Forestry in the Fifties

The end of World War II brought dramatic changes, European reconstruction and the postwar boom in North America created an increase in the demand for forest products. The Interior of British Columbia answered this demand with an expansion of the opening of new mills.

However, there was a labour shortage. The war had accelerated industrial development creating more high-paying jobs that did not involve the hard work and dangerous conditions that were entrenched in logging. Because of this Logging became more mechanized and the International Woodworkers of America (IWA) migrated from the coast to the Interior.

The crawler tractor, or the ‘Cat', was adopted for skidding. The surplus of military trucks was beneficial for the Interior and its tough conditions. The ingenuity of folks in the Interior brought about adaptations to the vehicles. With the installation of winches, arches and A-frames the trucks opened up a wide range of possibilities.

One of the greatest innovations to the Interior was the gas saw (chain saw). At first they were heavy and cumbersome, weighing more than 100 pounds, and requiring two men to operate them. But, by the early 1950s, the interior had one-man chain saws. IEL, Pioneer, the Titan Junior and the McCulloch were some of the better know brands.

After the federal government declined to increase wages, anger arose among workers and owners. In 1945 a member of the IWA travelled to the interior and helped to set up a union. In 1946 the IWA called for a province-wide strike. They saw a small increase in wages and the union gained 10,000 new members.

However, the next strike that occurred in 1953, lasted for more than three months. In the Interior, many people could not afford to feed their families, local businesses closed down. The IWA lost hundreds of its members and in the end got a very small increase in pay.

Everything Changed

 

During the 1950's there were over 600 mills in the Prince George Area. On top of this the Forest Service became more active in promoting proper silviculture practices while the first Forestry consulting firms were just starting up.

In the 1960s everything changed. The Unions did get a strong presence in the forestry industry. The first pulp mills opened up in the northern interior and the saw mills became far larger employing many more workers. The 600 mills in the area were reduced to just a handful of larger mills which employed up to 10 time as many person as all of the small mills did collectively. Still we remember those mills. Names like Sinclair, Andersen, Rustad, Lamb, Eagle Lake Mills, Strom, and Crescent spur will always be remembered as part of our history and part of what we are today.

 

Tony Bellos:

“After the war there were 600 mills working with every kind of machine you could think of.”

 

Tony Bellos worked at Stroms, a sawmilling outfit at Tabor Mountain . He worked driving caterpillars and arch trucks and then worked as a logger. He was paid by the 1000 board feet using a cross cut saw initially then a gas saw. The gas saws were difficult to start and the trees weren't herring boned when felled so they fell in any direction (he always called the chain saw the ‘gas saw').

“I wouldn't hire a faller if he had a Pioneer Saw.” The McCulloch Saw was the best saw.

 

Tony pushed snow using a ‘good 14' Cat. he usually worked an 8 hour day, seven days a week with the caterpillar tractor.

Walter Bratton:

“The first few nights were cold. We had no bedding, just pieces of canvas, and we slept under a spruce tree shivering all night. Now people are well equipped.”

 

“After that first fire, I volunteered to go back out for mop up. The government building at 1600 Third Avenue was just being built and Forestry was moving into it. I was the only one who showed up. Even though I was prepared to go back out to the fire, I was told I was needed at the warehouse. I went there instead and worked at cleaning and storing equipment. There was a 1957 Ford Truck. Because I could drive it, I started hauling equipment to the fires. We did everything”

We had a crew to build roads. I worked with them in the backcountry. We had no communications. We would be given just a rough map. You didn't worry about those things then. We had no good survival equipment. We were tougher back in those days. It didn't bother us.”

 

Clarence Boudreau

“I began working in the cookhouse in 1946 when I was 15. After that, I worked in the planer mill. The Penny Spruce Mills was the second largest mill in the interior. The Red Lumber Company was the other large mill in Penny. That fall we were horse logging using crosscut saws. I remember that around 1950 or 1951 the Caterpillar tractors came in and replaced the horses”

 

Clarence first worked on the greenchain, then worked the air trim saw. He described working that piece of equipment

 

“like playing the piano”

Women in Forestry

 

When asked, most people would deny women's involvement in the forestry industry in the fifties. Though it was rare to find women doing work directly related to the industry, there were women involved. The saying about the lumber industry is that they (men) worked hard and they played harder. But anyone who knows people that grew up with a father in the industry knows that women had equally hard experiences.

 

Some families stayed at home while the men worked out in the camps while other families lived in any of the hundreds of sawmill camps that were in the bush surrounding the Prince George area. For the women that stayed home while their husbands worked and lived in a camp for a week or two at a time, the time was a difficult one. Women were depended on to run the household and take care of the children. Sometimes women were literally trapped at home with small children and/or pregnant while the men were in camp because the only family vehicle was driven out to camp.

 

Glory days were hard days

 

The glory days of logging when men were ‘roughing it' out in the bush often included wives and children staying in the camps. Some mills offered free accommodation to workers in the lumber camps and many families were new to the area and did not have any other home established. Camps often had no electricity, which meant that women spent most of their day working.

 

Women had to gather water, chop wood for cooking and baking, care for their children and make or mend clothing the family needed. Washing was done outside, clothing in a ringer washer and people under makeshift coldwater showers. Living in the 1950s with men involved in the forestry industry meant that women were left to take care of everything else while the men worked and through their experiences also became committed to the industry.

Elaine Comish:

It was worrisome when the mill was being shut down in 1963. There was no money. Her husband's company couldn't buy timber because it was all going to the pulp mills. It was impossible to buy at a timber sale if one happened to be a private operator.

 

At times having a husband working in the forestry industry was very traumatic.

 

“When he [Lloyd] was working in the bush for E&K Logging, often he wasn't home at the expected time. Twice, I had to bundle up my baby to go looking for him. Each time, he arrived home just as I was about to leave.”

 

There was no way to communicate. Lloyd would leave for work at 7:00 a.m. and would usually be home again by 6:00 p.m. Elaine had supper waiting for him. The worry would come and certainly affected their family life any time he was even a few minutes late coming home.

 

“You made a good living for the time. Lloyd earned 75 cents an hour on the farm and $1.10 an hour at the sawmill. They were good times. We never thought we were hard done by. We lived like all our friends. Most people didn't have working wives so they had a tougher time during shutdowns. Nothing was handed to you. You believed you were fairly well paid. Our house was 600 square feet. We put an addition on it. Basically, we did that ourselves with a bit of help from a carpenter.”

Noreen Rustad

“The first lumber convention that I went to was held here in the old Civic Centre and there were a thousand people attending it. It was in the days before the fire marshal got involved and said ‘no, no, you can't have a thousand people in this building'.”

 

“One lumber convention that I went to was at the Sons of Norway Lodge out at Six Mile Lake , Tabor Lake . So the thing about that was there was no indoor plumbing so the women were all dressed up with our high-heel shoes and our fancy dresses and we still had to tiptoe through the toolies to go to the outhouse behind the building.”

Cheryl Strom

"I remember entrepreneur's in the camp that built like water-powered things in the creeks to generate a little bit of energy for the things they used in the house . . . in those days there wasn't a lot of people in camp, they were all kind of relatives or people you knew. They weren't as transient as they are now . . . we had long time friends from then . . . they were tight, a lot more then they are now. And again they were pretty well isolated. . . from most of the people you would know.”