These stories can also be heard on Sunday mornings around 10 am on WILD 102’s “Look Back in Time” program. Each week’s radio story will be posted here on our website.
Weekly radio stories are researched, compiled, and read by Sheila Winstead, RCHS Board Member.
March 30, 2025
An article in the April 5, 1956, Roseau Times-Region had this heading: “Use ‘Even The Squeal’ In Waage
Wood Camp”. Here’s that story:
“There is a market for almost anything if you want to go after it”, is the philosophy at the Waage
lumbering camp deep in the woods south of Warroad. Operated by three Greenbush farmers, Olaf, Enok
and Selmer Waage the camp is built on the principle that “There is a use for everything.”
Literally they use everything. It might be said that “they use even the squeal” if you want to compare
lumbering and farming in similar terms.
The Waage brothers grew up in timber. They worked in lumbering all their youth and when their woods
were gone in 1940, looked about for more. They tried for a number of years before buying their present
timber rights from Frank Zak. Then, on rights that would certainly not keep them going on pulp alone, set
about to make their efforts pay. They have succeeded.
While cutting only between 500 and 600 cords of pulpwood, they have turned their ingenuity into cash
by utilizing every scrap, every butt and every piece of tamarack, spruce, balsam, poplar, and Balm of
Gilead in their woods.
A typical reaction to their “frugal” methods came from a timber cruiser who, when he scaled logs for
them asked, “what are you boys going to cut that for, firewood?” The answer was no … the big, formerly
worthless cedar butts were to be sawed into four-by-fours. Every stick, every slab is saved, sold or used!
A typical Waage operation can be viewed when they cut a big cedar. The butt goes for 4x4s; the center of
the tree for poles and the top is cut for fence posts. Sometimes if the butt is not suitable for 4x4s, it too
goes for fence posts.
What happens to the slabs from saw trimming? By golly it is sold in great bunches for cattle sheds, snow
fences, silo linings, general purposes and for burning wood. “People come to our camp from all over to
buy the slabs and it helps keep the camp clean too,” Olaf said with a smile.
“We don’t feel it is right to go into the woods, cut a tree and leave half of it,” the brothers say. That they
leave scarcely anything at all is a wonder. When they cut tamarack, the tops are used for fence posts. The
good part of the tree for lumber which they saw on the spot with their own complete sawmill and the
slabs are sold. Tiny tamarack, tall and straight, are cut for (of all things) turkey roosts. “Yes,” Olaf grinned,
“we have a surprising amount of orders for the turkey roosts.” They also cut fence rails, bridge planks and
do special sawing for those who order it.
Small tops they have utilized for electric fence posts. Knobby poplar they saw into sheathing (and sell a
lot of it) … the better trees into snow-white lumber of which they have sold over 200,000 feet this winter.
They also make dimension stuff of spruce.
Some tamarack they cut in 14-foot lengths for corner braces on fences. “That way a farmer can buy as
many as he wants and if he finds he has too many of the braces, he can cut them in two and have two
fence posts the right length.” Another example of how a knowledge of what people want pays off.
Balm of Gilead, considered by most to be a “weed” tree, does not escape the thorough-going Waages.
They cut the “junk” as most timbermen call them, saw them into sheating and find a ready market right
in our own area. The writer saw piles of the snowy white boards stacked and ready for sale.
How do they sell? Well, two weeks ago they took 1,000 fence posts to Greenbush in their truck. “We took
it in Friday and it was gone in no time … , that same day!” they said. They have had numerous requests
from a wide area for fence posts, poles, roosts and the many other things they create for utility.
They don’t plan to stop with their present operation, however. “If there was a way we could saw some of
those cedar butts into shingles, we’d sure do that,” Selmer said as he scratched his chin thoughtfully.
“But then, we can’t do it all at once,” he says brightening.
“Yes, we plan to use the balsam waste for laths … of course only that we couldn’t use for larger stuff,”
Enok says. They are giving serious consideration to this project for next winter when they may top their
peak employment of 30 men this winter. They have tapered off to 15 men at the present time in
preparation for the coming break-up.
Forestry men are amazed and gratified to find such a complete utilization of the woods in their charge.
Willard West and Con Larson of the Warroad station are wondering what the Waages will find next on a
timber tract formerly thought inhospitable to profitable operation.
As the author left their camp with the forestry men, that question was partly answered. The Waages
were discussing the possibility of cutting birch especially for those folks who own fireplaces and would
love to have some of the clean wood snapping and crackling behind their andirons. “We’ve already had
requests,” they said.
We left the camp warmed with the complete hospitality of the outfit … the open, smiling welcome and
the easy friendliness of everyone, from Bull Cook Henry Anderson (whom we kidded unmercifully) to the
fresh frankness of the three Waage brothers and their crew. We got the impression they were doing
something they liked to do. Doing it together and making it pay its own way.
“Wonder what they’ll do with those yard-long two-inch slivers,” I asked West as we rolled by the camp
outskirts. “Them? Oh, Olaf told me they were going to haul them home and use them to chink up
between the slabs they have used on a shed,” he laughed.
Wonder what they’ll do with the roots!
That was 69 years ago. There are still plenty of men around here that make a living in the woods, and
luckily trees keep growing.
Thank you to 
for letting us share our county’s history with your listeners by donating air time, studio time, and production staff every week.