United States and Canada.

 Paul Bunyan was the  most famous lumberjack ever. He was born big. As he grew bigger and bigger, he needed Something Big to do in a Big Way.

Paul tried hunting. He was too big for that line of work. He found that out the time he shot a bear. Paul went to see where the bear fell. With his long legs he got to the bear before the bullet did. You know what happened? Paul got that bullet in his own rear end!

 Paul found his best friend, Babe the Blue Ox, during the Winter of the Blue Snow. Babe stood up and started kicking over trees as if they were toothpicks. That’s when Paul knew what kind of work he should do. He decided to clear trees to build the new landof America. This would become his life’s work.

 He and Babe became a team. Paul would swing his axe. The tree would fall. Then Babe would pull out the stump.

 Paul began to set up lumber camps all across the country. He put a lot of people to work cutting down trees. Of course, no one was faster or stronger than Paul Bunyan himself.

 Feeding all those hungry lumberjacks was a problem. They could eat hundreds and hundreds of pancakes. The cook, Hot Biscuit Slim, couldn’t make enough pancakes in his little pans.

 “I have an idea!” Paul called to the cook. Paul’s voice was very loud. Three men were knocked over by the sound.

 Paul got a blacksmith to make a big, round pancake griddle. It was a mile wide. The question was how to get that griddle over to the lumber camp.

 “No problem!” said Paul in his big voice. He turned the heavy iron griddle on its edge. Then he rolled it along like a giant silver dollar. He rolled it the whole way to the lumber camp.

 Next, Paul tied slabs of bacon to the feet of the cookhouse boys. Those boys skated across the griddle. In no time at all, it was greased up and ready.

 Hot Biscuit Slim got to work. He made pancakes so big it took five men to eat one. Paul could eat one pancake all by himself. The pancake problem was fixed.

 The next problem came up at a camp in Michigan. There was not enough room to store drinking water for all the lumberjacks. So Paul dug out a hole to store rain water. It wasn’t big enough. He dug another hole. Still not enough. In the end, Paul dug out five great big holes. Today, they are called the Great Lakes. That’s one way Paul Bunyan changed the map.

 Another map change happened the time Babe got sick. Paul heard about springs of water in Wyoming. Drinking this water was supposed to make sick people well. So Paul took Babe to Wyoming.

 Paul began to dig for a spring. He dug so deep, he dropped his shovel. It fell for an hour before he heard it hit. Then, all of a sudden the shovel came flying out of the ground. It flew up on a pole of steam. That iron shovel got so hot, it melted.

 An hour later, steam came shooting from the ground again. The next hour it happened again. As a matter of fact, Paul had found what everyone now calls Old Faithful. Ever since, it shoots up hot steam every hour. People from far and wide go to Wyoming to get a look.

 And what about Babe? Well, he just got sicker. Paul decided to take him to California. May be some good weather would make the ox well again.

 By the time they got to Utah, Paul thought Babe was almost dead. He started digging a grave. He cried as he dug, thinking about life without his best friend. He cried so many big, salty tears into that hole that it became the Great Salt Lake.

 After that, Paul and Babe headed across Arizona. Paul carried Babe on his shoulders and dragged his axe behind him. The axe was so big, it left a deep mark. It was a ditch, really. Pretty soon people started calling that ditch the Grand Canyon.

 The story of Paul Bunyan is a story without an end. Years later, Babe did die. That’s when Paul decided his lumberjack days were over. Times had changed. Paul didn’t feel needed anymore. So one night Paul just walked out of the camp. No one saw him go. He never came back.

 Paul Bunyan still lives somewhere out in the woods. He won’t die till the last tree is cut down. And a good many hole that will never happen.