Once upon a time there was a rugged man named Jack. He lived in the northern woods of Wisconsin, near Eau Claire, with his brother Paul. They lived in a meager log cabin and foraged for food daily, living off the land and hunting what wild animals they could in the woods. They struggled to make ends meet. Paul had many friends; Jack did not. In fact, Paul would often say to his friends, "you don't know Jack!"
One day, Jack decided to go to the forest and chop down a tree. When he returned to the log cabin to tell Paul what he had done, Paul immdiately asked what Jack planned to do with the wood from the tree. Jack scratched his head. He hadn't thought that far ahead. Then, all of a sudden, he had an idea. "Let's sell the wood to the logging industry and they can harvest and finish it and sell it to the settlers moving into Wisconsin who want to build houses," Jack said. Paul was skeptical, thinking there probably was not a market for such an endeavor.
Jack asked Paul if he could borrow Babe the Blue ox, who belonged to Paul and ride down south and see if he could negotiate some deals. Jack took off shortly thereafter.
Imagine Paul's surprise when Jack returned a month later with a handful of contracts! "The logging industry wants all the wood we can get to them," Jack told Paul. From that day on, both Jack and Paul worked from sun up to sun down chopping down trees. They never had to struggle to make ends meet ever again.
The logging industry was estatic with all of the wood and worked hard to harvest and finish it into lumber and sell it to all the settlers who had moved into the area. It was a great success and they enjoyed working with Jack for many, many years. It was not long before everyone in the logging industry knew Jack and he affectionally came to be known as Lumber Jack.
Many others would follow in Lumber Jack's footsteps, chopping trees in the forests of northern Wisconsin and it was not long before the word lumberjack was coined and all men who chopped trees would henceforth be known as lumberjacks.