If you want to know about real manly men, you should check out these guys. Heck, even Wikipedia knows about 'em:
Big Joe Mufferaw
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Big Joe Mufferaw was a French Canadian folk hero from the Ottawa Valley, perhaps best known today as the hero of a song by Stompin' Tom Connors. Like Paul Bunyan, he made his living chopping down trees. The name is also sometimes spelled Muffero, Muffera, and Montferrand. The last spelling is more common among francophones; anglophones who had trouble with it used one of the other spellings.
In addition to being the subject of many Paul Bunyan-esque tall tales, Mufferaw is sometimes enlisted as a defender of oppressed French Canadian loggers in the days when their bosses were English and their rivals for work were Irish. In one story, Big Joe was in a Montreal bar, where a British army major named Jones was freely insulting French Canadians. After Big Joe beat the major, he bellowed, "Any more insults for the Canadians?"
Some Mufferaw tales take place in the United States.
A real strongman, a logger in the Ottawa Valley timber trade by the name of Joseph Montferrand lived from 1802 to 1864. French Canadian writer Benjamin Sulte told this man's story in a 1975 book. He also is the subject of a chapter in Joan Finnegan's 1981 book Giants of the Ottawa Valley and her 1983 book Look! The Land is Growing Giants. Bernie Bedore of Arnprior also wrote several books recounting Joe's adventures.
A statue of Joe Mufferaw was erected outside of the Mattawa Museum in Mattawa, Ontario, during the spring of 2005. It was carved by local carving artist Peter Cianafrani, and was his last statue before he died later in the spring. A plaque commemorating his name sits at the base of the statue.
And then ya got yer Paul Bunyan.
One legend says that at the mouth of the river in the Two Mountains area near Saint-Eustache, Quebec, loggers stormed into battle against the British, among them a fierce and bearded giant named Paul Bonjean, monikered as "Bonyenne". (Another series of related legends are based on the feats of an actual man having lived in logging camps in the Ottawa Valley named Big Joe Mufferaw or Jos. Montferrand.) Defender of the people, the popular hero's legends moved up-river from shanty ("chantier" in French) to shanty. His name was anglicised and stories were eventually modified and added upon from storyteller to storyteller. He was also 7'9 which is over average for a normal human.
Bunyan's birth was somewhat unusual, as are the births of many mythic heroes, as it took five storks to carry the infant (ordinarily, one stork could carry several babies and drop them off at their parents' homes). When he was old enough to clap and laugh, the vibration broke every window in the house. When he was seven months old, he sawed the legs off his parents' bed in the middle of the night.[12] Paul and Babe the Blue Ox, his companion, dug the Grand Canyon when he dragged his axe behind him. He created Mount Hood by piling rocks on top of his campfire to put it out.
Babe the Blue Ox, Bunyan's companion, was a massive creature with exceptional strength.[13] Most imagery of Bunyan shows Babe the Blue Ox as being of proportionate size (meaning massive compared to typical oxen). Among other subjects, a myth about the formation of Great Lakes was centered around Babe: Paul Bunyan needed to create a watering hole large enough for Babe to drink from.[9] There are also stories telling that the 10,000 Lakes of Minnesota were formed from the footprints of Paul and Babe while they wandered blindly in a deep blizzard. Daniel Boone and Davy Crockett were said to give Babe to Paul Bunyan, because they were all "woodsey" pioneer types. Paul Bunyan has dozens of towns vying to be considered his home. Several authors, including James Stevens and D. Laurence Rogers, have traced the tales to the exploits of French-Canadian lumberjack Fabian "Saginaw Joe" Fournier, 1845–1875. Fournier worked for the H. M. Loud Company in the Grayling, Michigan area, 1865–1875, where MacGillivray later worked and apparently picked up the stories.
The state of Michigan declared Oscoda, Michigan as the official home of Paul Bunyan because it had the earliest documented published stories by MacGillivray. Other towns such as Bemidji, Brainerd, Shelton, and Westwood; Bay City; Wahoo; Eau Claire; and even Bangor also claim the title.
Kelliher, Minnesota is the home of Paul Bunyan Memorial Park, which contains a site purporting to be Paul Bunyan's grave. Another legend claims that Rib Mountain in Wausau, Wisconsin, is Bunyan's grave site.
Mike Fink, another unsung hero and manly man.
Mike Fink was born at Fort Pitt in present-day Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and served as an Indian scout in his teens. Even as a teen, he was an unbeatable marksman, and he earned the name "Bangall" among militiamen at Fort Pitt. When the Indian wars of the region ended in the early 1790s, Fink, like many other scouts, spurned a sedentary life as a farmer. Instead, he drifted into the transport business on the Ohio and Mississippi—and quickly picked up a new nickname: "the Snapping Turtle."
When he began his career in navigation, he became notorious, both for his practical jokes, and for his willingness to fight anyone who was not amused. His 180-pound frame stretched 6'3″ in height,[2] and the muscles required to force a keelboat upstream would have made him a formidable opponent to most.[3] It was said that he could drink a gallon of whisky and still shoot the tail off a pig at 90 paces; and Fink himself proclaimed on every possible occasion that he could "out-run, out-hop, out-jump, throw-down, drag out, and lick any man in the country."[1]
Huh? You still don't know who Mike Fink is? He'll tell you.
Uncle Bud is a Cajun manly man but he is for another time, another story.
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