Misha Sergyeyev & Emre Şenay
Misha Sergyeyev was safely out at sea when Russia invaded Ukraine. His wife, youngest daughter and mother-in-law weren’t so fortunate. …Twice the women reached a checkpoint only to be turned back by Ukrainian soldiers. On their third try, they escaped to Romania and moved on to Turkey. …Emre and Oksana (Misha’s eldest daughter) had immigrated to Canada years earlier. Oksana began working to bring her family to Canada as refugees, a process complicated by the fact that her grandmother didn’t have a passport or other personal identification. Meanwhile Emre wondered if there might be a place for Misha at Kalesnikoff. He was a skilled professional with 25 years as an electrical and technical officer on ships. “I just made Chris Kalesnikoff aware of it, and then he gave us a chance,” says Emre.
Misha is now an electrical assistant on Kalesnikoff’s resource team. …While other relatives escaped to Poland, the family still has cousins and friends in Ukraine. Most are in rural areas where it’s safer, but some remain in the cities. “They’re not afraid,” Misha says. His brother-in-law tells him, “If we die, we die. If we live, we live.” Emre explains: “If fear is preventing you from living your life, you stop being afraid … They just live with that fact. It’s unbelievable to me too but I can kind of relate.” …Misha expects the war to drag on for another year or two, with recovery efforts stretching well into the future, so the family is settling in the Kootenays for the long haul.
West Fraser Timber says it is cutting production at three of its northern B.C. mills partly because of a lack of timber supplies, resulting in a loss of 147 jobs. …The shift reductions will mean a loss of 77 jobs at its Fraser Lake Sawmill, 15 positions at Williams Lake Lumber, and 55 jobs at Quesnel Plywood. The company says it expects to reduce the impact on affected employees by providing work opportunities at other West Fraser operations. …Access to timber has become an increasing challenge in BC. …Fraser Lake Mayor Sarrah Storey said she was shocked by the announcement, despite the company previously making production and job cuts in northern B.C. in 2019. …”Generations of families worked at West Fraser sawmills, like parents and grandparents, then these youth that are now young adults moved into the system and they don’t have that same opportunity,” she said. 
VANCOUVER, B.C. – West Fraser Timber announced today it is permanently curtailing approximately 170 million board feet of combined production at its Fraser Lake and Williams Lake sawmills and approximately 85 million square feet of plywood production at its Quesnel Plywood mill. The curtailments will be realized through the elimination of one shift at each facility. The reduction in capacity is expected to impact 77 positions at Fraser Lake Sawmill, 15 positions at Williams Lake Lumber, and 55 positions at Quesnel Plywood and will occur over the course of the fourth quarter of 2022. The Company expects to mitigate the impact on effected employees by providing work opportunities at other West Fraser operations. Access to available timber is an increasing challenge in British Columbia and ongoing transportation constraints have impaired the Company’s ability to reliably access markets. These capacity reductions are necessary to better align West Fraser’s operating capacity with available timber and transport availability.
B.C.’s big three forestry giants had lumber and other wood product sales of $6.5 billion in the second quarter of 2022, and net income of $1.4 billion, according to second quarter financials. While second quarter earnings were down compared to Q1, due to lower lumber prices, demand and prices for lumber were still strong in the second quarter. B.C.’s biggest forestry company, West Fraser Timber reported sales of $2.9 billion in the second quarter, and earnings of $762 million, which was down from $1 billion in earnings in the first quarter. Canfor reported Q2 sales of $2.2 billion and net income of $373 million. Interfor reported sales of $1.4 billion and net income of $270 million. West Fraser rewarded shareholders with a major share buyback worth $1.5 billion. …Canfor reported paying $96 million in American softwood lumber duties for the first half of 2022. Interfor reports paying $82 million in American duties in the first half of 2020; West Fraser reports paying $43 million.
VANCOUVER, BC — Conifex Timber reported results for the second quarter ended June 30, 2022. EBITDA was $20.1 million for the quarter compared to EBITDA of $37.8 million in the second quarter of 2021. Net income was $12.3 million or $0.31 per share for the year versus $26.1 million or $0.56 per share in the year-earlier quarter. …Revenues from lumber products were $68.7 million in the second quarter of 2022 representing an increase of 13% from the previous quarter and a decrease of 23% from the second quarter of 2021. …Our Mackenzie power plant sold 54.6 gigawatt hours of electricity… [which] contributed revenues of $4.8 million in the second quarter of 2022, a decrease of 40% from the previous quarter and an increase of 2% from the second quarter of 2021.
Delegates registered for the WoodTALKS program at the Global Buyers Mission this September will be treated to a collection of presentations. Join us and learn more about how buildings like the Tsawwassen First Nation Youth Centre were created. This building stands out for its commitment to the embodied carbon in our built environment. …Located on treaty lands south of Vancouver, the waterfront site is part of a unique cultural and ecological area, the meeting place of cultures and ecologies. …Leading architects, engineers, designers and developers in North America are increasingly seeking high-quality, custom mass timber products to create sustainable, safe and stunning energy-efficient architecture. In this session you will also hear from a local BC based mass timber manufacturer, Kalesnikoff Mass Timber and Lumber on how mass timber is being utilized across North America today. …From opportunities to incorporate mass timber elements to projects utilizing full scale mass timber structures, you will hear about varies examples of how you could engage with mass timber suppliers and utilize mass timber in your designs.
Due to increased grizzly bear activity in the upper Chilko River area, access to Chilko-Newton Road, south of Henry’s Crossing, will be closed to the public during salmon spawning season from Sept. 1 to Oct. 31, 2022. The Tŝilhqot’in Nation and the Province are jointly restricting public access to the upper Chilko corridor while a management plan is being written for the area. This closure is to mitigate the risks of members of the public coming into close contact with grizzly bears in the area. The closure of the road will be monitored and enforced under the BC Wildlife Act. Penalties and fines for violators will be issued.
Different name, same face. The Vancouver chapter of Extinction Rebellion has spawned another protest sub-brand that threatens to disrupt traffic Monday for an anti-shale gas march from Vancouver city hall to the CBC studios, via the Cambie Bridge. The central coordinator of Stop Fracking Around (SFA) is Muhammad Zain Ul-Haq, the Save Old Growth (SOG) co-founder. The 21-year-old Pakistani Simon Fraser University student was detained by Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) in June for allegedly violating terms of his student visa. Haq was freed after a closed-door Immigration and Refugee Board (IRB) hearing on June 23, but neither IRB nor CBSA will comment on the outcome. …SOG’s website says the group receives most of its funding for recruitment, training, capacity building and education from the Climate Emergency Fund (CEF), a California-based charity whose board includes an heiress to the Getty oil fortune. …Haq did not respond for comment.
VICTORIA – An audit of BC Timber Sales (BCTS) and timber sale licence (TSL) holders in the Terrace Field Unit portion of the BCTS Skeena Business Area found most forestry activities complied with the Forest and Range Practices Act and the Wildfire Act, but there were several exceptions. The audit found that BCTS did not report all its activities to the government’s tracking system on time. It also found that TSL holders had two bridges and three wood-box culverts that were unsafe for industrial use, and one TSL holder did not have a proper fire-suppression system on an active site. All of these findings were significant non-compliance with the legislation. The report also notes that most TSL holders did not document fire-hazard assessments following logging, a practice that needs improvement. …Since the completion of the audit, BCTS has corrected its reporting deficiencies and the TSL holders have removed the unsafe bridges and two of the three culverts.
Climate change is the greatest existential threat to society, driving wildfires, flooding and species extinctions. But, because voters care deeply about combating climate change, climate action — or, too often, lip-service in support of climate action. …Climate change is an omnipresent calamity, but as wildfire ecologists, hydrologists and biologists have been researching for years, climate change is not the only problem. If we ignore that, we overlook a wide suite of distinct issues with tangible causes and conceivable solutions. …Resolving the comorbidities of species decline, wildfires and flooding, particularly short-sighted and destructive land, water and resource management, will create effective ways to adapt to climate-fuelled destruction. Better forestry practices can reduce the threat of wildfires and help us prepare our forests for a hotter world. Better watershed management will help make places like British Columbia more resilient to atmospheric rivers and record precipitation.
Forces are gathering to halt logging in a watershed that supplies much of Vernon’s drinking water. Blue Nose Mountain resident Justin Oblak say he and other residents are concerned planned logging in the Duteau Creek watershed east of Vernon could impact water quality for tens of thousands of North Okanagan residents. The planned cutblock is within 700 metres of the Harvey Lake reservoir. Oblak says two areas are proposed to be logged, one on either side of the reservoir, which feeds into Duteau Creek. The push against the logging has been going on for months, but has just come to light. “The preservation of water quality and quantity within the Duteau Creek Watershed is a priority for the RDNO as owners of the Greater Vernon Water Utility,” the district wrote in a letter to Tolko Industries in April.
A new study has confirmed that replacing diesel fuel with biomass such as wood pellets and local chips can help mitigate GHG emissions in northern remote communities in Canada while also providing socioeconomic benefits. The research from Natural Resources Canada is entitled Greenhouse gas mitigation potential of replacing diesel fuel with wood-based bioenergy in an arctic Indigenous community: A pilot study in Fort McPherson, Canada. …The study specifically examined the GHG mitigation potential of wood-based bioenergy in northern remote communities. A life-cycle assessment-based model was developed for Fort McPherson, N.W.T., to estimate potential GHG emission reductions achieved by switching from diesel generators to wood-based bioenergy. The researchers ultimately found that replacing diesel fuel with wood-based bioenergy resulted in GHG emissions savings of 26,623 to 32,155 tonnes of CO2 per year over 100 years using – local willow wood chips and savings of 11,331 to 29,741 tonnes of CO2 with imported wood pellets.
