wanigan

Noun

wangan (plural wangans)

1. (Maine, US, lumber trade) A boat for conveying provisions, tools, and so forth.
   • Wanigan or wangan was the Indian name for boathouse or houseboat, and the wanigans, carrying the cook shacks and supplies, floated down the rivers when the pioneer log drives were underway.1942 August, “They Play Jackstraws with Trees”, in Popular Mechanics, page 88
2. (Maine, US, lumber trade) Any location or cache of equipment, such as a camp, building, or chest of supplies or tools.
   • I should explain "wangan." It is an Indian word, and can mean almost anything, like the Latin res. It can mean a camp or building. Pond-in-the-River wangan—or Pondy wangan, as the drivers call it—is a long, low shack a third of a mile above us, where the Rapid River crew lives during the drive....1942, Louise Dickinson Rich, We Took to the Woods, JB Lippincott Co, →LCCN, →OCLC, pages 183–184
3. (Maine, US, lumber trade) The company store debt of a lumberman.

See all 6 meanings of wangan