the weather when we were not working on it.
Once the armature was assembled with glue and screws, stage two consisted of fleshing out the muscles with chicken wire. Criss-crossed layers of chicken wire strengthened the wire framing and shaped the contours of the muscles. The wire framing was stapled to the wood armature.
The fiberglass stage presented many challenges - temperature, rain, humidity, and UV exposure to the epoxy. The West System 207 hardener was better for outside application because it did not blush with humid conditions, and the ox would not have to be washed with soap and water each day before continuing the work. Beginning at a midpoint on the ox and working our way to the rump, we draped fiberglass over the top. We cut the fiberglass into long strips, then rolled it onto two dowels so each section (top, sides, and bottom) could be smoothed as we worked our way around the ox. Gravity would work for us on the sides. As long as the layers of resin and hardener were masking tape tacky, a second and third layers of fiberglass could be applied. When masking tape tacky, a tight chemical, bond was created between the layers. However, working in the sunlight presented a problem because the top of the ox dried faster than the underside.
Applying the second layer worked well at the top, but the underbelly was not ready. Although we had tied the first layer with wire every two inches, it was not enough to prevent it from sagging when wetted with the resin and hardener. Also, since it wasn’t masking tape tacky on the underside, the second layer of fiberglass would not stick. We ended up poking the wires through the second layer, but that created an additional problem.The wires had created pockets causing the layers not to adhere to each other.
Jennifer Hubble cut away every pocketed area where the layers had not bonded and snipped short the wires so the underbelly could be repaired. But, fiberglass alone was not enough to correct the underbelly. It would need to be modeled with filler. West System 407 Low Density Filler was purchased, and the fiberglass was then sewn onto the chicken wire’s vertical and overhead surfaces. This minimized most of the sagging challenge. It took many applications of filler, especially on the back half of the underside.
Structural correction is always inevitable when trying to maintain realism. These changes required correcting the armature and applying many more layers of chicken wire, fiberglass, and filler. Bryan Hubble helped with the wire framing and provided good critique for correcting the left shoulder and leg. Each time a correction was made and a new layer of epoxy applied the ox had to be sanded for the next layer to adhere.
When the weather dropped below sixty degrees, Bill Hamlin, director of the Department of Public Works moved the ox indoors. Scaffolds and lights were set up by Al Campbell. Inside I applied and sanded the final coats of filler. The ox was painted with two coats of Rustoleum Topside Marine paint and details were added to the eyes, horns, hooves and tail tassel.
Babe made his debut to the community at the Northern Lights Parade in December 2023. His float was decorated by Charly Bronson, and Kathy Shellenbarger. And Kenny Kahila constructed the new platform for Paul Bunyan and Babe to stand together at Furtaw Field in Oscoda.
*text editor Cindy Spiegle
