Doing the beetle boogie

摘要

There's a whole lot of steps in this new dance, as Smithers loggers and truckers gear up for hauls of up to 350 km each may and smaller piece sizes. Take the Long Way Home is more than an old Super-tramp song for contractors and log truck drivers working for Pacific Inland Resources (PIR), a division of West Eraser Mills Ltd. in Smithers, BC. It has become a way of life, as in the interest of responsible forest stewardship, the dimension mill is hauling 90% of its logs from the Ootsa Lake area, whichcan mean a one way trip of between 250 and 350 km for the drivers and the division's contract logging crews. "Our forest license provided us with timber from right here in the Bulkley District, which includes Smithers, but we volunteered to transfer ourlicense so that we could use beetle kill wood from the Van-derhoof and the Nadina Districts," explains Gord Gunson, woods manager for PIR, which consumes approximately one million cubic metres of wood on an annual basis. "Our reason for the transfer wasto help address the growing mountain pine beetle infestation in the Burns Lake and Fraser Lakes areas. The infested wood in these areas was considered to be a higher regional priority than the green, non-infested stands being harvested here in the Bulkley District."