TIMBER! Real Lumberjacks Of Canada | TRACKS

British Columbia, Canada, the first thing we notice here are the trees, an immense forest. It was written that here the men would exploit this wood and that it would be the heart of their economy and their life. They had to cut down the wood, transport it and then transform it, creating a type of work. completely new and the ocean is at the heart of this process to tell the story of the people who lived and sometimes died here, you just have to follow the path of the laws from the forest to the factory so that this story begins in the sound from cuatino to the north of vancouver island a trip that lasts 45 minutes and one of silence a story of the forest and the sea and that tells the story of british columbia well it takes a lot of nerve and confidence and if you are going to sign up you better be willing to eat it, sleep it and drink it because if you don't take it seriously, you'll get a dozen men on board the ship, they are in such a place that you don't dare tell their wives they came, you could say kirk He grew up here, you have to be there at 100 all the time and you better have your game phase activated because if you don't, the game is over, it's that simple, Kirk is a lumberjack and an overseer. on the Mahata River, where the forests are known to be very dangerous for us, this is a very strange world, so you have a bear.

I did it. A three-year-old boy said this morning, the last day he came home, he's getting a little grizzly. their lawn, yes it was grayish and hello yes I know they said they had been moving yes those in the heart a supervisor in the Mahata River makes sure things run smoothly or at least as smooth as they go possible, Kirk is in charge. of appointing men to the different cutting areas, there will probably be some dangers there, probably just what I wrote here, let's look at the boats, heavy leanings, loaded limbs, loaded tide, knocked over, slippery floors, check balance, it's Elevated debris may block prone to very strong winds.

Please be careful with all of the above, contact the supervisor if you cannot drive safely, a plan will be put in place to drive safely and sign off on how far we need to go before we hit the block. This is a new cutting area, they build a route for the wood, but it also serves the loggers. The area is at the top of the hill, which is the worst possible place, you could see those trees along that edge, up there, no, those won't be what I call not user friendly, what's up with them? They could be all rotten on the outside and when you start following them and letting them go, they could be very weak on the top right and they could collapse, so if the Mahata River is so dangerous.

It is because the river is on the west coast of Vancouver Island and is sometimes exposed to winds of 200 kilometers per hour coming from the Pacific. The trees break and intertwine. It looks like a

real

battlefield and this battlefield is also a magnificent forest. primary we cut down guys like that on a pretty regular basis, we've had them up to 20 feet wide and they're probably around those, they're probably over 1200 years old, possibly even older, so it's a pretty old tree, but I find them

real

ly challenging and I like them for that reason they are challenging, they make me think they keep me on my toes, okay, so this tree is going to go that way, this tree is probably about 400 years old, it could be a little less, a little more, ha existed for a long time. a while ago he's older than me why am I getting rid of these trees make an opening so we have a place to put this guy there to cut down this spruce Kirk clear the area every action has a consequence and there's no place to go back events unexpected or misjudging a situation you don't want trees to catch on other trees, it's fine if you are far enough away, but if you are too close the top will break when the tree catches it and bends over the one without the cut bends and then slides across the other tree goes and that one comes back the top breaks or a branch comes out guess where you are standing bullseye I don't like being bullseye in 2005 43 of the 5,000 loggers in british columbia were killed doing their job and last year there were two deaths in the Mahata River.

You know, I would say that any fan in his career has probably had situations where he probably wasn't good and he thought maybe he got lucky or maybe he just did that last little one. I moved at the last second and got out of the way of danger and managed to live. Yes, I can think of a few times in my career where I should have been squished like a bug, but I didn't do Kirk and then go to work on a huge tree in a short space of time half an hour will cut down a 150 foot tree. height and 40 tons in weight the loggers of the mahada river say they have had a day when the slightest movement could have meant the difference between life and death the moment the tree falls the fir is down kirk's work it is made in british columbia the logging industry employs 120,000 people and generates 11 billion dollars in revenue it all begins in these forests here where we cut down the trees we replant them and let them grow and we continue the journey of the tree that has now become a log, also called log, a log that we have brought down from the mountain, we carefully lower it to the sea, where is the view?

Okay, pick one up to move here once We're in the water, men like John take over first, sorting, then placing and organizing the logs. They are the raft builders. We know different logging companies and then it goes to various mills. It is towed down the island to various mills such as Campbell River Nanaimo Vancouver. It's cheaper to lift and tow it here than to haul all this lumber here. They can move large amounts of wood at a time and it is cheaper. That's why we lift everything. Only in British Columbia do they transport wood this way.

There are also huge boats, but rafts are still the norm. This is where Andy comes into play. Andy is the young captain of Heck Eight Straight, a tugboat that for the past 40 years has traveled the waters between Vancouver Island and the mainland with thousands of tons of lumber. attached there are five men aboard Hecate Sound Grayson is just getting started John is an experienced open sea fisherman and Dennis has always lived like this we are in Reno the tug leaves Beaver Cove and heads for Johnston Sound getting lost in the labyrinth of the islands it takes eight days to reach the destination, sometimes fifteen, since it takes four hours by car each day to cover this distance that follows the coast the average speed of the convoy is one and a half knots almost three kilometers per hour it is very slow slow but they have to pull a raft the size of six football fields 25 could mean up to 30,000 tons of wood almost a kilometer long pulling a raft is like pulling an iceberg there is much more under the water than above known as boom, the concept is simple, a frame that holds logs in the middle, the logs are tied to bundles that float, so traveling forward without losing anything is no easy task, considering that just because things are moving slowly doesn't mean Let there be no problems, everything seems interesting, no. but I think we'll be in by then eh, some wind is brewing but I think we'll be in by then we won't have to worry about it, well, you know, if it gets pretty bad, you know, at 20 or so is when it starts to get ugly and you know you can tow it, but you'll be taking a 35 knot trip, that's right, you don't really want to tow it because it's going to be pretty ugly when you're dragging 30,000 tonnes behind you. nothing happens quickly so you have time to enjoy the countryside and think about alternatives, but there is only one and that is to get home, but there is a place in Johnston Strait where it is not so easy, the sea is rough in this area all the time. time. and if it gets really rough we don't want to be out there, but if we're down here there's nowhere we can really hide, we just have to keep going and with the wind and the current pushing us they're going to want to push us further and down, so which we will have to fight to cross or it may push us to Fanny Island, which we don't want to do because we will break our toe if we hit it, it is a very big responsibility.

Yes, there is a lot of wood back there, a lot of money, it all depends on me if I get it there in one piece or not and yes, a lot of responsibility, the next day Andy starts in the famous passage. Conditions look better than expected. Everything is seen. Well, almost everything, Andy, this is oh yeah, holy shit, oh, Andy has to move fast, it's 9 p.m. and once night falls, he won't be able to round up the search dogs first. He has to go get the trailer, he just has to prepare some ropes. and tie everything up and yes, yes, the only thing is the wind that pushes us down so far to the right and uh andy lets the raft move in the narrow, he chases the bundle of logs separated from the raft, the wind has started again Get up and time is running out. the essence when you are captain of a ship it is never good to lose part of your cargo John, who is the most experienced of the crew, jumps on a lost bundle, ties them again, laughs from there and then leads a long rope and then simply thread it through both bundles to tie them together.

Andy carries the lost bundles of logs back to the huge raft left floating in the middle of the strait. Some of the logs are damaged but that's something to worry about later, for now the logs just need to be Attached, this is not the time or place to make it look good but just to make sure it holds up so They can get out of here as quickly as possible tied with their heads. It will be OK. He has pushed me down until now. Hi John, missing. Go down there, lost some boom sticks? No, we only got about three, four packs out, we've got them all gathered up and down on the side of the tip, now, oh, okay, yeah, I'm just putting three boom sticks together.

Here I thought it might be yours. Andy lost a package before he realized what was happening? They are fully loaded, it is difficult to say, but if by a stroke of bad luck they are missing some logs, they may not have been completely lost, yes. It looks good, it'll probably float a little, you can see the green on it, it's a hemlock, eh, we'll see how it floats when it hits the water, that's a piece of trash and this is a small hemlock, hopefully it'll float, okay? I'll get them, okay, wait, Eric Hammond is a homeless man, or to be more accurate, he's a log salvager.

He makes a living by collecting logs that have washed ashore and then selling them. He's kind of junk. merchant of the waters always ready to replenish his stock of wood that he keeps tied securely eric lives in the healthy house with his wife and two children hopes to be able to go looking for logs tonight early in the afternoon the west has good weather, southeast brings rain, but out there it's exposed on both sides, so ideally five to ten would be good, but it might be workable. Oh, we'll make a decision when we get out of there, I guess, but it's not as bad as it could be so it's promising sometimes you worry when he gets out oh yeah, yeah, maybe if he comes home really late or something, but no, I don't worry too much, I would be worried all the time.

I guess the conditions are right and Eric isn't wasting any time. When you're a drifter, you have to be ready to take off quickly. Yes, the faster I go, the more logs I can get. If they're really good, it's more of an incentive. work at low tide but yes I would like to have as much time as possible if I had full time all day I would be working all day speed is efficiency very fast find some logs is good or maybe just luckily is here. This is good. These are boom sticks. These are the logs that surround the booms.

The wood littering the coasts here are logs lost by the industry Eric only looks for the best logs and searches everywhere along the coast, even at people's doors, it seems most of the time they are not happy with That, that guy was very friendly, so that did it. easy thanks yes they think it's their record or I don't know they just seem to get angry very easily they don't understand that I have to pay for a license and this is my job they don't understand that it's a demanding job first of all very physically demanding and everything has to be done at high speed eric only has a few hours to collect as much wood as he can the life of a drifter is quite lonely he works completely alone which means he has to manage everything only the boat and the logs that can weighing several tons is much more complicated than it seems and you are constantly forced to improvise.

You never know what you're going to run into. In some ways it becomes routine, but in others you don't like it. Say different challenges always arise, yes, what way could it be, I don't want to leave it if it is, don't stand there if the little one slows down when you are a log savior, it's all about the small victories that are coming. a heavy load, it's good tonight, the room has been good, but it's not always like that, even if homeless people are becoming a rare species, the competition is no longerso fierce and people don't, I don't know, maybe people have changed.

I don't know either, it's not the ferocity, maybe because there's no money behind it, it's the money that makes people do fun things, so maybe it's that, since we don't get paid that much, you still have the incentive to do it . Get out sooner and faster after last night's difficulties. Hector Strait stops. It's a good time to repair the damage.raft and here every time the tug passes by an eagle comes to say hello oh I just fed him some garlic sausage I don't think he'll see it although about half a mile back he'll come and he'll land on his toe and then right here at the water hole he seems to be here every time it should be his house but he comes and hangs out so what we're going to do is just push all the wood around back, tighten it and then we will bring everything.

Those other things and putting them back is what you have to do every time before you hit the rapids. Not just because these packages came out with the weather we had the other day, so it doesn't really happen very often, but it does happen from time to time. In a while it will happen that they will take advantage of the time to repair the raft and make it safer. Soon they will have to face the strong currents of the strait, which is always a delicate place to maneuver and they must be prepared. I can't lift this the man working on the raft is very physical juggling the bottom stick the joke just fell apart andy helps them push hundreds of tons of wood with the tugboat while his men balance on the raft this requires a certain amount of delicacy, you should always be paying attention to where they are, make sure they are not in the wrong place, don't fall, be very aware, yes, it happened to me a long time ago, yes, I fell between two arms of logs that met there.

I got out on time but ended up trapping my leg my shin broke my shin yeah I didn't feel very good three hours of very hard work then a short break before setting off again with my tide he's an expert you have to do him be a good worker to work on andy's boat when he is fishing that's how it is, he is the boss, he does what he wants, he has done it for a long time to be able to do what he wants despite his young age, andy is a demanding captain but he is also a captain who has what he calls the tugboat life life aboard the tugboat a peaceful life full of pleasant experiences let's call him lincoln that one is big enough to eat let's get it eight in a row he continues his voyage soon a small tugboat joins They are a ship that I will stay with them to help them on the journey through the Seymour Passage, also known as the Straits, where only the most experienced captain dares to go with this large cargo.

Hey Bill, yeah, go ahead, Andy, yeah, that was a pretty smooth shot. Everything seemed there. Well yeah, it's not something anyone can figure out on their own, but Andy's probably been doing this for a good 10 years since I started working here, in fact I started working with him doing that, there's a lot of things you need to do. . Right now we know that the snow and stuff is melting on top of the mountain, so we have fresh water coming out of all the inlets and stuff, so it interferes with the tides in certain places, so you have to know when it is So.

You got up when I started, you know, the first few times I went through the rapids alone, yeah, it was a little overwhelming I guess, but you get over it, now you know I've done it plenty of times, you don't know much. Worry now, there are some tides, you know that's going to get you and you know that's going to give you that little rush that you get, but the way it sounds Eric the Tramp Has a Visitor, yeah, I just started that there, sometimes I get disappointed I guess. that one log was going to be bigger than it was, but you know he has the final say, so yeah, I have to make sure he gets them all anyway, so I'll feed them to him when necessary. to see them the visitor is a climber, he evaluates the wood and it is his evaluation that turns the wood into money for Eric when he sells it the man is independent he does not work directly for the buyers and therefore is impartial he is a mix Some of these logs Tall floats are made of good quality wood.

Some of the ones you see that float low are not that good, so you have to say what type of food it is, the length and the size, and that's right, the species, the length. The top diameter of the end and the grade given to each log has to do with its value, but this formula changes, I mean, all the time, depending on the price and the market. I don't know, that's right, two or three times a year. an adjustment of the value of the wood according to the market over the next few hours the climber records each log and then gives his verdict 370 pieces 215 meters the evaluation is not very good and means less money than eric expected uh, i don't know for the price, but there are 370 pieces, 215 meters, so there is definitely less than an average meter per log, so yes, but I suppose you could save.

The log average gets complicated, but I mean, the price per meter says $30, so to me it's the bums that are out there doing the hard work trying to keep our waters clean and there just isn't as much compensation as there should be. receive for that kind of work the system is definitely against bums in my opinion, but I probably shouldn't say that Eric will earn around 6,500 for his lot, which isn't much considering the time he spent collecting the wood and He goes home to tell his wife, yes, today there are 370 pieces, 250 meters, quite small, it is better than none, it is now available. at least it's good, yes, being a bum, is it more about your lifestyle?

It's a good question, well I think because there's no doubt it's a lifestyle, there's just no way around it, he probably does a different job and makes more money doing something else, but he loves doing it. Some nights he comes home and he's glowing because the weather was perfect or um or the logs or something, so he gets excited and I really can't imagine him doing anything else. We often hear about the call of the sea an irresistible urge to go to the sea for Eric it is clear that he feels the call of the wanderer a need to look for logs however lost wood is becoming increasingly rare, fewer forest areas are cut down and the Technological innovation means there are fewer Lost logs on sea rafts that are more solid and better designed.

Things are also changing sound-wise at the house, which was once known as British Columbia's beach mecca. It's definitely higher end, it's very expensive. There used to be a lot of cabins around here, but they've all been bought out and giant mansions have been put in their places. It seems to me that it comes with an attitude. I hate to say it. That's what I've run into so far, for example, just to get a report anyway, what's the kind of price? this kind of house here, oh man, easily millions of millions of dollars, easy, easy, I will never buy it so I don't need to know, but Eric continues to fight literally and metaphorically, he doesn't need to go to the gym because he works with the wood is a constant exercise, I mean there is a point where the diminishing returns of the log are not worth it, you could also continue with easier logs, that is something you have to take your judgment at that point and just give up or if you are stubborn sometimes you just keep working at it don't let the log win depends on how i feel eric is a rare breed of beechcomber as he continues to make a living the same way his father and grandfather did before him, but of The way things are going, he is becoming more and more comparable to the last of the Mohicans, if the job disappears we will see how if I stay sane I would say yes, I would have to find another job in the water, preferably working alone.

I for one don't know what else is out there that makes heck eight in a row reach the infamous strait, a feared route in the strait, currents can reach up to 17 knots, today they are at nine knots, which might not seem like much. , but imagine transporting 30,000 tons moving arduously at three kilometers per hour and your journey is disturbed by turbulent eddies that move six times faster than you uh yeah, it usually calms the nerves a bit, I guess Johnston Strait begins to narrow enormously. masses of water are concentrated here due to the effects of the tides with this load andy has to work with the currents to maneuver and avoid disasters the current is pushing him the raft is gaining speed andy begins his maneuver being tide the battle is on i I am pulling very hard this way, it is still pushing me very hard down right now, so I will show you clearly that there the smaller tugboat that helps the ship through the straits comes to help to balance things or at least try given the inertia of the 30,000 tons of wood this is the moment of truth on the radar they are getting dangerously close to the coast andy is worried the raft keeps drifting finally returns to its channel if your toe passes you then you are in trouble, yes, the hard part is over, Andy and Hecate Strait just have to follow the rest of your route from here on out, it's easy to get to your destination.

John's next job at the sawmill is to supply a sawmill located on the outskirts of town. He had done it all before, but today he doesn't have time to joke. Today we have a change, which means that a client's cut is finished. We start a new one. We're a little behind. Lovely in the morning. How's it going? Good deal. The pinda is yours. right hand and boss in the water the morning starts with a rude awakening, otherwise you can't do it much most of the time you continue all day, uh we fixed the labels were 10 and 15 10 and 5 15 Oh, yeah, yeah, yes, we will arrive on time.

We always arrive on time, but one of these days there is a rush. Everyone has to go to whitewater. 6.30 a.m. m. Pinda and John return aboard their fun little boats. a type of boat you'll only find in british columbia a boat with a feather a funny name but they're not here to joke i can't be dangerous sometimes you know, make sure you know we watch each other while we do it and that's it, we have to see this guy working in front of me, you know, we don't want to hurt them, the race against the clock begins, they only have a few hours to collect, sort, select and calibrate all the wood that is accumulating. the Fraser River at the foot of the sawmill just a few hours to supply the factory and free up the area for the next load that is about to arrive everything is happening on board this ship boom a kind of maritime bumper car that we also have to watch we don't make the logs come into the splitting saw, so to drive these boats we normally train our people first, you know, cutting bundles of cables to push the logs and then after about a month we'll get them onto the boats, so it might take two or three months before we fully grade your work is actually not too difficult but you certainly need to know what you are doing.

Mid-morning they will take a break and take notes about the logs they have treated and those. What's left to make one of the protein packets, well, it should be one with fourteen packets and one with nineteen packets oh oh, do you want to be right now? Yeah, no, we just finished that one, we just started this one, yeah, being on the 14th pack, yeah, building that one, okay, we're on the 14 packs, yeah, okay, 66, yeah, now it's the best Time to find out a little more about them because last week I was working at midnight on Friday Thursday night, I thought I was a little behind my family. a third generation here but I was born in India when I was a little boy, my father died and he used to be a truck driver here and my brother worked in the post office, that's all we know now, the new credible medical lawyer. merchants of all sorts of things, the last one used to be quite a few upriver and downriver, but gradually they've gone away, you know, they've been sending them a lot of raw logs from Vancouver from Vancouver Island, you know, they sent them the logs by freighter overseas, so I mean they're just taking jobs away from the local population, you know, if they want to buy wood by wood after we process it and, uh, the economy here would start to grow because now There are fewer soulmates than many.

There are a lot fewer sawmills in Vancouver now, they used to be all up and down the river and we are no longer the last ones in Vancouver. The sawmill industry isn't booming like it once was, but the pace of work here is just as frenetic. Just as the new cargo appears on the horizon, John Pinda and the others finally make up for lost time by continuously supplying logs to the factory for seven hours. A factory that operates 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. The logs have survived their long journey. It's here. that the journey will end for a 400-year-old tree that was felled by a logger far north, on the west coast of Vancouver Island, the tree has been transformed into smaller pieces of wood and is almost certainthat will end up in another country ninety percent.

Much of British Columbia's

timber

is exported and during this time Era collects the logs that have washed ashore during their journey upriver, who knows how much longer he will be able to continue making a living this way, but it is certain that he will. He continues as long as possible in a job he loves, as for Randy, he has adopted a new rule with each trip, he gains more experience. Johnston Strait is the area in northern Vancouver Island. Kirk cuts down trees in the great Mahata River forest. The trees are cut down and taken down the mountain to join the river.

This is the eternal cycle of British Columbia.