For the “dogs”
AFR: I really enjoyed the January 2022 article by Larry Rockwell titled “Winter in the woods.” After reading the line, “The yard teamster would drive dogs into the logs,” I decided to send along this photo of “log dogs.” The loonie gives some size perspective. Sometimes a single “dog” would be carried in a pouch for quick access. These probably came from old camps we used to visit at Blue Mountain Bend or at Riley Brook South.

D.C. Butterfield
Kilburn N.B.

AFR: Your January 2022 issue of Atlantic Forestry was very interesting; great history by David Palmer on “the four-foot wood...,” and Larry Rockwell on “Winter in the woods.”
Your magazine, with its great pictures on the front cover and interesting ads inside, deserves to rate as the best magazine in Eastern Canada.
(I worked at the sawmill 50 years ago, and am a hay farmer in southwestern Alberta.)

Ken Poulsen
Cowley, Alta.

Local is as local does
AFR: We often see “Buy Local” promotions in the media. Has anyone looked at how this applies to house construction in Nova Scotia? How much Nova Scotia material goes into a modern residential dwelling? The studding almost definitely comes from here. The chipboard and plywood come from away. Flooring in the building, supplies, outlets – almost all comes from China and is made of sawdust and glue. Windows are often made here of plastic and glass that is imported. We cannot supply hardwood flooring from our province. We do supply some pine finish materials, and that is about it. Even the drywall is imported.
In the year 2000, we constructed a significant addition to our home in Yarmouth. We used framing from our local mill that included extra-long floor joists. We boarded it in on the diagonal using local tongue-and-groove boards. We even used local pine finish and wainscotting. At that time, we had the option to purchase Nova Scotia hardwood flooring. We used New Brunswick cedar shingles, since our local cedar is depleted and now endangered. The labour to build traditionally wasn’t that bad. I believe the only trailer truck involved in the material supply was the pole trailer used by the mill to haul tree-length logs to allow flexibility in supplying orders for wood up to 30 feet long for the marine industries.
Big business has created huge interventions, with few people and huge machines on Crown and private land in our province, to create an export market for packaged stud wood and little else but biomass, and left out all the other components for a building industry that is trying to cut all the labour it can. Government has allowed free rein by industry on Crown land, when the value at the stump was unchanged and lumber prices tripled. Until wood has to be manufactured in the country of origin, we will never get back to more interest in growing and using local product. We need to scale down the machinery and mills, and get local people back into the woods. Get those B-trains of green logs off our highways. Teach our people how to cut and use local wood and other resources.

Charles Jess
Yarmouth, N.S.