Horse Power

Logging hasn’t been entirely taken over by diesel-powered machines. Some companies still use an old-fashioned source of power: hay.

Frank Kuehn, pictured, grew up stacking firewood and working with horses. After working in mechanized logging, he decided to combine his love of horses with his experience in timber and open a horse logging business. Photo by Brian Penchoff.

Some loggers use horses to survey property, drag logs and build trails. Frank Kuehn, of Northwoods Horse Logging, owns one of those animal-powered companies and recently worked on a property in Door County.

Kuehn got into the horse logging business when he combined his love of horses with his experience in timber. He grew up with horses, and has been working with logging and wood since he was a kid, starting with chopping and stacking firewood. After a few years doing mechanized logging with big machinery, he went back to using horse power.

Kuehn works mostly in Michigan’s upper peninsula, but in mid-February worked on Bill Andersen’s property in Door County on County Highway A. Andersen wanted to log cedar to build some poles and to create a trail in his forest.

“It was just kind of a convenient thing,” Andersen said. “It looked kind of cool that the logs came from just down the street and they were pulled out of the woods by horses.”

Although he can’t compete with the low costs of regular commercial loggers, Kuehn said there are some benefits to using horses to log a property. Forests are less impacted by horse hooves than by big machines, and the trails that have to be cut to get into the property are considerably smaller for horses.

Frank Kuehn directs a team of horses through Bill Andersen’s property. Horses make less of an impact on the land during logging, compared to big machines. “I guess there’s a little more romance to [horse logging] than seeing a diesel power piece of metal going through your woods,” said forester Bill Ruff. Photo by Brian Penchoff.

“[Customers] are calling me for the low-impact part of it and not having the big machine coming through the woods and rut up the ground and damaging the trees that would be left there to grow,” said Kuehn.

While he uses fewer fossil fuels than the competition, Kuehn doesn’t think that’s the reason customers choose to do business with him. Most are thinking about doing what’s best for their property more than the exhaust generated from machines.

“I think people like the greener aspect of it, but I don’t know if that’s necessarily a selling factor for anyone I’ve worked for so far,” Kuehn said. “We still use a certain amount of fossil fuels. I buy my hay from local farmers and that’s produced with tractors and stuff like that. I don’t burn 20 to 50 gallons of diesel fuel a day, we run two to three in our motor for stacking the wood. We do use less fuel when you look at it that way versus what a logging company would use.”

Kuehn isn’t the only horse logger left. While many rely on diesel power, some have stuck to the old-fashioned means of managing forests.

“There are some guys that still like to work with horses and enjoy that part of the old school logging,” said Department of Natural Resources forester Bill Ruff, who worked on the forest plan for the horse-logged parcel on County A. “Obviously they’re a minority now, most of [logging] has gone mechanized. [Horse logging] is still done around the state. I think most parts of the state have some active horse loggers, but they’re the true minority.”

Frank Kuehn, Jeremy Heimbecher and Mike Kuehn, pictured left to right, logged Bill Andersen’s property in Door County. Photo by Brian Penchoff.

Ruff said charm may be an appealing factor to horse logging.

“For some people it’s a nostalgic thing they still like to see,” Ruff said. “I guess there’s a little more romance to it than seeing a diesel power piece of metal going through your woods. [For the loggers] it’s as much of a love of horses and working with them as it is a livelihood.”