bareroots

Love that pic, but they would have fallen a couple of floors at most, not 700ft!

 

They were amazing though. 3 guys in that pic are Mohawk Indians, who apparently have no fear of height genetically?

Something I found... It looks like the genetic answer is but urban myth. Still, the thing is they did it. Not the reason why. More balls to them I suppose.

A Straight Dope Classic from Cecil's Storehouse of Human Knowledge

Why do so many Native Americans work on skyscrapers?

December 18, 1992

Dear Cecil:

What's the deal with the historical hiring of Native American Indians to work on skyscrapers? Have they all truly been blessed with a lack of fear for heights?

— Robert Wallman, New York

Dear Robert:

Nah, it's the warrior ethic. Really. But first we'd better have a little background. It's not just any American Indian who goes into ironwork, it's mostly Iroquois, specifically Mohawks from the Kahnawake reservation near Montreal.

The Mohawks got into the business by happenstance. In 1886 a Canadian company was building a railroad bridge over the St. Lawrence river near the Kahnawake reservation. The company hired a number of Mohawks as day laborers, but found they loved to climb around on the ironwork without any apparent fear of heights. Since it was difficult to find men with the moxie for high work, the company decided to try an Indian crew. "We picked out some and gave them a little training, and it turned out that putting riveting tools in their hands was like putting ham with eggs," a company official later wrote. Mohawks helped build bridges from then on.

In 1907 96 men were killed when a span of the Quebec Bridge collapsed during construction; 35 of them were Indians from Kahnawake. The dead were buried in the Kahnawake cemetery under crosses made of steel beams. Your average construction worker might have decided it was time to go into a safer line of work, but not the Mohawks. From that day forward every young male on the reservation was convinced that risking your neck on high steel was the coolest calling this world could offer.

The Mohawks eventually branched out from bridges into general steel construction, including office buildings. During the late 1920s a number of Kahnawake crews started working on skyscrapers in New York, and they've been a fixture of the city's construction scene ever since. Some crews--the members are often related to one another--spend the weekends on the reservation and drive down to New York for the week; others live in Brooklyn. But they'll travel anywhere if there's steel to climb.

Do the Mohawks really have no fear of heights? Their employers think so, and the Indians themselves like to make out as though dancing on some I-beam 600 feet in the air is no more disruptive to their peace of mind than stepping off a curb. Edmund Wilson, who wrote several essays about the Iroquois for the New Yorker in the 1950s, quoted one modest steel jockey's claim that he had "an uncanny sense of balance," and attributed their skill to "their earlier life, from threading forests and scaling mountains, from canoeing in streams rough with rapids. A very important factor is undoubtedly their habit, in walking, of putting one foot in front of the other, instead of straddling, as we seem to them to do. They do not need to make an effort in walking a narrow beam."

Far be it from me to make light of this portrait of the noble red man, but there may be a simpler explanation: they do it because it's macho. Evidence on this point comes to us from anthropologist Morris Freilich, who published a solemn academic study on the subject in 1958. Ordinarily Cecil doesn't take this kind of thing too seriously, but in this instance was impressed by Freilich's impeccable research methodology: he spent his nights getting schnockered with the Mohawks at their favorite bar in Brooklyn.

One night when they were all drunk the Indians admitted they were scared fecal matter-less while iron hopping; they just didn't admit it because of the above-mentioned warrior ethic. (They didn't actually say "warrior ethic," of course; that was Freilich's take on it.) Freilich pointed out in his article that the Iroquois warrior tradition boiled down to going off with the boys to perform insane feats of bravery and generally raise hell, then coming home and boasting about your exploits. The warpath being no longer socially acceptable, steelwork was the next best thing. Sure, it's one of those silly male things. But I'd say it beats joining the men's movement and pounding a drum.

— Cecil Adams

bum luck with the wasps

Lets hope you had your top on

Try Kevin Clark at Ambleside

clarky will want to sell it split by the trailer load.

Sam's a little far away. I was hoping for who ever it is that keeps driving past my house with a full artic.

Looking for a load hodge.big load, small load. anything

sounds steep to me. I'd get your basic tickets, find work and read a few text books and you'll learn a lot more and get paid for it. Craven college in Skipton seems to be doing the cheapest courses around. do 30,31, and the tree climbing course, what used to be 38/39. both will cost you less then £1000. The buy a saw, trouser, boots and helmet. You'll be set up to work as a groundie. There's great books that combined with working experience are more then enough.

funny accent

Looking for a delivery of wood to rydal. Seasoned wood only. Anything available?

Good to see somebody at this, I was a mad tree climber as a kid and remember getting to the top of a monkey puzzle and feeling sick with fear when I looked down.

 

Keep the videos coming I enjoy watching them there great.

hey there Mark. You must be one crazy cat to be climbing a monkey puzzle solo.

Fair play, that is pretty cool.

You have to choose the tree carefully I bet.

oak, beech, plane, are all fairly reliable and good to play with. Good strength, unions, agreeable bark. The internal complexities vary but that just changes the nature of the routes that you do in them.

Just found a new grove of beech trees in my area. There's a right tangle of trees with some great laterals for balance and brachiation.

today I was made two rounds of cheese and ham sandwiches and some fine coffee

in the past I was given a cajun water smoker. a really lovely way to cook. moist and flavoursome. Cooked up some venision kebabs in it this summer gone, Apple chips on the coals... delgihtful.

You should try it JP with some of that game you get.

Nice tree!

the best

I like it as a steel erecter ive seen a lot of guys that have precision balance seen guys walk across 3 inch roof bracing 120 ft up backwards Until:001_smile: 5 years ago we always use to walk roof perlins out hse changed all that.

it's amazing what some folk do, I've always loved that photo of workers having lunch on the girders of the empire state building whilst it's being built.

Men on a Girder Having Lunch, New York City Collection Poster: 91.5cm x 61cm - Buy Online

here is other two links for convenience...

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C8tN9WD5HVY&feature=mfu_in_order&list=UL]tree climbing three.MOV - YouTube[/ame]

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ABKn0qDIEjo]tree climbing 1.MOV - YouTube[/ame]

here's the last vid of three I made... The other two are in the climbing page of the forum.

why post?

I want to know if there is anyone else doing this at this level or any level or interested in doing it. I've trained (if you can call it that - more just playing about whilst walking the dog) by myself for years. I'm looking for a creative interplay between others. New angles, a bit of friendly competition to motivate.

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W_VbupEPBJ4&feature=related]tree climbing 2 - YouTube[/ame]

do as he says and make him an offer. make the first one daft and see if he takes it... ie offer him £3000. If he balks then ask him what he was hoping for... scratch your chin and say oh i don't think i could go to that. double your offer. walk away. call him a week later and discuss it again. don't act keen. you're doing him the favour buying his land.

I feel your pain... who wants to weed when they can fly.

I think there is always work out there if you look hard enough.

Call every tree surgeon in the book, write them a letter.

There is always work on the railways and motorways that needs doing.

Get some free cards printed on vista print and get your own work coming in.

Never say die.

Good luck

balance is a funny thing. one minute you have it, centred, focused, state of flow, zen, then it's gone and you're flailing all over the place like a drunken fool then, bang, 'there is no spoon', you've got it back, present within the body doing the gravitaionally impossible again. tripping about on the edge of balance is just about as good as sex (not quite mind)

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C8tN9WD5HVY]tree climbing three.MOV - YouTube[/ame]

I do climb rock. but trees were my frist love (i grew up in nottingham - not too many rock immediately at hand - building sites and cranes did provide some relief mind) i grew up next to some lovely park land with mature stand alone trees to play around in to my hearts content. I migrated towards the oak, beech and plane trees. they give the best routes, bark and reliability for climbing sans string in my experience.

Is there anyone else out there that climbs just for the crack? You see I'm wanting to develop this further. Get a group of people together that really can rip round a tree.

Anyone out there that does, please get in touch.

I didn't know you Caledonians were so bashful; whatever happened to that indefatigable and shameless spirit that precipitated such a garment as the kilt...?

35

does that make me an old git or just an ageing one?

if there's anyone interested in meeting up for a bit of this sort of climbing then drop me a line. There's a beautiful row of mature beeches with interlocking branches near me in Ambleside where I've mapped out some lovely circuits.

thanks guys, got to do something to keep myself smiling

for those wanting to see the missing lunge...

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ABKn0qDIEjo]tree climbing 1.MOV - YouTube[/ame]

Brrrr bit chilly that no? great pics but theres a lunge missing in there...

a lunge?