PULPWOOD FROM BRITISH COLUMBIA 



BY ARTHUR NEWTON PACK 



RAPIDLY mounting costs of newsprint and other 

 kinds of paper during the last two years have 

 suddenly called to the attention of the public the 

 startling fact that the mills of the eastern section of the 

 country must be supplemented by mills elsewhere ; that 

 the annual supply of pulpwood in the East must be in- 

 creased by fire protection, reforestation and other meas- 

 ures, and that new supplies must be developed and the 

 production increased. 



A few years ago the location of the pulpwood supply 

 was a matter of little moment to any but the paper 

 manufacturers. Today not only these manufacturers, but 

 representatives of this government and foreign nations 

 are searching the world for available supplies. We are 

 looking from our already limited eastern forests and 

 those of eastern Canada to the Pacific coast Washing- 

 ton, British Columbia and Alaska. 



According to the reports published in 1918 by the 

 Commission of Conservation of Canada, the total amount 

 of timber in the coast region of British Columbia of 

 species suitable for the manufacture of pulp is over 

 ninety-two billion feet, or approximately one hundred 

 and thirty-two million cords. In British Columbia 

 one cord of pulpwood is taken as equivalent to six 

 hundred board feet. Nearly two-thirds of this is 

 western hemlock (Tsuga hetcrophylla), a wood which 

 seems to possess certain necessary qualities of fibre 

 which permit its use largely in place of spruce for the 

 manufacture of newsprint pulp. Of the rest fifty-eight 

 per cent is Sitka spruce (Picea sitchensis), and forty- 

 two per cent balsam (Abies Grandis and Abies Amabilis). 



The pulpwoods are quite generally found in stands 

 mixed with Douglas fir and western red cedar, but British 

 Columbia has a distinct advantage over the coast forests 

 of Washington and Oregon from the point of view of 

 the pulp manufacturer, in that almost pure stands of 

 pulpwood may be found on easy logging ground and at 

 generally lower altitudes than on our side of the line. 



Not all of the ninety-two billion feet mentioned above 

 can be utilized solely for the manufacture of pulp. 

 Because of the strength of its fibre clear spruce lumber 

 is always in good demand and brings prices equal to 

 Douglas fir its use in the manufacture of airplanes, for 

 instance, having been much emphasized during the past 

 war. Now that after the war surpluses have been ab- 

 sorbed, many pulp mills cannot afford to pay the prices 

 demanded for spruce logs, and such concerns as do not 

 control their own supply are obliged to yield to sawmill 

 competition. Balsam makes an excellent box wood, but 

 as yet British Columbia paper manufacturers have had 

 little competition from that source. 



The country is just awakening to the value of western 

 hemlock as a saw timber. On the Pacific coast western 

 hemlock is already quite generally preferred to fir for 

 interior wood work, or in any place where it is not to 

 be exposed to the weather. The grain is more pleasing 

 to the eye than that of fir. The British Columbia sawmills 

 cut 175 million feet of hemlock during 1919, and received 

 as high or higher rates for the lumber than for Douglas 

 hr although they paid from $5.00 to $8.00 per thousand 

 less for the logs. During the same year the British 

 Columbia pulp mills produced 190,000 tons of pulp, sul- 



Photograph by Arthur Newton Pack. 



SITKA SPRUCE FROM BRITISH COLUMBIA FORESTS 



This spruce of which there are some twenty-five million cords in the coast region of British Columbia, has been made into a form of boom 

 known as a Davis raft to be towed. The logs were cut by the Powell River Paper Company on Kingcome Inlet. 



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