Category Archives: Forest History & Archives

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.

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.

©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.

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.

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. 

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.

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.

When Everett Valleau moved his company, Valleau Logging Ltd., to the Alta Lake area in 1955, he came to log timber around Alta and Green Lakes. Valleau Logging was a family business, and over the years each of Everett’s seven sons, at least 10 of his grandchildren, and three great-grandchildren all worked for the company. The Valleaus operated from Parkhurst on Green Lake and later moved their logging camp to Mons. As skiing opened up and development increased, the Valleaus formed a subsidiary company, Alta Lake Contractors Ltd., to provide excavation work, road-building, and more. In 1965, they were hired by Garibaldi Lifts Ltd. to build the road from the valley to the midstation of Whistler Mountain while the logging side of the company removed the usable timber from some of the runs that were cut. …As Whistler placed more emphasis on resort development, Laurence moved Valleau Logging to Pemberton. 

WOODFIBRE, BC — Calling all former Woodfibre residents and employees, a reunion is coming up. Wait, did you know there was a whole town at Woodfibre where the LNG export facility of the same name is now being built? It was a company town built around a pulp mill. …Back in 1911, the British Columbia Sulphite Fibre built a pulp mill at what became Woodfibre. (It was originally called Mill Creek.). In 1917, the mill was bought by Whalen Pulp and Paper Co. In 1925, it changed ownership to the British Columbia Pulp and Paper Company. The mill was bought by Alaska Pine and Cellulose in 1950, and in 1958, it was taken over by Rayonier Canada, who owned it until 1980. By the time Western Forest Products shut the mill for good in 2006, the township had moved on, but the memories live on today. …For more details about the reunion, keep a watch on the Town of Woodfibre Facebook page or email the organizers at woodfibrereunion@gmail.com.

It was the largest known landslide in Canadian history. The Hope Slide forever changed the landscape of the Nicolum Valley in the Cascade Mountain Range, tragically taking the lives of four motorists who were on BC Highway 3 at the time. We recently discovered a series of images documenting the incident itself, as well as search and rescue and reconstruction efforts following the slide. As far as we know, only one or two of these images have ever been shown to the public before now.

In the early morning hours of Saturday, January 9th, 1965, a snow avalanche blocked the Hope-Princeton Highway, in the Nicolum Valley, just outside of Hope. A queue of motorists on the Princeton side of the avalanche began to collect. Some of them chose to turn around and head back up the mountain, while others chose to wait for crews to clear the slide.

At approximately 7 am, a devastating rock slide occurred at the same location, when half of Johnson Peak collapsed and descended into the valley below. The slide filled the valley bottom with more than 47 million cubic metres of rock, mud, and debris – up to 500 ft deep in some locations.