Who is Paul Bunyan?
Tales of the Paul Bunyan type originated as separate anecdotes or “gags” “exchange” in competitive bragging or lying contests and involving “sells” and the pranking of greenhorns. “The best authorities,” writes W. B. Langhead (and in this the experts all agree), “never recounted Paul Bunyan’s exploits in narrative form. They made their statements more impressive by dropping them casually, in an offhand way, as if in reference to actual events of common knowledge.” Such remarks often began with a phrase of reminiscence or reminder: “Time I was with Paul UP in the Big Onion country –“; “That happened the year I went up for Paul Bunyan”; “Did you ever hear of the — that Paul Bunyan –? James Stevens traced the mythical Paul Bunyan to a French-Canadian, logger named Paul Bunyan who won a reputation as a prodigious fighter in the Papineau Rebellion against the Queen in 1837, and later became famous as the boss of a logging camp–“he fight like hell, he work like hell, and he pack like hel
The exact truth about the Legendary Paul Bunyan is clouded in the mist of history and may never be known. However, it might be Canada that may hold the key to the true birthplace of Paul Bunyan. The lore began during the Canadian Papineau Rebellion while many local loggers joined the cause of refusing to surrender to the English troops. Among the loggers was a bellicose, bearded, mountain of a man named Paul Bunyan. Bellowing like thunder, with a huge wooden fork in one hand and a mattock in the other, this giant bull of a logger raged wildy among the troops. Paul’s actions quickly grew to legendary proportions and spread throughout the Logging Camps. The legendary tales of “Paul Bunyan” eventually made their way across the border through lumberjacks as they moved from one camp to another. The legend evolved and ultimately became the tall-tale stories commonly known throughout North America. The Stories grew a little with each retelling and over time Paul became an inventor, and orator
