He Fed 100 Men From a Kitchen That Floated Down the River Behind Them

Wanigan cook history: the floating river kitchens that fed American log drive crews four meals a day on a moving raft, 1900 to 1950. The drive moved downstream and the kitchen moved with it — a raft called a wanigan, carrying a stove, a cook, and everything a hundred working men would eat that day. The fire stayed lit while the raft moved. The crews came in wet, cold and starving, in shifts, all day. This documentary covers the wanigan: what the cook actually produced, why his job decided whether the drive kept moving, what the men said about him, and what happened when the drives ended. SOURCES & NOTES Menus and crew sizes come from company records and published oral histories; figures vary by region and are given as ranges. IF YOUR FAMILY WORKED THE DRIVES Especially if anyone cooked — we'd like to hear it. NEXT ON THIS CHANNEL The locomotive built to climb a grade no ordinary train could touch.