Cochrane and area residents accustomed to seeing transport trucks loaded with logs coming in to town and piles of Spray Lake Sawmills lumber heading in the other direction may not be aware of what’s involved in the life cycle that sustains the harvest.
And while money doesn’t grow on trees, the 80-year-old company is keenly aware of the central role that growing trees plays in ensuring they may be around for another 80.
Environmentalists and trail-users have been voicing concerns about the Cochrane-based company's plans to log in the popular recreation area around West Bragg Creek, scheduled to start in 2026. That discussion will be taken up publicly again in 2024, when the next open house is held.
Philosophical differences aside, what may not be widely recognized is the fact that, purely from an economic standpoint, responsible environmental stewardship is in Spray Lake Sawmills’ interest.
As regulated by provincial law, if wood is taken out of the forest, it has to be put it back in. And if companies don’t measure up to the standards, the amount the province allows them to harvest may be reduced.
It’s a land use ethic familiar to farmers and ranchers – you get back what you put in.
So, tree-planting is big business, and it is closely monitored every step of the way.
A tour of Spray Lake Sawmills’ planting operation about 45 minutes up the Forestry Trunk Road northwest of Cochrane on a rainy Tuesday last week showed just how involved the company is in ensuring new trees have a chance to replace old ones.
Some of the examples of experimental approaches in the reforestation arsenal come across as forest science fiction.
Seeding cutovers with drones falls into that category. As high tech as that sounds (it’s not used much) it is the individual tree-planter who is the unsung hero of the conservation effort.
Navigating slippery branches and cutover residue in the rain, with clumsy rucksacks that can weigh up to 40 pounds, is not for sissies.
And yet, on this day, there’s no griping, grumpiness or groaning. In fact, the two young tree-planters The Eagle met seemed downright . . . cheerful.
On a day when the lumberjacks couldn’t work because it was too wet, they quickly munched soggy sandwiches in the rain on what passed for a coffee break.
Taylor, from Saskatchewan, wore two things on her face – a mud smear, and a grin.
“It was snowing this morning,” she said with a smile.
She moved nonstop through the slash, stopping about three or four steps between spots she identified as shovel-worthy.
It’s a well-rehearsed rhythm: shovel in, hole opened, seedling in, tamp down with the heel, and on to the next spot. Rinse and repeat.
Paid by the tree, on a good day, Taylor said she can make up to $350.
The first step in the reforestation process is to gather cones from cutover areas. Those seeds are sent to nurseries, where they will take two or three years to become seedlings, destined to be planted only in the seed zone they were harvested from.
Following seed zone rules is not only legally required, but biologically necessary to ensure that seedlings will adapt to the plantation site. By following seed zone requirements, seedlings will be genetically adapted to the climate, latitude, elevation, and location, which ultimately translates into better survival.
The Lodgepole pine and White spruce seedlings being loaded into the rucksacks of the tree-planters are 2-0 stock – meaning it’s been two growing seasons since the seeds were planted.
Silviculture forester Darrell Panas, who was on-site supervising the contractor on behalf of Spray Lake, said “the tree planters are the backbone of forestry.”
“Without all those dedicated tree planters out there in the rain like they are today, you don’t have a sustainable system,” said Spray Lake’s Vice President of Woodlands Ed Kulcsar.
Kulcsar said he knows of research that equates the energy expended by a tree-planter in a day to running a marathon.
An important factor in creating receptive planting sites, Kulcsar said, is the company’s move to stump-side processing as opposed to roadside processing.
By de-limbing and stacking logs in the bush as opposed to skidding them out and processing at a central loading point, small branches and needles are scattered more evenly across the cut block, which preserves moisture and makes for a much more seedling-friendly environment.
The site preparation work – known as scarification – then takes place, where specially equipped dozers expose just enough mineral soil to accept the seedlings.
In an average growing season, Spray Lake plants about three million trees in their forest management areas, primarily in June.
They shut logging down in the spring, typically from April to June, to avoid soil damage.
From the cone-pickers to growing seedlings, to site preparation and then planting, Kulcsar said the company spends “a few million dollars a year” planting trees.
Provincial monitoring of logging
The province oversees logging through Forest Management Agreements (FMAs).
Spray Lake has two FMAs – the northern one stretches from around Sundre to the Highwood River, and the southern one goes south to the Oldman River and Crowsnest Pass to the B.C. border. The two FMAs combined cover 524,900 hectares (ha) – about 1.3 million acres (ac).
And their annually harvested area covers up to 2,400 ha – almost 6,000 ac.
Spray Lake is responsible for developing long-range forest management plans, which cover harvesting and regrowth over a 200-year period.
“Growth and yield are a critical component, so whatever your regrowth rate, that has a big impact on what your sustainable annual harvest is,” Kulcsar said.
A computer program based on the supply model tells them which areas should be harvested over the next 20 years, based on a number of factors, including age.
“It’s basically the stands that have stopped growing or are growing very slowly,” he said.
That modelling pointed to the West Bragg Creek areas as next in line.
The detailed field work to complete the operational plan for West Bragg Creek – where the roads will go, what cut patterns will be used, where the block boundary will be, etc. – will be done starting in 2024, and will be submitted to the province in the spring of 2026.
Kulcsar said where mountain biking is a primary use, logging will likely be scheduled for winter, to avoid disrupting that recreational activity.
Spray Lake has already reached out to recreational user groups to start conversations, according to Kulcsar.
“Next year when we’ve got a little more detail we’ll be reaching out to the general public as well, with our 2024 open house,” he said.
He said it’s a process the company is already quite familiar with, having gone through it all before logging in a nearby area in 2012, and he’s optimistic all the concerns will be addressed as they were before.
Spray Lake employs just over 200 people directly, but with all the contractors involved, Kulcsar said the operation probably supports over 400 families.
Between 1993 and 2021, Spray Lake Sawmills had donated nearly $400,000 to STARS Air Ambulance.
