DCHP-1 Online

stick ((1))

• 1a n. Lumbering, Hist. a piece of square timber.

  See also: square timber  timber stick  

  • 1806  (1903)  One stick only remained on the rock, with Martin clinging to one end and me to the other.
  • 1854  The rude and insecure manner in which the sticks of timber are retained in a crib, although sufficient to carry them in safety through the navigable rapids, forbids the attempt to pass them down the chûtes or higher falls.
  • 1947  (1963)  Down the Ottawa . . . floated the great square "sticks" of timber in thousands; and all along its shores lay heaps of "slash," while great gashes in the forest showed like wounds.
  • 1964  Each March the King's Purveyor certified the number and sizes of the sticks that had been brought to the stream, "trimmed four-square and fit for rafting."

• 1b n. Lumbering a tree suitable for logging.

  • 1829, 1248  Sticks, or pines suitable for making masts of, are rare, and not to be found in the forest but by very intelligent lumbermen... .
  • 1849  Our guides . . . now left us with a small present, having come so far to see our forest-camp and to try and discover "sticks" for lumber.
  • 1863  "I daursay now, that stick's standing about a thousand years. . . ."

• 1c n. Lumbering a log.

  • 1849  Some "sticks" thrust others to the edge of the rapids. . . .
  • 1907  My duties as clerk were . . . to record the number of sticks, large and small, hauled to the river each day.
  • 1964  Winter's work [means] the total of sticks, lumber, rinds and so forth that a man can produce while living with his family away from his settlement "in the woods for the winter."

• 2 n. Esp. North stick of fish, a group of ten fish skewered on a rod to be hung on a stage (def. 3) for freezing or drying for later use.

  See also: stage ((n.)) (def. 3)  stick ((3)) (def. 2)  

  • 1804  [We then pierce the fish with the point of a knife through the bone at about two inches from the tail and string them by tens of a twisted willow branch, then hang them on poles, with their heads down, in a shady place.]
  • 1887  It is quite a common thing, when an Indian has preserved nothing for himself, to go to a Hudson's Bay Company's man and ask for "a stick of fish."
  • 1944  Ten fish were threaded on each of the sticks--to make what is called, in North Country vernacular, "a stick of fish." Each "stick" was worth about a dollar. And the sticks were hung on the racks to freeze in the chill autumn air.
  • 1956  One canoe we filled with sticks of fish.