Paradise found?: well, not for most loggers fighting with mixed woods, but Abitibi-Consolidated's private land operation in central Quebec and its new mechanized contractor Rejean Paradis are using a mixed bag of tricks to handle this tricky resource

Canadian Forest Industries, Sep/Oct 2003 by Jamieson, Scott

Going from chainsaws and line skidders to the cutting edge of cut-to-length (CTL) logging may not be every hardwood logger's cup of tea, but it seemed obvious to Marc Bergeron. Within a year of arriving at Abitibi-Consolidated's Grand-Mere office, the young superintendent of forestry operations and continuous improvement, Bas St. Maurice, had brought in an experienced CTL contractor to start a local mixed-wood operation. Some four months into the operation, Bergeron is confident the new CTL crew will soon reach its goal of 1 500 m[Symbol Not Transcribed]/week of sorted hardwood and softwood products.

[Graph Not Transcribed]

[Graph Not Transcribed]

Bergeron began his career in the high-production world of softwood logging in Lac St. Jean, a forestry region starting some 350 km north of Quebec City. So when he was transferred south to manage harvesting operations on Abitibi's private land holdings north and east of Trois Rivieres, it was only natural he'd bring some ideas along for the ride.

"Certainly, I arrived thinking of some applications for CTL - in Lac St. Jean, 50% of the volume is brought in by CTL loggers. When I saw some of the wood down here, especially the good piece sizes in the Batiscan sector, I thought there had to be a role for CTL here."

The Batiscan sector Bergeron mentions is one of several large parcels of land owned and managed by Abitibi-Consolidated's Mauricie Division. Including a smattering of smaller plots that the company is trying to amalgamate, the private holdings amount to 62 000 ha. While not huge by Abitibi standards - the Mauricie Division alone harvests over 1.1 million m[Symbol Not Transcribed] and builds over 260 km of roads annually, while the Lac St. Jean region Bergeron left behind harvests over 3 million m[Symbol Not Transcribed] - the private land still brings in 140 000 m[Symbol Not Transcribed]/yr, much of it in valuable hardwood veneer and sawlog material.

No Pine Flat

The harvest is also more complicated than your average Crown land block in the northern boreal forest. The private land harvest is split evenly between softwoods (spruce, fir, pine, hemlock) and hardwoods (birch, maple, ash, aspen), with the latter comprising a wide range of sorts from lowly pulp wood to highend veneer blocks. Rather than two or three species and a few sorts, Bergeron's crews face upward of 10 species, some of which may yield veneer, various sawlog lengths, and 4-foot pulpwood for the company's mill in Grand-Mere (part of the Laurentide acquisition).

[Graph Not Transcribed]

Terrain is also more of an issue in this neck of the woods. Instead of the relatively flat, even terrain farther north, the Mauricie is known for everything from rolling hills to steep slopes and harshly broken, rocky terrain. Instead of an endless sea of uniform 9-in softwoods, log sizes also vary dramatically, from big and ugly hardwoods and spruce, to tiny softwoods.

It should come as no surprise, then, that the majority of harvesting work here has until recently been done by manual cut-n-skid crews. Yet as Bergeron explains, impending shortages of skilled hardwood cutters and constant cost control pressures are leading Abitibi to mechanize even this sector.

"The major challenge is always to reduce the cost of our operations, and it's particularly challenging here with the mixed forest and hardwood component. There are a number of products we need to make in both softwood and hardwoods, which complicates things, and makes cost control difficult. But we're working on it."

For the most part, "working on it" means mechanizing it, as the lion's share of the 140 000 m[Symbol Not Transcribed] is now brought in by two mechanical contractors - a full-tree system working close to Grand-Mere and supplying Abitibi's Riviere aux Rats modern dimension sawmill with tree-length logs; and a new CTL system dedicated more to the area around St. Raymond, a forestry town 30 minutes northwest of Quebec City. St. Raymond is home to Gestofor, a joint venture company with both a hardwood mill and recently modernized softwood mill.

"Just in softwood, they buy 30 000 m[Symbol Not Transcribed]/yr in 16-ft wood," Bergeron explains. "That makes them my biggest single softwood client. They are also the main reason for adding a shortwood system in the area."

Imported Talent

Adding a CTL system in the area was, of course, easier said than done. The region has little in the way of CTL experience, and with all of the challenges around mixed tree sizes and terrain, Bergeron doubted a green crew would succeed.

"This was not an application for a new crew - rough, broken ground, the hardwoods and sorts to deal with, the variety in tree size, etc... I felt we needed an experienced CTL contractor to give it a fair chance."

That contractor turned out to be Forestiers Rejean Paradis Inc., run by Rejean Paradis, a 44-yr-old CTL veteran from St. Thomas Didyme, in the heart of Lac St. Jean logging country. Something of a pioneer in Canadian CTL logging, Rejean has spent more than 15 years working with various CTL systems. He was also eager for a new challenge, he tells CFI, and Bergeron certainly had one to offer.