The men and trees of Chicoutimi
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everything about the area. We saw the river drives
of the Price company and we picked the wild blueberries of northern
Quebec. And we met so many fine people—all through the tireless
efforts of Albert Dufour. “Albert—il pleut!”
....Jacques Geadreault is logging manager
of Pamouscachiou. He is a well built man with an understanding of men.
There are no staff tables in the large cookhouse, you eat where you
sit. Jacques, like all the men in camp, was taken by the loggers sports
events. He saw to it that a good area was used for the show and three
big trucks were brought in for the audience to get a better view of
the performance. Jacques has a big job in the production of this camp.
Because of the yield per acre the company must work over a large area
and this means a constantly moving manager. We could see that Jacques
Gaudreault had the respect of his crew and the backing of his boss “Jacques—Les
Expos de Montreal est magnifique!”
....The B.C. loggers presented their show
for the men of Pamouscachiou at 6:30 the evening we were there. Jube
Wickheim and the others had set up the axe target we took with us from
B.C. and with bucking and chopping wood given us at the camp we were
able to give the men a good sample of loggers’ sports. The entire
crew turned out and I am sure that no finer reception could be given
to anyone than was given our B.C. Loggers. After the show we presented
a gold hard hat with “Festival of Forestry” imprinted to
Laurier Larouche, a big man who has been an employee of Price since
he was a boy. He now operates his own Timberjack and has two partners
and they are a top team
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on Page 29)
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....There
are machines and there are people in this forest around us in Canada and
by far the most interesting are the people. May I tell you of some very
fine people I recently met in Northern Quebec? They are typical of the
real Canadians who have derived their living from the great forests of
this country down through the decades.
....It was my pleasure along with five logging
sports champions from B.C. to visit the logging areas of Price Company
Ltd. in and around their sawmill, planer, and logging operations north
of the St. Lawrence River in the Chicoutimi district of Quebec. We were
there on behalf of the Festival of Forestry of B.C. to demonstrate the
logging skills of our loggers and to encourage the Quebec forest industry
to join with us in an eventual cross country competition of loggers sports.
....The six of us were actually a part of
a 25 strong delegation—the others being made up of graduating students
of forestry and education from Simon Fraser University, University of
B.C. and British Columbia Institute of Technology. It was truly a most
rewarding tour. The hospitality of our hosts, the Laval Faculty of Forestry,
the Quebec Forest Industries Association and the Price people, will long
be remembered by all 25 of us.
....We were shown, taught, guided and made
aware of the vast forest industry of Quebec and in return we have asked
if we, the Festival of Forestry, can host a like number of Quebec students
and loggers next year in B.C. Our five champion loggers, Brian Herlihy,
Ron Hartill, Art Williams, Owen Carney and Jube Wickheim staged a logging
sports demonstration each day of our trip and were received with a great
enthusiasm by crowds at Laval University, in Quebec City, by millworkers
and townspeople of Chicoutimi and by the loggers of the world’s
largest logging camp — Pamouscachiou.
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....This camp of Price Co. holds five
hundred men and operates in the Black Spruce forest north of the Laurentian
Mountains and east of Lake St. John. We culminated our tour with a demonstration
of loggers’ sports events in the Place Ville Marie in downtown
Montreal before several thousand people.
....Ninety million board feet of saw logs
and 135,000 cords of pulpwood are the production goals of Prices’
Pamouscachiou camp. This type of production comes from an area that
supports 15 to 20 cords of trees per acre. It takes a lot of roads.
And good roads they were too, in fact better than many of the so-called
main logging roads on the coast. And it takes the right kind of men
from top manager to tree cutters to keep a flow of wood going from the
camp to the sawmill and planer mill above Chicoutimi.
....I will write more of the week long
trip into the Quebec forest industry next month, but now if I may I
would like to introduce to you some of the men of the Chicoutimi area
who are a part of this forest around us in Canada.
The cook’s name was Claude Levesque and he ran a small cookhouse
for Price Cop. At the base of Lake Onatchiway, a part of the lake-reservoir
and river drive system of transporting wood from the Price limits north
of their base at Chicoutimi. Claude looked after the boom men from the
lake crew and any of the Price drivers or people passing through. Claude
was a friend to everyone, he was the man with news to those passing
by and his kettles of fine smelling stew were enjoyed by six hungry
B.C. loggers. “Merci – Monsieur Claude!”
....If you are only English speaking, as
the five other loggers and myself were, and are heading into the forests
of northern Quebec I would advise two things—be interested in
what you will see and have a French-English speaking guide like Albert
Dufour with you. This very amiable man from the personnel division knew
everyone and
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