Big Wheels and Big Trees at the Rhinelander Logging Museum
Most of the early logging was done during the winter for many reasons. 
Transportation was the main reason, getting these logs to the river highways was significantly easier to do over frozen ground, and getting the logs down the rivers was much easier during the spring flooding season.
Logging in the winter also allowed the loggers to spend the summers scratching out farms from the dense forest which would hopefully allow their familys to eat while they spend the winter in logging camp.
Although the forests were mostly cut during the late 1800's, they have grown back in all but the areas where farmers were successful in beating back the encroaching trees that quickly re-populate any area that is not being actively farmed.
