A Jamcracker's Boots

This etching of boots nailed to a tree is part of an in-progress installation. Jamcrackers were the people hired to break apart jams during log drives on rivers: a very dangerous job involving walking on top of the floating log-jam, and using pikes and sometimes dynamite to get them flowing downstream again to market. In some places, when a jamcracker died, his fellows would nail his boots to a tree beside the river as a memorial.