BC Logging Industry: Who is working right now?

[Jack_Shaft]

Greetings all,

Just looking for a few inroads into the BC Logging Industry for a great Civil Engineering Student that is working for me this Winter. He is a great kid (abt 22 yrs old) that is about 1/2 way through his co-op program where he is able to partake in work terms every 4 months. He will available for hire again from Sep-Dec 2008 and he's not afraid of the bush like most young folks. He grew up in Labrador like me and can handle himself quite responsibly.

As a wood cutter myself, surrounded by a pulpwood environment for most of my life, I have been amazed by the picture thread that Art Martin hosted and I shared a great deal of the info with my prodigy. He too was intrigued by the element of Man vs. Nature.

Can any of you tell me who is currently operating in BC? No doubt with all of the cables, towers, winches and heavy equipment that is being used in the West some Engineering knowledge is needed and there must be a couple of field engineers that are constantly running around to these larger sites to make sure the equipment is set-up properly and/or is in good order. With all of the crappy office jobs that are out there, I would love to give this student a real taste of a challange rather than just tapping keys.

Any info would be appreciated, PM works fine or you can send me an email at robpilgrim (at) gmail.com

 

[RPM]

Not many working right now, especially cable operators (theres 3 madill 120 yarders parked in town at the moment - probably for sale if the price was right - they generally work for my company but won't be this year).

Not to be negative, but if the kid is a civil engineering student then get some experience in project management - construction, highways, working for some city engineering department - BC has a building boom on. Not only will he make more money, but will most likely have stable employment if he is competent. Forestry in BC (and elsewhere) is in decline and isn't going to get better anytime soon. As far as working with cable yarding equipment....you don't need to be an rocket scientist or engineer)....you just need to have a strong back, be quick on your feet, always keep your head up and do as the hook tender says. About all your guy would get to do is pull strawline, set chockers and get yelled at generally for no good reason .

Sorry...

 

[gavin]

i'm a little confused what he wants to do out here. the engineers go out before any logging starts and lay out the new road locations (if any, tons of the cutblocks now are heli) and falling boundaries, stuff like that, and once its engineered they move on to a new place to lay out. there's lots of engineering contractors out there he could try to get on with. won't make much money, especially since i can't see a background in civil engineering really being too much of an asset. anyways you can check out http://www.canadian-forests.com/job.html to browse around for postings.

 

[hammerlogging]

A good forest engineer will make the difference between a profitable logging job and the rest, just scraping by. Choose the right harvest system for the terrain, maximize yarder payload per turn, find the best road routes with the least building expense and keep the hauling going throught the worst weather. Someone that knows all this, and can pull rope, now there you have a logger. Not that I have any inroads in BC or anything.

 

[Bicboro]

i'm a little confused what he wants to do out here. the engineers go out before any logging starts and lay out the new road locations (if any, tons of the cutblocks now are heli) and falling boundaries, stuff like that, and once its engineered they move on to a new place to lay out. there's lots of engineering contractors out there he could try to get on with. won't make much money, especially since i can't see a background in civil engineering really being too much of an asset. anyways you can check out http://www.canadian-forests.com/job.html to browse around for postings.

Yes I agree with 'Gavin' not HL, some people have an insight into what needs to be done. I wouldn't put him in charge, but as second or third in control. Being younger myself, 24, I'm not ready to lead yet, I want to learn still. Let me see how somebody more experienced handles it, yet let me have input(I'll see angles old school men won't). I'm not that far away from being a leader, I've been trained, just not shown how to lead.

 

[slowp]

Can we smuggle him across? The agency I work for can't seem to hire engineers. There is a shortage. There is such a shortage that I was able to work as an engineer a few years ago but went crazy after 4 years of it as I like to be out on the ground more. Now they are busy repairing flood damage and decommissioning roads. I've worked on timber sales where the "engineer" put the haul road in the wrong place so we had to build additional roads to get the yarder setup in a good spot. If he wants to work as a forest engineer, working on a logging crew would be excellent experience. Unfortunately, times are bad right now. Good luck.

 

[RPM]

The term "engineer" is used a little loosely within logging. On the coast (PNW) guys and gals who do the road and cutblock layout, logging plans, etc are called logging 'engineers' which really they are Forest Technicians. The term engineer has held on b/c in the day real text book engineers laid out out all the rail grades, built all the fancy wooden trestles, flumes and engineered all the cable / tower blocks. We're talking steel chains, transits and staff compasses. Everything was logged from the rail grades. When I worked on the coast we were classified as engineering crewman and we worked for the area engineer - we were all forest techs by schooling (text book and school of hard knocks).

All I ever use an engineer (Professional Engineer - PEng - which is what this kid is going to school for) for in the interior and on the coast is for bridge work, engineered fill slopes/retaining structures/fancy rock work - drilling and blasting where professional sign off is required for liability and gov't regulations.

Someone with civil engineering schooling / background would be good for doing the above things which is basically almost always related to developing forest road access. To have a good understanding of how the above harvesting activities relate to each other its best to gain some harvesting background - as a basic entry level junior technician running road grades, deflection lines, traversing roads and cutblock boundaries, timber cruising, working on a grade crew, pulling strawline, setting chokers...etc......then he can start to put it all together. Probably take a good year or two to get the hang of it all if the person was soumewhat inclined that way. Anything logging in my experience takes thinking outside the box rather than what a text book says.

An engineer doing harvesting type work without any harvesting / road background would be a royal f**k up. Real engineers generally take simple things and make them complicated!

 

[hammerlogging]

Je accuse. Maybe a french Canadian can tell me if I got the expression correct.

Masters degree in industrial forest operations and 12 to 18 thousand board feet per day, every day, (working). Harvest layout, silvicultural prescriptions. Not novice.

Nice attempt at calling me out, lets see, is this a vendetta? Wow, like 17 responses to just about anything I've addressed with these friendly and rather insightful folks on this forum.

Chains over half wore out DO cut faster than new chains because the kerf is narrower. Us professional fallers do run our chains to the nubbins. And I only hand file. We sharpen chains right out of the box/ off the reel cause we can make them cut faster than they come. rarely do I loose a tooth and quite frankly it doesnt matter if I do. It just doesn't matter. What are you losing your teeth on?

I didn't speak of chemistry in my discussion of biodiesel, I suggested filtering the product thoroughly and repeatedly. Although biodiesel is produced through a simple titration process and if you start with vegetable oil, follow the instructions, then you get BD.

"I can cut anything with my harvester". The response "No you can't" is fact. No you can't. You can't cut big timber, and you can't cut timber in places you can't reach the cutter head. Just chill out. No, you can't. See it makes sense, and its not even a big deal. there are places wher each is better, your limit is less than 30", more like 22" stump. Bigger than that and your productivity plummets. fact. Listen buddy, you may be out of your league. I am not novice. I am a professional. I enjoy discussion and appreciate your interest in debating the ins and outs, but look before you leap.

When developing an argument, I suggest keeping within the subject at hand. For instance, one might not include utilization capability in the same conversation as ability to cut large diameter timber or inaccessible timber. Those are two different subjects.

A logger who can properly engineer a tract to balance the flow of wood throughout the tract, mimimize shutdown days, and apply the proper harvest system to the tract will be more profitable. Thats why we have different systems for different places, site and stand parameters. Some calls are decided upon by the foresters laying out the tract, other operational decisions are made by the logger. Having an intelligent and capable fellow on a crew who can help make these decisions is an advantage.

And if I may mention, a 6" and bigger qualifies as a commercial clearcut. That is as opposed to a slivicultural clearcut, a word that implies "forestry in process here", commercial implying "not forestry here, resource exploitation". I've had to do them too, but hopefully never again. Maybe ask the forester if you can go ahead and cut everything so that the next generation can have something decent growing in their forest, it'd probably be easy since you get to run such a nice harvester. Take it easy on our Appalachian hardwoods, this is the most biodiverse temperate forest in the world and I don't want to have to use the word capetbagger to those coming and taking advantage of our regional sociopolitical status that enables these less than ideal forest practices to occur.

CTL is not too popular in the south because it has a higher operating cost ($/ton) than the conventional whole tree FB/ Grapple skidder setup. It is a superior system environmentally, but thats why its not so popular, cause it costs more and the demand is not present to justify it over conventional systems. Personally i am glad to know there are some CTL outfits moving in, I wish you could apply your incredible ability into some TSI work and less for short term profitablity for whichever mill your boss has contracted you to. I would like to get a forwarder into my outfit, but will not be interested in mechanized felling for some time, do to the particular site and stand parameers within which I work. Anyhow, I've lost my interest responding to you.

Enjoy TN. I don't know, maybe he just needs to get laid or something.

 

[gavin]

The term "engineer" is used a little loosely within logging. On the coast (PNW) guys and gals who do the road and cutblock layout, logging plans, etc are called logging 'engineers' which really they are Forest Technicians.

thats definately true. whenever i think of "engineer" out here i always think of techs doing the recces and layouts.

 

[tramp bushler]

.........Engineers settin chockers

.........I think he would seek an office forth with after the 2nd week of inch a day rain, ground pounded with inch chockers on a Polock show with a 009 Madill