When Knysna’s woodcutters cut wood
Adam Stander was born in the Knysna forest in 1928 and given two birth days, 22 November, when his name was carved on a tree to note his birth and 28 November, the day his woodcutter father travelled into town and registered his son’s birth.
The Knysna forest, which forms part of the “Garden Route” on South Africa’s southern coastline, was historically significant from colonial times as a natural timber resource used for fuelwood, construction, shipbuilding, furniture, and other purposes.
Life was hard
Life was hard for forest woodcutters. Boys from a young age laboured in their father’s harvesting team and were taken out of school when they were about 12 to work full-time. It was a challenging and dangerous life, with woodcutters working and camping in hazardous conditions to harvest and transport trees out of the forest to sawmills in Knysna.
Adam often regaled his daughter, Dalena Wolmarans, with stories of growing up and working with his father, and later with his own oxen, deep in the Knysna forest.
“Good for” payments
Woodcutters were usually paid with a “Good for” list of items they could exchange for their timber, including foodstuffs like sweet potatoes, flour, and coffee. This meant that no money was exchanged, which made it nearly impossible to save and break free from this kind of life.
On one occasion, potatoes were left in the fire overnight to cool. The elephants paid the camp a visit after dark, scratched out the potato treats and ate the men’s breakfast! Another time, the bread was five days old and too hard to eat. The men rolled it into hard balls that they threw at a few luckless doves, managing to kill them for dinner.
In 1913, a new Forest Act required woodcutters to register to practise their trade. The register of that time reflects 1,260 woodcutters.
The trees were numbered, and the registered men had to draw numbers out of a hat to obtain the trees they were allowed to harvest. They often had to walk deep into the forest to find and fell the allocated tree. Frequently, it was in a deep valley or on a steep slope, making it backbreaking to extract.
By this time, the government realised that harvesting indigenous timber was unsustainable and promoted the planting of pine plantations.
Adam Stander legacy
Adam had an entrepreneurial spirit and was determined to work his way out of the forest. In 1950, the owner of a Knysna garage was so impressed by the young man’s resolve that he did an unheard-of thing in those days and loaned him the money to buy a truck.
For almost 30 years, AJJ Stander Vervoer transported pine for Thesens Sawmill, the largest sawmill in the area at the time, until its wood yard burned down. Thereafter, he hauled timber for Urbans Sawmill in George.
He also established Adam Stander Houtverkope and a sawmill until he handed the reins to Dalena to continue growing the family legacy.
