Paul Bunyan

Paul Bunyan is a giant lumberjack and folk hero in American and Canadian folklore. His tall tales revolve around his superhuman labors, and he is customarily accompanied by Babe the Blue Ox (French: Babe le bœuf bleu), his pet and working animal. The character originated in the oral tradition of North American loggers, and was later popularized by freelance writer William B. Laughead (1882–1958) in a 1916 promotional pamphlet for the Red River Lumber Company. He has been the subject of various literary compositions, musical pieces, commercial works, and theatrical productions. His likeness is displayed in a number of oversized statues across North America.

There are many hypotheses about the etymology of the name Paul Bunyan. Much of the commentary focuses on a French-Canadian origin for the name. Phonetically, Bunyan is similar to the Québécois expression "bon yenne!" expressing surprise or astonishment. The English surname Bunyan is derived from the same root as "bunion" in the Old French bugne, referring to a large lump or swelling. Several researchers have attempted to trace Paul Bunyan to the character of Bon Jean of French Canadian folklore.

Michael Edmonds states in his 2009 book Out of the Northwoods: The Many Lives of Paul Bunyan that Paul Bunyan stories circulated for at least thirty years before finding their way into print. In contrast to the lengthy narratives abundant in published material, Paul Bunyan "stories" when told in the lumbercamp bunkhouses were presented in short fragments. Some of these stories include motifs from older folktales, such as absurdly severe weather and fearsome critters. Parallels in early printings support the view that at least a handful of Bunyan stories hold a common origin in folklore.

The first known reference of Paul Bunyan in print appeared in the March 17, 1893, issue of Gladwin County Record. Under the local news section for the area of Beaverton, it reads, "Paul Bunion [sic] is getting ready while the water is high to take his drive out." This line was presumably an inside joke, as it appeared over fifteen years before any commercial use of the Paul Bunyan name. At the time, few of the general public would have known who Paul Bunyan was.

The earliest recorded story of Paul Bunyan is an uncredited 1904 editorial in the Duluth News Tribune which recounts:

His pet joke and the one with which the green horn at the camp is sure to be tried, consists of a series of imaginative tales about the year Paul Bunyan lumbered in North Dakota. The great Paul is represented as getting out countless millions of timber in the year of the "blue snow". The men's shanty in his camp covered a half section, and the mess camp was a stupendous affair. The range on which an army of cookees prepared the beans and "red horse" was so long that when the cook wanted to grease it up for the purpose of baking the wheat cakes in the morning, they strapped two large hams to his feet and started him running up and down a half mile of black glistening stove top.

Each of these elements recurs in later accounts, including logging the Dakotas, a giant camp, the winter of the blue snow, and stove skating. All four anecdotes are mirrored in J. E. Rockwell's "Some Lumberjack Myths" six years later, and James MacGillivray wrote on the subject of stove skating in "Round River" four years before that.

MacGillivray's account, somewhat extended, reappeared in The American Lumberman in 1910. The American Lumberman followed up with a few sporadic editorials, such as "Paul Bunyan's Oxen", "In Paul Bunyan's Cook Shanty", and "Chronicle of Life and Works of Mr. Paul Bunyan". Rockwell's earlier story was one of the few to allude to Paul Bunyan's large stature, "eight feet tall and weighed 300 pounds", and introduce his big blue ox, before Laughead commercialized Paul Bunyan, although W. D. Harrigan referred to a giant pink ox in "Paul Bunyan's Oxen", circa 1914. In all the articles, Paul Bunyan is praised as a logger of great physical strength and unrivaled skill.