: cara
Photo courtesy North Store Museum & Archives

EMPLOYEES OF the Capilano Timber Company and V.1.P.s pose for a photograph at this 1919 event.

spirit of the logging

lite

A DERELICT burner at Dollarton and memories of scat-
tered old timers might seem the only reminders of what once
was a burgeoning forest industry on the North Shore.

And yet, though the days are
gone winen strong men, armed with
axes and crosscut saws, brought
down huge cedars and firs, the
spirit of the logging life lives on in
places like the Seymour
Demonstration Forest, where 2
closely supervised harvesting pro-
gram enables Greater Vancouver
Regional District foresters to con-
trol fires and insects, maintain 200
kilometres of road, and provide
access for future water supplies.

Where once sawmills lined the
North Shore, only Nova Lumber
Co. still operates under a new,
Okanagan-based owner, Toiko In-
dustries of Vernon.

Meanwhile, Seaboard Interna-
tional Terminal ships the largest
volume of forest products of any
such facility in the world to major
markets in Japan, the U.S.,
Australia, the Middle East and
China.

Eager to be rid of the “‘unsight-
ly” lumber mills, local residents
have tended to forget the impor-
tant role the logging industry

Tes eae

By MAUREEN CURTIS
Contributing Writer

played in the development of this
area.

Not long after the first white
settlers arrived in the Vancouver
area, enterprising individuals were
attracted to the North Shore’s
dense stands of hemlock, fir and
cedar, which were of incredible
size and quality.

Just east of the Capilano River,
T.W. Graham of New Westminster
erected The Pioneer Mill. Re-
named Burrard Inlet Mills, it was
purchased in 1865 by an American,
Sewell P. Moody, and stimulated
the growth of a small community.
The mill was reorganized after
Moody’s death in 1875 as the
Moodyville Sawmill Co. and con-
tinued to ship to Britain, Mexico,
China and Australia. It became
part of the English Lonsdale Estate
in 1891,

Purchased by John Hendry and
operated during the reconstruction
of the burned down Hastings Mill

lives on locally

in Vancouver, the Moodyville mill
then became idle, itself burning
down in 1916.

Lynn Valley’s first mil] was built
in 1903 for the Hastings Shingle
Manufacturing Co. owned by the
“‘Shingle Kings,’’ James and
Robert McNair. Prior to that, the
four-foot long blocks of cedar
known as shingle bolts, were cut
and floated down flumes to the

Moodyville mudflats, from where | :

they were transported to the
Hastings Mill for cutting into
shingies.

The McNairs extended their
operations well into the Upper
Lynn, constructing a dam on
Thames Creek for the collection of
shingle bolts, and then moving up
Lynn Creek to Rice Lake. Their
activities spurred on the develop-
ment of Lynn Valley, then known
as “‘Shaketown.’’ ;

Florence Nye, still living in the
Lynn Valley Road home built by
her father, Alfred Nye, has
childhood memories of the skid
road used for hauling logs. behind
the house.

When the McNairs decided to

See Logging
Page 58

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