Steam Donkey in Quatsino Sound

This week's North Island historical photo shows a logging crew, three uniformed members of the Armed Forces, and an unidentified woman posing with a steam donkey. The photo was taken in Quatsino Sound by Ben Leeson in the early 1900s.
From the mid-1880s, when they were invented, until about 1920, most steam donkeys were powered by a fire which created the steam. One person's job was just to manage the firewood to keep the boiler running. For a short period after that some donkeys ran on oil powered engines. Steam donkeys were an essential piece of coastal forestry equipment until about the 1930s, enabling loggers to pull logs through the woods, therefore leading to logging moving from steep coastal areas to more inland locations.

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