Tom's Logging Camp

Tom's Logging Camp

Larsmont, MN

Reviewed September 24th, 2005

I didn't know goats could be like that. My childhood idols are not interested in anything but the sound of the crank turning on the 25 cent feed machine. Its like we were just food dispensing receptacles without souls, for all they cared. I had so much I wanted to share with them. Philosophy. I had questions too, real toughies. But them goats ain't got respect. Them goats don't give a hoot; alas, they just pollute. Anyway thats the motto of Woodsy the Goat whereas Smokey Goat makes the dubious claim that, "only you can prevent forest fires." Some people think his name is Smokey "the" Goat but its actually just Smokey Goat, named after a little kid that the U.S. Forest Service rescued from a fire in 1749.

But as usual, I digress. Tom's Logging Camp features an eclectic mix of touristy nick-knacks, tame animals, old lumberjack tools, antiquarian junk and hand painted boards featuring the visages of beard and plaid clad, ax wielding chronic alcoholics - or so it appeared to me. Some of those representations even had a hole with visage cut out so you can add your own visage, sunglasses, winter stocking cap and all, much to the frustration of your waiting girlfriend, who'll say, "don't we have enough pictures of you doing this? Oh god, I suppose one more won't hurt. But thats it; no more for at least a week okay?" There's the spirit!

Along with the silly things geared toward children there were also many respectably informative, hand drawn interpretive signs describing the lives, tools and structures of 19th century Minnesota lumberjacks. I barely read any of them. Full sized, plastic Clydesdales intimidate silently from within their stalls. These fiery steeds are all amped up and ready go, to quote the Ramones. An intentionally asymmetrical cabin built at a slant and decorated with funhouse mirrors simulate what a typical "annual" drinking bender might have been like for the entertainment starved lumberjacks on pay day - minus the busted teeth and poker games that ended in ax play. Despite Tom's charitable interpretation, my instincts tell me this was more than just an "annual" ritual. Can you imagine a time when people said, "what happens in Minnesota stays in Minnesota?" If you go far enough up north, some of the old folks might still say that, if ever they did.

Along with the two goats you'll also find a trout pond filled with trout fishes, and two llamas who were not entirely friendly but wise none the less. Among the sleds, toboggans and mirrors there rests a creepy mannequin display featuring a "pioneer" scene and a mannequin mom missing her forearm and in another corner of the same building, an actual electric chair. Its fun for the whole family! Seriously though, I love this kind of thing. Otherwise I would not have come back, like I always do. Oddly this would not be the last maimed mannequin mom we saw on this trip, but thankfully there were no other electric chairs.

If Tom is the middle aged guy with the goatee at the counter tending gifts and people, then he is a real character. He did something few rural Minnesotans ever do, even in tourist areas, even with other Minnesotans: talk. He told us that maturity does not come with age and his (hilarious) description of explaining the concept of sales tax to children and seniors made us cringe with sympathy. The children, he informed us often request to substitute quarters for dimes or dimes for pennies - the philosophy of "more coins means I'm more rich." Their parents probably come in, tired and sour faced to purchase hats or engraved wood souvenir plaques that say "Old Fart" or "if you sprinkle when you tinkle be a sweetie and wipe up the seatie." The latter, I actually saw. Hey, its whatever sells. I ain't judging. But certainly the people who buy that stuff need a life or a charity to donate their extra money to. The obvious should never be denied. Well, at least they're helping Tom's Logging Camp eke out a living on the north shore, a shore where living has always been easy but eking was always hard.

The bathrooms at the logging camp are outside at the edge of the parking lot. They consist of two, single entry wooden pit toilets on concrete platforms. Windows are covered by screens that are stapled on to the walls and the whole set up has a hand built/cobbled together with whatever was handy kind of feel. To be sure they are spartan, but they were clean enough to urinate in, they do contain paper and a privacy wall separates men's and women's. If you must perform a Numero Dos, ask yourself if you really couldn't wait until Two Harbors, just another ten or fifteen minutes further down the road. If waiting is impossible, the pits are there for you, and you can tell all your friends you went like a lumberjack, but only if you forgo the optional luxury of toilet paper. Be sure to lock the door behind you. I was caught off guard by some poor dude who flung the door open during the execution of my business. "Whhhhhhhhhoa!" he yelled, as though I was a pony. But I was not a pony then, nor am I now and I could only register the strangers' shock by displaying my own. I would have offered him an anti-conniption aid but unfortunately I think he was having a cow. Twenty years from now they'll talk about how he went stark, raving mad and disappeared into the woods near Tom's Logging Camp. And on lonely, wind swept nights the locals will swear over a glass of their best rum that you can hear him saying, "whhhhhhoa! Whhhhhhoa!" if you listen quietly. "Dude should've knocked first," they will inevitably conclude.

- Justin Teerlinck

RESTROOM RATING: 4
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