Sign of the times....

[RPM]

http://www.canada.com/victoriatimes....html?id=096ed42b-77bc-4e48-af99-4d15d1a38d57

Bad times when you see one of the main stays of the logging industry filing for receivership. Anyone who has worked on the west coast of BC and other places in PNW have seen the big ol Madill yarders and line loaders / snorkels around. First place I worked logging on the coast was on a Madill 044 grapple yarder as a buckerman / utility man (that's short for the hooktenders b*tch, I mean helper). That particular yarder was manufactured in the 70's and had been resurrected a few times into the early 90's - doubt its around anymore.

Don't know of too many manufactures making yarders anymore - too many used ones on the market or at the auctions. Madill got into the mechanized harvesting gear - bunchers and hydraulic loaders, but even that hasn't saved them.

Sign of the times I guess....I thought we were already at the bottom but I guess there might be a little further to go.

 

[Dave Hadden]

A sign of the times for sure.
Wow.

I go back to 1969 with Madill as that's when I started in the logging industry, as the Warehouseman/Buyer for Tahsis Co. Ltd. at their Gold River Logging Div. They had a couple of 90' Madill towers and one that was bigger as I recall, or that might have been a Sparmatic. Anyway, over the four years I was there I bought a few parts from Madill and got to know a couple of guys who worked there. They were only in Nanaimo then.
Later, in Juskatla in 1974, I bought lots of parts for the 90' towers they used there.
After the successful introduction of grapple yarders Madill got into them too, with their 044 being a pretty reliable producer for many years.
Will be interesting to see who takes advantage of the auction by Richie Bros.
I can see T-Mar Industries being interested as well as Lemare Lake Logging from Port McNeill.

Kind of a sad day for sure up here.

Take care.

 

[clearance]

I was sad to read it in todays newspaper. The once great logging industry in what is a terrible time. H.R. McMillan told us this would happen back in 1956. The man was a prophet.