Category Archives: Forest History & Archives

Forest History & Archives

Thirty Days and Thirty Nights on the West Coast

By Don Pigott
Yellow Point Propagation Ltd.
April 12, 2026
Category: Forest History & Archives
Region: Canada, Canada West, International

Don Pigott

Don Pigott is a forest seed and silviculture specialist whose career spans more than five decades in BC and internationally. He spent 13 years with MacMillan Bloedel’s Forest Research Division working in silviculture, tree improvement, and seed orchard management before founding Yellow Point Propagation in 1982. In his first story—Collecting a Future Forest: My First Cone Harvest in Northern British Columbia, 1968—Don looked back to where that career began. This follow-up moves ahead to a month-long contract on the west coast of Vancouver Island, where the work—and the conditions—were on an entirely different scale.

In 1983, Gerhard and I got a contract to select Western hemlock parent trees on the northwest coast of Vancouver Island—from Nootka Sound to Brooks Peninsula. …We would wander, somewhat systematically, looking for trees with excellent form, fine branching, and greater height and diameter than their competitors. …Once identified, we would core them, mark them, and shoot branches from the upper crown—material that would later be grafted for seed orchards and clone banks. We decided to start in Zeballos because of its central location and proximity to suitable stands. …It was an old gold mining town, and the hotel hadn’t changed much in decades—basic rooms, sagging beds, and a steady cast of characters. …Each day began with a hearty breakfast and oversized packed lunches, and ended soaked through, drying gear strung across the room, and preparing for another day in the bush.

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Peninsula-made WildFire Whisky pairs nicely with iconic Mars water bomber

By Christine van Reeuwyk
Victoria News
April 13, 2026
Category: Forest History & Archives
Region: Canada West

[Tree Frog Editors debated what section to place this story under! It’s Business, Forestry, History and a bit of fun, which could be a Foible. In the end, we picked the history section!] A North Saanich distillery is digging deep into nostalgia, partnering with an iconic neighbour for a fun collectible of its best-selling product. Best Coast Distillers honours the iconic Hawaii Mars water bomber and its place in West Coast history with a limited release and partial proceeds going toward the BC Aviation Museum for the icon. …Hawaii Mars is one of two remaining Martin JRM-3 Mars water bombers. It flew cargo between Hawaii and the Pacific Islands during the Second World War and supported the Korean War with medical transport between Hawaii and California before transitioning to cargo operations. They were sold to a consortium of B.C. timber companies in 1958 and converted into the world’s largest water bombers to fight forest fires, carrying 27,000 litres per drop. Coulson Aviation bought them in 2007, marking the start of its fixed-wing air tanker operations for aerial wildfire support. Coulson retired its Mars water bombers in 2015.

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Iconic steam donkey at Campbell River museum receives sled restoration

By Robin Grant
The Campbell River Mirror
March 20, 2026
Category: Forest History & Archives
Region: Canada West

Campbell River’s iconic and rare 1916 steam donkey, which has been showcased at the museum since 2004, is set to receive some restoration work. Thanks to the generosity of local volunteers and community partners – including BC Timber Sales, Night Train Contracting, and Discovery Crane – the machine is receiving a brand-new yellow cedar sled to ensure it remains stable and safe for future demonstrations. “Every year during Labour Day, we fire up the steam donkey and bring it to steam to showcase its historic role in the logging industry,” says Sandra Parrish, executive director with the Museum at Campbell River. …There are very few restored steam donkeys left on the coast, and fewer still that can actually be brought up to steam, making it a unique piece of logging history, Parrish noted.

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Collecting a Future Forest: My First Cone Harvest in Northern British Columbia, 1968

By Don Pigott
Yellow Point Propagation Ltd.
January 7, 2026
Category: Forest History & Archives
Region: Canada, Canada West, International

Don Pigott

Don Pigott is a forest seed and silviculture specialist whose career spans more than five decades in BC and internationally. He spent 13 years with MacMillan Bloedel’s Forest Research Division working in silviculture, tree improvement, and seed orchard management before founding Yellow Point Propagation in 1982. Through Yellow Point, Don has worked extensively in seed collection, processing and storage, tree improvement, gene conservation, ecological restoration, and international cooperative research projects. This story looks back to where that career began.

In the spring of 1968, I was between my first and second year of forestry… jobs were hard to get, but I had the good fortune to land a job with a Forest Service marking crew in Quesnel. …What followed was a summer spent moving north, living out of a rusty 1956 Dodge station wagon, and working out of tiny ranger offices nestled between lakes and mosquito swamps. …You had to be quick… as hordes of mosquitos would follow in behind you. The work was varied and often enjoyable—checking bush mills, issuing burning permits, mapping scarified cutblocks, and learning firsthand why regeneration was such a challenge in the Interior at the time. …We could often establish hundreds of plots without finding any regeneration.

Then came the cone crop. …One of the best spruce cone crops in many years, and suddenly the focus shifted to seed. Armed with a .22 rifle that proved nearly useless, an axe, and later a rotating cast of fallers and helpers, we set up camp at Mossvale Lake. …It wasn’t pretty, efficient, or cheap. …Crews came and went, equipment failed, tempers flared, whiskey appeared, and responsibility arrived faster than experience. In the end, the quota was met—and the bill was memorable. …One of the most expensive collections in the history of the Forest Service. Looking back, that first cone collection was rough, chaotic, and deeply formative… a beginning that shaped everything that followed.

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Old Hillcrest Chinese Cemetery eyed for designation as Cowichan historic site

By Robert Barron
Nanaimo News Bulletin
October 7, 2025
Category: Forest History & Archives
Region: Canada, Canada West

North Cowichan council wants to see the Old Hillcrest Chinese Cemetery, located at 6119 Payne Rd., designated as a Cowichan Valley Regional District Historical Site. Council voted unanimously at its meeting on Sept. 17 to write a letter of support to the CVRD for the 80-year-old cemetery, which is already a Provincial Historic Site, to become a historical site in the district. There are 127 Chinese Canadians buried in the cemetery who were instrumental to the forestry industry in the Cowichan Valley and throughout B.C. It was formally established in 1945, when Carlton Stone, the founder and owner of Hillcrest Lumber Co., transferred 9.38 acres of land at the Old Hillcrest Sawmill in Sahtlam for the purpose of burying Chinese labourers, who were a marginalized group in the province at the time and most had no family nearby to care for them in life or death.

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Port Alberni city council approves safety funding for McLean Mill

By Austin Kelly
The Alberni Valley News
August 14, 2025
Category: Forest History & Archives
Region: Canada, Canada West

Port Alberni city council will spend $50,000 to install fencing and improve safety at the McLean Mill National Historic Site. After lengthy conversations at both a committee of the whole meeting and regular council meeting in July, councillors chose safety upgrades that will allow people access to the site without committing to long-term rehabilitation of its buildings. Wooden fencing will prevent access to some parts of McLean Mill that may present dangers to visitors. …The priority for council is to repair the viewing deck so visitors to the site can still see into the sawmill. …McLean Mill is an historic sawmill established in 1925. It ceased operations in 1965 and was designated as a national historic site in 1989. …Council has not yet decided what the long-term future of McLean Mill looks like. Councillors agreed to discuss that future at another date.

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The Iceberg Aircraft Carrier That Almost Was: Alberta’s Forgotten Wartime Wonder

By Nerissa McNaughton
The Cochrane Eagle
June 10, 2025
Category: Forest History & Archives
Region: Canada, Canada West

©Wikipedia by Craig Talbert

Under Jasper’s Patricia Lake lies the remains of one of history’s most peculiar wartime experiments. Project Habakkuk was an audacious idea born during World War II, as a solution for Allied forces battling German U-boats. Though it never came to fruition, its legacy remains a chapter in Alberta’s history. Project Habakkuk was a secret Allied experiment launched in the early 1940s under the guidance of British inventor Geoffrey Pyke to build an aircraft carrier unlike any other—not from metal or wood, but from ice. Specifically, it would utilize pykrete, a blend of 85% water and 15% wood pulp. This strange new material was stronger than concrete, resistant to bullets and torpedoes, and melted significantly slower than traditional ice. …The final vessel would need 300,000 tons of wood pulp, 35,000 tons of insulation, and a staggering amount of steel for reinforcement. These challenges … led to the project’s cancellation in late 1943.

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Historical photos show logging in Vancouver neighbourhoods more than 130 years ago

By Brendan Kergin
Vancouver is Awesome
May 2, 2025
Category: Forest History & Archives
Region: Canada West

Georgia Street 1886

Logging, literally and metaphorically, built Vancouver. The first settlers here started a mill. Gastown, the first settlement in what would become Vancouver, was built around Hastings Sawmill. That meant plenty of quality lumber to build new structures and jobs. While there isn’t really any old-growth forest left in the city now, it once had a fairly dense forest with truly massive trees. Nowadays most of B.C.’s lumber industry operates in more remote locations around the province, but in the 1860s, 70s, 80s and 90s, there were still large trees around Vancouver, so lumberjacks didn’t have to go far to find what they were looking for, especially with how difficult it was to move trees.

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Telegraph Cove: From wilderness to community, from flames to new hope

By Alison Liebel
Parksville Qualicum Beach News
March 30, 2025
Category: Forest History & Archives
Region: Canada, Canada West

TELEGRAPH COVE, BC — Many North Island communities are saddened by the news of the fire at Telegraph Cove on Dec. 31, 2024 as images of the blaze consuming the historic mill building and the Whale Interpretive Centre were startling. …Telegraph Cove is a rare reminder of early industrial life on the coast. In 1909, Alfred Marmaduke “Duke” Wastell was recruited to manage a struggling box-making factory in Alert Bay, also known as ‘Yalis. It was to make the shipping boxes for the cannery operated by BC Fishing and Packing Co. ‘Yalis, with a population of 230, was a hub of economic activity, driven by its booming fishing and logging industries. Logging operations dotted the coastline, but getting timber to market was difficult. …In 1912, the federal government began constructing a telephone and telegraph line stretching from Campbell River to Northern Vancouver Island. At that time, ‘Yalis served as the headquarters for commercial interests, and the superintendent of telegraphs wanted to set up a telegraph station nearby.

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B.C. log rolling world champion Jube Wickheim dies at 91

By Courtney Dickson
CBC News
March 9, 2025
Category: Forest History & Archives
Region: Canada, Canada West

Jubiel Wickheim

A world-class lumberjack sportsman from B.C. has died, his family says. Jubiel Wickheim, better known as Jube, passed away on Feb. 17 at the age of 91. The Vancouver Island man was a 10-time world champion in the sport of log rolling, and an avid outdoorsman. Jube grew up in Sooke, B.C. There, he went to school until about Grade 8 — not unusual for those times — and eventually began his career in forestry. …According to a document outlining the history of logging sports in B.C., written by Jube himself, logging sports, including birling, began in small logging towns as a friendly rivalry on weekends. …Jube won the world championship for log rolling 10 times between 1956 and 1969. …After his time as a champion birler, Jude went on to produce and emcee logger sports exhibitions, hoping to share his love of the sport with others. 

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Chemainus sawmill retirees celebrate 25 years of breakfasts

By Morgan Brayton
Cowichan Valley Citizen
March 3, 2025
Category: Forest History & Archives
Region: Canada, Canada West

A unique club celebrated its 25th anniversary on Feb. 7 with a breakfast attended by 32 former employees of MacMillan Bloedel and Western Forest Products, all of whom once worked at the Chemainus sawmill. The club was founded in 2000 by Bob Heyes, Neal Burmeister and Gary Grouhel, initially bringing together 41 retirees from the Chemainus mill. Over the years, the group has maintained its tradition of breakfast meetings, offering former colleagues a chance to reconnect and maintain friendships. The inaugural breakfast took place on Feb. 4, 2000, at the Mount Brenton Golf Club. Over the past 25 years, these breakfasts have become a cherished tradition where members can catch up, share updates and honour the legacy of their shared workplace. The club’s attendance has fluctuated over the years, but the retirees’ camaraderie has remained strong.

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A Walk Through Time: Domtar’s History, 1820-2025

By Colleen Marble
Domtar Corporation
February 12, 2025
Category: Forest History & Archives
Region: Canada, Canada West

The North American forest products industry has a rich and storied history, and nowhere is it more evident than in Domtar’s combined 205 years of business. Our family tree took root in 1820, and it extends unbroken to today under the ownership of Indonesian businessman Jackson Wijaya. Much has changed over the two centuries that have passed since we began operations in Canada by exporting lumber to Great Britain, but what hasn’t changed throughout Domtar’s history is our relentless pursuit of excellence. …Our story began in 1820, when the William Price Company was established to export lumber to Great Britain from Quebec, Canada. The company, which eventually rebranded as Price Brothers, remained focused on lumber exports until 1912, when it entered the paper business, joining several other well-established Canadian paper companies. After the industry underwent decades of mergers and acquisitions, the consolidated company emerged in 1979 under the name Abitibi-Price.

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A New Documentary By Sam Dickie Shares The History Of Handley Lumber

Kawartha 411 News
July 31, 2025
Category: Forest History & Archives
Region: Canada East

KAWARTHA LAKES, Ontario — For generations, Handley Lumber has touched the lives of just about everyone in Burnt River and Fenelon Falls. Joseph Handley Jr. harvested forests then used the cleared lots to ranch cattle. In 1918, he opened a shingle mill near his home in Burnt River, while he also owned the remains of a sawmill on the Third Concession of Somerville. In 1936, he took over Fred Chambers’ planing mill in Fenelon Falls—which included a belt driven mortise and tenon machine, jointer, saw and sander. They all still work to this day—though technology has evolved.

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Old Mill Heritage Centre to celebrate 100th anniversary

By Tom Sasvari
The Manitoulin Expositor
February 19, 2025
Category: Forest History & Archives
Region: Canada, Canada East

With the Old Mill in Kagawong celebrating its 100th anniversary this year, museum curator Rick Nelson said a couple of events will take place to commemorate this milestone. The museum board is also endeavoring to have a tabletop pictorial book on the history of the building published. “The Old Mill is celebrating its 100th golden anniversary this year and we are making plans for several celebrations to take place,” said Mr. Nelson… Construction of the two-storey pulp mill in Kagawong began in the spring of 1925. At that time, it would have been the only pulp mill on Manitoulin Island. By December of that year the first pulp was produced, ground from spruce and shipped by boat to Wisconsin to be made into paper for Sears-Roebuck catalogues. Spruce was abundently available and was needed to give the Sears-Roebuck catalogue pages a shiny finish.

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This Remote Forest in Idaho Looks Like a Giant “Chessboard”

By Harry Baker
NASA in Live Science
September 9, 2025
Category: Forest History & Archives
Region: United States

IDAHO — A bizarre checkerboard pattern etched into the forests of northern Idaho has captured global attention after an astronaut aboard the International Space Station snapped a striking image of the area from space. The photo reveals an enormous grid of dark and light squares surrounding the Priest River, forming a vast natural “chessboard” that spans several miles. The geometric arrangement is the result of a land management strategy dating back nearly two centuries, intended to balance timber harvesting with forest regeneration. …The image was taken on January 4, 2017, by an unnamed astronaut with the NASA/ISS program. …The origins of the chessboard pattern date back to a forest management initiative developed in the 1800s. Timber was selectively harvested from alternating squares, leaving the others untouched to maintain ecological balance and promote regeneration.

 

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120 years of the Forest Service

By Liz Cooper
US Department of Agriculture
March 31, 2025
Category: Forest History & Archives
Region: United States

Honorary Forest Rangers

Did you know that Smokey Bear has his own zip code? Or that a quarter of U.S. ski resorts are located on national forests? To celebrate 120 years of the USDA Forest Service, we bring you these and 10 more fascinating facts about the agency whose motto is “Caring for the Land and Serving People.” In 1905, wood was in the forefront of American minds. Cities, railroads, communications and homes ran on wood – in fact, wood served as the main energy source in the U.S. until 1880. Its importance meant it had to be managed. Enter: the Forest Service. …There have only been three Honorary Forest Rangers to the Forest Service: actress Betty White, Rolling Stones’ keyboardist and musical director Chuck Leavell, and former California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. While these honors are recent, to become a forest ranger in 1905, you had to pass a challenging written test and a field exam. …The legend himself, Smokey Bear is the longest continuously running public service campaign in U.S. history.

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Weyerhaeuser’s shrine to wood was built to move as waterfront changed

By Jean Sherrard
The Seattle Times
March 12, 2026
Category: Forest History & Archives
Region: United States, US West

Meant as a grand showcase for the Weyerhaeuser Lumber Company, the building in our “Then” photo provided an administrative headquarters in 1923 while offering a structural ode to timber itself. Weyerhaeuser’s timber-trade dominance at the time was legendary, rooted in the 1900 “neighborly deal” in which Frederick Weyerhaeuser purchased 900,000 acres of Washington timberland from railroader James J. Hill for $5.4 million. After the purchase, Everett quickly became the manufacturing heart of Weyerhaeuser’s empire, with waterfront mills producing wood products shipped globally. To manage this reach, the company commissioned a headquarters that doubled as architectural persuasion. Designed by the firm Bebb and Gould, its stylized English Gothic structure was built not only to impress but also to move — literally. Architect Carl F. Gould anticipated future evolutions on the waterfront and engineered the building onto four giant crossbeams, making portability a feature, not a bug. The structure was relocated at least three times.

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The murder that ended a young Bay Area editor’s crusade to save the redwoods

By Martha Ross
The Mercury News
November 26, 2025
Category: Forest History & Archives
Region: US West

Ralph Sidney Smith

Ten days before 31-year-old newspaper editor Ralph Sidney Smith was shot and killed by an angry reader on the streets of Redwood City, he enjoyed a final visit to his favorite place on Earth. …Like other early environmental activists, including John Muir, Smith used his writing to sound the alarm about rampant logging that was destroying California’s coastal redwoods, telling the public and the politically connected — including industrialist and US Senator Leland Stanford — that the state was on the brink of losing a vital natural resource. …As editor of the Times and Gazette, Smith prioritized covering logging’s widespread destruction of ancient redwood forests throughout the state. …Smith wasn’t a pure “nature preservationist” because his ideal public forest would be a self-supporting tourist attraction, with roads, hotels, camping grounds and “streams stocked with trout.” …Smith’s reported “love of justice” put him in harm’s way. …Tragically, Smith’s murder meant he didn’t live to see a state park established in Big Basin.

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“Survival in a Mill Town” by Von Braschle . Early Northwest mill culture forms background for story

By Patrick Webb
Discover Our Coast
October 15, 2025
Category: Forest History & Archives
Region: United States, US West

“Survival in a Mill Town” examines the early union struggles and difficult lives of early settlers who followed the first trains to the Pacific Northwest for work in lumber mills. It was an era at the turn of the 20th Century that helped shape the Pacific Northwest and made timber barons overnight fortunes with the stripping of rich virgin forests. The new book by Washington state native and former Oregon journalist Von Braschler chronicles the events that led to one bloody Sunday in 1916 known as the Everett Massacre. It is a work of historical fiction that centers on his hometown of Everett. …George Weyerhaeuser built several of his first mills in Everett with the million acres of trees he acquired from empire builder James Hill, his St. Paul neighbor who connected the forest of the Pacific Northwest with his railroad. Together they built the towns of the Pacific Northwest with smokestacks lined up between hastily leveled tree stumps.

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Forestry and logging museum seeking potential property in Nevada County, California

By Jennifer Nobles
The Union
September 4, 2025
Category: Forest History & Archives
Region: United States, US West

CALIFORNIA — There’s a new museum proposed for Nevada County, this time focusing on the timber, logging, and forestry industries that have put the area on the map aside from the more well-known Gold Rush. A group—including Nevada County Historical Society, forester Robert Ingram, Economic Development Director Kimberly Parker, Tim Robinson, Landon Haack of Cal Fire, and author Cindi Anderson—have been meeting up for over a year now to ensure the history of timber in Nevada County will not be forgotten. …Anderson said the purpose of the museum is to preserve the culture and pay homage to the many forest men and women, as well as educate and preserve the past and encourage the future for our forests and to be involved in the future of the industry. …Stroh added: “This is going to be probably the biggest timber museum in the western United States.

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See inside the ruins of Oregon’s timber past at Vernonia’s ghost mill

By Mark Graves
Oregon Live
August 4, 2025
Category: Forest History & Archives
Region: United States, US West

©Oregon Historical Society

Just an hour from Portland, the concrete ruins of a timber empire sit quietly at the edge of Vernonia Lake, all that remains of one of Oregon’s most ambitious sawmill operations. Built in 1924 by the Oregon-American Lumber Company, the mill once spanned more than 100 acres and was considered state-of-the-art for its time. According to a company history, “The Oregon-American Lumber Company: Ain’t No More,” the mill generated its own electricity. …Vernonia was a remote farming outpost of about 150 people when timber magnate David Eccles and his sons established the company in 1917. After building a rail line into the Nehalem Valley in 1922, the company began constructing what it would call “The Most Perfect Mill in the World.” …The original company was reorganized during the Depression as the Oregon-American Lumber Corporation, then acquired by Long-Bell Lumber Company in 1953 and again by International Lumber Company in 1956. The final log reached the mill on Aug. 27, 1957.

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These brave Oregon smokejumpers once parachuted into forest fires – now they’re saving history

By Janet Eastman
The Oregonian
July 10, 2025
Category: Forest History & Archives
Region: US West

Southwest Oregon’s Siskiyou Smokejumper Base is where wildfire fighters once parachuted out of airplanes into blazing forests. The legendary smokejumpers launched experimental operations in the 1940s that continue to serve a role in modern firefighting. Historians consider the Cave Junction base the most authentic World War II-era smokejumper museum in the country. …Still in place are the dispatch radio, Motorola intercom and rotary phone that alerted firefighters to board two 1940s Beechcraft jumper planes, which are still on the runway. The U.S. Forest Service’s first smokejumper bases were built in 1943 in Idaho and Oregon to rapidly drop specially trained firefighters into remote areas. Some of the crew had never flown in a plane until they were taught how to jump out of one. After completing their initial attack and when ground crews arrived, smokejumpers would carry out their gear, which weighed more than 120 pounds, for miles to the pick-up location.

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Washington Forest History Interviews: Toby Murray, Murray Pacific Corp.

By Elisa Law
History Link
June 23, 2025
Category: Forest History & Archives
Region: United States, US West

Lowell Thomas “Toby” Murray III (b. 1953) served as the president and CEO of the Murray Pacific Corporation from 2001 to 2017. Murray Pacific is a family-owned timber business founded by Lowell Murray, Sr. (1885-1971). In this June 2025 interview with HistoryLink’s Elisa Law, Murray recounts the 104-year history of the Murray Pacific’s business, from its establishment as the West Fork Timber Company in 1911 to its sale to Sierra Pacific Industries in 2015. Murray reflects on the successes and unique challenges faced by each generation. He discusses his grandfather’s pioneering efforts with selective logging in the 1920s and 1930s and how his father, Lowell Murray, Jr., engaged in a protracted battle with the St. Regis Paper Company in the 1970s to reclaim the family’s tree farm. He also talks about his experiences managing the family business, including restoring the family’s tree farm after years of mismanagement, and his experiences navigating a new era of environmental regulations.

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How the Timber Economy Made Washington State

By Junius Rochester
Post Alley, Seattle
April 22, 2025
Category: Forest History & Archives
Region: United States, US West

Despite cyclical economic conditions, our state’s wood products story remains a separate and dramatic story through local history. The beginning of this great activity may have begun in 1788 when English Captain John Meares took a shipload of Puget Sound spars to China. He never made delivery. A fierce storm caused him to jettison his load mid-Pacific. Four years later another English Captain named George Vancouver replaced a broken spar with a Puget Sound tree. Wood was used in the construction of fur-trading posts, of course, which led to the processing of logs for a variety of domestic and commercial use. In 1825, a Vancouver, Washington millwright named William Cannon first whipsawed logs into boards. The Hudson’s Bay Company, with headquarters then at Fort Vancouver, accepted shakes and shaved shingles from American settlers in exchange for general supplies. The first “permanent” mill on Puget Sound was built by Michael T. Simmons at Tumwater, Washington.

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Beloved historic landmarks navigate an uncertain future after the Los Angeles fires

By Chloe Veltman
WBHM (Public Radio Alabama)
March 31, 2025
Category: Forest History & Archives
Region: United States, US West

The former home of one of the world’s most famous western novelists, Zane Grey, was a Mediterranean Revival house designed with high, wood-beamed ceilings and airy balconies. “It had almost a cathedral vibe when you walked in,” said Nathaniel Grouille on a recent visit to the site.  Grouille is now facing a big question: How to rebuild the site in a way that preserves Grey’s legacy while protecting it from the inevitable future fires and other disasters resulting from the impacts of human-caused climate change? Returning the property to what it was in Zane Grey’s day isn’t on the agenda. “This structure was incredibly unique, using really high quality old-growth wood and products that just don’t exist today,” Grouille said… Conservation experts are familiar with this tension. “How can we ensure that we can adapt the historic materials without losing the power these places have?” said Seri Worden, senior director with the National Trust for Historic Preservation.

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How West Michigan survived the ‘Great Log Jam’ of 1883 that destroyed bridges

By Styla Jewell-Hammie
Michigan Live
February 28, 2026
Category: Forest History & Archives
Region: United States, US East

GRAND RAPIDS, Michigan — On the morning of July 26, 1883, over 600,000 logs broke loose, rushing through the Grand River and tearing out every railroad bridge in Grand Rapids. …Heavy rains in June and July 1883 brought water levels on the river to record highs and overwhelmed lumbering booms for transport to saw mills in Lowell, Grand Rapids, Grand Haven and Robinson townships. When lumbermen tried to take advantage of the high water to float their logs downstream, a seven-mile log jam formed above the Grand Trunk Railroad Bridge. The jam that eventually broke loose is known as one of the most devastating events in the city’s history. …For four days and nights, tons of logs pushed steadily through the Grand River. Seventy-five men worked on manmade obstructions to prevent more destruction of bridges. The Detroit, Grand Haven and Milwaukee railway bridge collapsed from the pressure of logs. The Grand Rapids and Indiana Railroad bridge and the Chicago and Milwaukee bridge were destroyed. 

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International Collaboration to Investigate Early 17th-Century ship Timbers Found in Lower Manhattan

The City Life, New York
January 27, 2026
Category: Forest History & Archives
Region: United States, US East

NEW YORK — An international research collaboration led by the Museum of the City of New York and the Rijksdienst voor het Cultureel Erfgoed (Netherlands) will undertake a comprehensive new study of ship timbers long believed to belong to the Tyger, a Dutch vessel commanded by famed explorer Adriaen Block. The Tyger was a ship captained by Block (1567–1627), a Dutch private trader and navigator renowned for his exploration of the American Northeast. Departing Amsterdam in 1613, the Tyger met an untimely end later that year when it was accidentally destroyed by fire while anchored in what is now New York Harbor. In 1916, during subway construction at the intersection of Greenwich and Dey Streets in Lower Manhattan, workers uncovered a charred keelson and three rib frames of a wooden ship. …In recent decades, however, there has been renewed interest in attribution. …The research will focus on identifying the wood species used in the timbers and determining through dendrochronological analysis when and where the trees were cut.

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Breathing Life into History: The Revival of Sim Corder Mill

By Grady Gaston
Vocal Media Education
January 8, 2026
Category: Forest History & Archives
Region: US East

©Sandra Hughes 

Elkmont, Alabama — Nestled deep in a wooded valley of the American Midwest, the Sim Corder Mill once thrived as a cornerstone of the local lumber industry. Built in the early 1900s …it provided timber and employment to generations of families. Over time, however, industrial shifts and modernization rendered its machines silent. The mill stood abandoned, slowly swallowed by ivy, until a group of preservationists saw its potential not just as a relic, but as a symbol of resilience and artistry. Recognizing the historic restoration value of the structure, they rallied support from local historians, artisans, and community members. It turned into a hands-on mission to breathe life back into the bones of the Sim Corder Mill. These dedicated individuals didn’t just want to preserve the building—they aimed to revive its soul. From weathered beams to rusted pulleys, every component told a story, and they were determined to make those stories speak again.

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100 Years of History

Weyerhaeuser Muse History
October 30, 2025
Category: Forest History & Archives
Region: US East

The Port of Everett, together with its partner NGMA Group, have restored and reopened Everett’s historic Weyerhaeuser Building as a community gathering space and showpiece of the iconic structure’s rich history. The space that once served as the Everett-based mill headquarters for the Weyerhaeuser Company reopened to the public in 2023 – the building’s centennial year – as The Muse Whiskey & Coffee. It now welcomes visitors as a coffee house by day and a speakeasy-style whiskey bar by night. It also serves as a unique waterfront events venue. Whether you find yourself exploring the building onsite or online, this website serves as a virtual museum highlighting the once-booming timber industry on the Everett waterfront through the building’s history. Enjoy the tour!

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Temple Lumber Co. No. 20 moves to a new home

By Bob Lettenberger
Trains
October 23, 2025
Category: Forest History & Archives
Region: US East

Temple Lumber Co. No. 20 was moved along Texas Route 224, 95 miles from Pineland to Rusk, Texas and its new home in the former Cotton Belt yard. The locomotive was acquired by the non-profit Southern Pine Locomotive Co. It will be restored and placed in a fresh exhibit venue. The Southern Pine Locomotive Co. is a new organization seeking to tell the story of logging railroads in East Texas through No. 20. The group gained title to the locomotive, a former Santa Fe depot located in Pineland… The SPLCo. directors all have steam locomotive experience, and have extensive time with the Texas State Railroad… Why did the SPLCo. focus on No. 20? It is an unusual locomotive for a Texas logging railroad, says Bass. “Most logging Mikes [Mikados] are in the 70-ton range, sitting on 44-inch drivers,” he stated. “No. 20 weighs in at 96 tons and sits on 56-inch drivers. It’s more of a mainline logging locomotive.”

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From bustling lumber mill to ghost town: New cruise unearths Lake Michigan’s buried history

By Lindsay Moore
Michigan Live
September 4, 2025
Category: Forest History & Archives
Region: United States, US East

SAUGATUCK, Michigan — The folklore goes that there’s an entire town buried beneath the sand dunes of Saugatuck, dubbed “Michigan’s Pompeii.” Do you need to see it to believe it? This new cruise through history will lead you back in time, 150 years ago to the day, to when the town of Singapore was no more. The new event, Cruise Through History – A Singapore Ghost Story, will bring passengers along the Kalamazoo River to hear the lumber legend. …The story begins 189 years ago when Singapore was established and the first mill went up three years later. By 1869, sawmills crowded the Kalamazoo River. The town of Singapore boasted a population of several hundred and was looking to become one of the “grand cities of the west.” The bustling lumber town made a name for itself after the Great Chicago Fire in 1871, when the Singapore sawmills supplied much of the wood used to rebuild the city. 

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Author chops down historic myths of Northwoods lumberjacks

By Jeff Robbins
Wisconsin Public Radio News
April 10, 2025
Category: Forest History & Archives
Region: United States, US East

There are many contradictory myths about Northwoods lumberjacks and the work they did in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. They were depicted as hard-living, violent men, but also as upstanding, conservation-minded gentlemen. Recently, Willa Hammitt Brown, the author of the book “Gentlemen of the Woods: Manhood, Myth and the American Lumberjack,” visited “The Larry Meiller Show” to help sort out logger legend from lumberjack reality. … Contrary to Paul Bunyan’s current folk hero status, Hammitt Brown recalled that in the earliest tale written about him — 1906’s “Round River Drive” — Bunyan was “a jerk.” The story depicted Bunyan as a dishonest logger who tricked his men into taking logs around and around the same river so that he would never have to pay them. …Hammitt Brown said lumberjacks, like other itinerant workers of the era, were feared and distrusted because of their lack of family ties or meaningful attachment to the community.

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Forestry was born in western North Carolina

By Carolyn Ashworth
The Transylvania Times
March 21, 2025
Category: Forest History & Archives
Region: United States, US East

The United States Forest Service is in the news a lot these days… It feels timely to reflect on how Pisgah National Forest is not only the birthplace of forestry but the backdrop for much of the development of the forest service itself. Before the forest service existed a young George Vanderbilt recognized our region’s beauty. He sent his staff to survey and buy property from local families who made claims to the land in what is now Pisgah. Dr. Carl Schenck, who founded the Biltmore Forest School, reported nearly 300 farms on these inholdings, particularly in the fertile Pink Beds area. …The same year the Biltmore Forest School was founded, Pinchot became chief of the Division of Forestry in the federal Department of Agriculture. When Roosevelt created the USFS in 1905, Pinchot became its first leader and many of Schenck’s alumni were among the ranks of his staff.

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Steel of early Irish settlers forged in fires of suffering

By Andrew Hind
Bradford Today
March 16, 2025
Category: Forest History & Archives
Region: Canada, US East

Among the wave of humanity that came to Canada in the 19th century were hundreds of thousands of Irish, some of whom ended up in Bradford. …Between 1815 and 1840, about 450,000 Irish migrated to the British North American colonies. Cheap labour was needed in lumber camps and for construction of the Welland Canal and the Rideau Canal. Canada represented a new hope. Irish migration was encouraged by leaflets circulated by Canadian lumber merchants and the British government. For their part, lumber merchants realized money could be made in loading their vessels with would-be settlers on the return trip from Britain. …Irish migration to Canada increased when Ireland was struck by the Potato Famine due to widespread starvation. During this period, more than one million Irish died from starvation and resultant diseases. Even more fled overseas, many to Canada. …In 1847 alone, at least 110,000 Irish left Irish and British ports for Canada. The tragedy is many didn’t make it. …On this St. Patrick’s Day, raise a toast to them.

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How evergreen trees shaped human history

By Beth Saulnier, Cornellians
The Cornell Chronicle
December 9, 2025
Category: Forest History & Archives
Region: International

In the early 1770s, American colonists furious over British meddling in their trade of a key agricultural product finally had enough and rose up – an act of rebellion that would ultimately spark a revolution. But this wasn’t the Boston Tea Party. It was the Pine Tree Riot – a bit of rural lawbreaking by some New Hampshire residents that would inspire their Massachusetts brethren a year later. And it’s just one of the myriad ways that evergreens have played a transformative role in human history – chronicled in “Evergreen,” a new book by Trent Preszler, M.S., Ph.D., a professor in the Cornell SC Johnson College of Business. …[The book] includes the trees’ connection to slavery in the Deep South, where workers were forced to clear-cut land for cotton cultivation; the environmental toll of today’s artificial Christmas trees, which Preszler decries as yet another source of plastic waste; and how the timber industry offered an unlikely refuge for gay men in an era when homosexuality was criminalized.

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The Oak and the Larch: A Forest History of Russia and Its Empires

Publishers Weekly
October 9, 2025
Category: Forest History & Archives
Region: International

In this epic but sprightly history, journalist and critic Pinkham explores the central role forests have played in the Russian cultural imagination. Noting that “long after western Europe had felled a large portion of its trees, the Russian Empire still had more forests than it could map,” and that today the country contains “one-fifth of the world’s forest cover.” …She traces this “contradictory attitude” toward the forest over time, pegging it as a manifestation of the ambivalence of a “place that has long been torn between east and west, city and country… past and future.” She identifies is the forest’s longstanding dual role as both a defensive bulwark against outsiders (a role it served from the 13th-century Mongol invasion to the 20th-century Nazi one) and a modernizing resource that helps integrate Russia with the rest of the world (timber-harvesting was essential for both Peter the Great’s empire-expanding naval fleet and the Soviets’ rapid industrialization). 

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Looking at the untold work of lumberjills during WWII

By Becky McCreary
My Herald Review
May 26, 2025
Category: Forest History & Archives
Region: International

Rosie the Riveter, with her arm raised declared “We can do it,” is an iconic symbol of American women leaving the kitchen for factory and shipyard jobs during World War II. The need was the same in Great Britain, but those women worked out-of-doors on farms and in forests as part of the Women’s Land Army (WLA). Wood was a cheap material, used for telegraph poles, pit props in mines, on aircraft and ships and in the production of charcoal in explosives. Britain had lush forests but also imported timber from Norway. The German occupation of Norway caused a shortage of timber, and in April 1942 … the Women’s Timber Corps was added to the WLA. They were known as Lumber Jills, or lumberjills, a familiar connection with Lumber Jacks. …The most specialized skill was measuring, which included identifying trees for felling, assessing the timber in a tree and measuring the amount felled. 

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Mud, water and wood: The system that kept a 1604-year-old city afloat

By Anna Bressanin
BBC News
March 26, 2025
Category: Forest History & Archives
Region: International

As any local knows, Venice is an upside-down forest. The city, which turned 1604 years old on March 25, is built on the foundations of millions of short wooden piles, pounded in the ground with their tip facing downwards. These trees – larch, oak, alder, pine, spruce and elm of a length ranging between 3.5m (11.5ft) to less than 1m (3ft)  – have been holding up stone palazzos and tall belltowers for centuries, in a true marvel of engineering leveraging the forces of physics and nature… The Venetian piles technique is fascinating for its geometry, its centuries-old resilience, and for its sheer scale. No-one is exactly sure how many millions of piles there are under the city, but there are 14,000 tightly packed wooden poles in the foundations of the Rialto bridge alone, and 10,000 oak trees under the San Marco Basilica, which was built in 832AD.

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