25 mills shut down

[RowdyCanuck]

5 hours ago, thedestroyerofworlds said:

Those trees take longer than 20 years to be large enough to harvest.  The beetle obliterated a large chunk of what could be cut.  In order for there to be trees to cut in the future, the amount of trees cut annually had to be reduced.

 

I also agree about the trees being shipped elsewhere.  However, it's all linked to the argument for raw log exports.  The argument for is that there isn't enough trees in the area that they are cut to mill in said area, so they need to be exported.  This allows some people in the area to still be employed cutting trees.  If you forced those trees to be milled in said area, it wouldn't be economically viable.  So then, the companies wouldn't even bother cutting the trees in said area.  Then even more people would be unemployed.  

i agree very poor oversight.....remember the 80's and before the logging crash in the 90's when companies where clear cutting pretty much everywhere.......all that just to save a dying industry.....( if I may take that Liberty ha) 

 

i agree about the business side and the mills can for has still running would be the ones I would pick too....but do we really need that many mills? Can't those mill workers just go to logging( running skidder and falling and such) ? 

But how is b.c going to replace those jobs? A lot of those mill workers have been there for their whole life pretty much....not to mention how will b.c save those towns?.....

any of this sounds similar.........

 

[Russ]

2 minutes ago, kingofsurrey said:

I hope so..  We had a board coming off the chain every few seconds...  We had to spin it, tilt it... then push it off to the correct pile. 

We would have various lenghts piled all around the end of the table. Maybe we had like a dozen different piles that were sorted by grade and length.

Once high enough , we crimped and banded the pile and called over for a forklift to clear it out . We then started a new one.

8-9. hours of this a day.   Like i said ... it was relentless.    20 foot boards were a bit of a beast.  

Worse was when we were running heavier hemlock lumber.  Stuff was much heavier than cedar...

Yea mill I am at no longer has a green chain, its way less labour intensive now, they had to do it to get injury numbers down and to try and keep employees.  Its much more automated now, still has labour work when things go astray but for the most part its not to bad.  I can't compare to much to other mills as I have only been at this one but for the most part everyone that works there seems to stay and enjoys it, obviously shift work isn't ideal but it is what it is.

[Ryan Strome]

21 minutes ago, kingofsurrey said:

I worked on green chain way earlier than that.  We did 20 ft max and it was a trim saw. Resaw mill with a  couple of gas kilns it for custom drying as well.

Piling off the green chain or working the stacker..... would give you lots of time to think about your life......

 

I used to work 8-9 hours days there .. .relentless hard work...  then head out that evening for a 2 hour very intense  training session at my local rugby club..   

Those are very good memories for me. 

God bless you. Hard working man protecting his family.

Hats off to you.

[kingofsurrey]

1 minute ago, Ryan Strome said:

God bless you. Hard working man protecting his family.

Hats off to you.

Why thank you..  truth be told...  I had no family. 

Just a young punk trying to find fun and some adventure through travelling / various semi competitive sports / bar adventure. 

[JM_]

11 hours ago, 189lb enforcers? said:

We import so much of everything. Canada could be a giant if it wanted to. 
Never understood that. 
Same goes with banking. We should be self reliant, not interest slaves. 

I'm hoping one of the things that comes out of the covid time is we actually start to invest more in ourselves and our own capabilities. We'll see. Even with $0 oil there are stilll people in Canada that refuse to diversity.