Comment by Bill Moore
 
THE FORESTS AROUND US
 
....The B.C. Lumberman magazine has invited me to put down on paper, each month, my observations and feelings of the forest around us here in British Columbia. I accepted the invitation, because I like to write and I find a wealth of material to draw from. It’s a big industry, our forest industry, and it is full of interesting people with big happenings and it has a colorful past.
....I have used the title “The Forest Around Us” because we, living here, unlike any other province in Canada, are so dependent on our vast areas of trees. We don’t have the grain or oil of the prairies ? nor the heavy industry of the East. We have a forest that in one way or another contributes to half our livelihood in B.C.
....I find that too often the city folks of Vancouver or Victoria sometimes forget this fact ? I guess the high rises shield them from the forest. Though whether they like it or not, those same sophisticates of Vancouver live in the forest capital of the world.
....Nowhere else is there a city so dominated by the tree. The giant corporations nearly all have their head offices in Vancouver, and daily orders from those domes of the giants go out to the valleys, inlets and mountain sides, to keep the flow of wood moving.
....Not only the management but the Unions ? the International Woodworkers of America and the pulp unions ? use Vancouver as their base of western operations. The suppliers of logging equipment, food and even clothing and footwear have their distribution centers in Vancouver. Add to this the number of sawmills, wood products factories and lumber shipping facilities in and around Vancouver ? and it is plain to see where the forest capital of the world is.
....If you want more proof of the above statement, just let a work stoppage occur in the forest industry and watch the city merchants go hungry ? or watch the sky turn clear, as it recently did this summer when the mills shut down. Yes sir, this is the forest capital of the world in this writer’s opinion, and smoke or no smoke (but let’s get rid of it) it’s a great city.
....I have lived with loggers all my life, and have found it meeting so many ...
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British Columbia Lumberman, October, 1970

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