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Commercial sawmilling began near Victoria in 1848, producing the lumber needed to build the rapidly growing communities on southern Vancouver Island. As local timber supplies were used up and demand for lumber increased, logging and sawmilling operations spread to the eastern lowlands of Vancouver Island and the lower mainland, particularly along the shores of Burrard Inlet. Logging sites were at first located close to tidewater so that timber tied together in rafts could be floated to holding ponds near the mills. Sawmills were built near the sources of hydroelectric power required to run the machinery. Mills at Chemainus, Hastings and Moodyville, among others, exported lumber on sailing ships bound for Australia, China, Japan and Great Britain. By 1916, 400 mills were producing over 1,000,000 board feet annually. As sawmill locations continued to expand, those in the interior of the province came to outnumber those on the coast but remained smaller and lower in total production. In the 1970s, at the peak of forestry activity in BC, it was estimated that the vast majority of the annual log harvest went directly to sawmills, where it accounted for 70% of the Canadian output of sawn lumber. More than half the number of people employed in the wood products industry worked in sawmills. Compared to 80 years ago, twice as many mills produce more than ten times the amount of board feet, thanks to improvements in design and technology. |
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