Bears and Mars in Port Alberni

After departing Campbell River, it was on to Port Alberni we went. We were heading south, and hoping to find the warmer weather we had been promised this time of year. Fortunately for us, it was delivered.

Our first full day involved making our Forestry presentation to WoodTech21 - a group of local men and women from a variety of fields, coming together to plan a path forward for Port Alberni's Forestry and Lumber Industry, bringing it into the 21st Century.

From here, we were taken to PRT nursery, a Christmas tree farm and woodlot, and to Coulson. Who knew that the home of some of the aerial fire fighting appliances, that many of us have seen either first hand or on the news, aiding our fire suppressing operations, was based in Port Alberni Canada. We were very fortunate to be shown not only the helicopters, but also the Mars water bombing aircraft. Amazing to look at, and absolutely huge, the Mars was being prepared for deployment to the US for their summer. We were all fortunate enough to get in the cockpit of the second Mars at the Coulson premises.

At 4 and a half weeks into the GSE, we were all beginning to think that Black bears in the wold were a myth. And then, after a wonderful day in Tofino and Ucluelet, there, on the side of the road, was a black bear. After a whole lot of pointing and shouting from the back of the van, we U-turned, very safely, and were able to observe the bear, grazing and keeping one eye on us. Finally, a big tick next to Bear sighting could be drawn. Thanks to Kenn and Larry for organising the bear to be so accessible to us tourists!!

For the rest of the week, we were busy with Vocational days hosted by British Columbia Forest Service. Our hosts had put together an excellent programme. We were able to observe shovel logging, road building by blasting, paper mill and sawmill operations, and a lucky encounter with a sky crane that was taking off to start heli-logging (see video). And this was only the first day.


After a jam packed week, and many great memories, we were able to wind down at a special dinner meeting for both Daybreak and Noon clubs in Port Alberni, and thank all of the Rotarians that made this leg of the GSE special.



Next stop - District 5020 District Conference

Victoria to Campbell River

After an afternoon of free time in Victoria and with our bags a little heavier from more shopping, we continued our travels to Campbell River. The weather continued to be magic, proving that the sun does shine some of the time!! We arrived in Campbell River with high hopes for the next few days.

In town we met the Mayor of Campbell River, were hosted for a day by Western Forest Products, completed a forestry presentation to a network of Canadian Foresters, visited Campbell River Museum, toured PRT Forest Nursery and visited a Salmon fish farm. With a program this jam packed some of us still found time for 9 holes of golf!!

We all had great fun catching up with the team members who visited us earlier this year from District 5020. And we can now appreciate why they were not impressed by the "mountains" they saw in the Green Triangle.

Shana and Jane were also lucky enough to see a pod of orca.

A picture of our latest bear sighting

Port Angeles to Victoria

West Coast Dreaming

Whoa have we been busy. Is that Lewis or Clarke? - No it is just a Forestry lecturer at a nuclear facility???












Did I say nuclear facility - thats right check it out this place was 85% complete before it was abandoned. It is now a business park where they use the many levels of power redundancy to provide a secure server location where the power never goes out! The acoustics were incredible inside the cooling tower.










A fish hatchery at the community college.















This is what we like to see - pulp and lots of it.

















And the end result!

Clams, paper and education

Friday started early for the team. It was razor back clam digging time. Licences are only available for a few weekends a year, and as we were to discover, thousands of people head to the beaches in search of this tasty shellfish.

Waders on, and shovel in hand, the team, aided by a few local Rotarian's, began digging holes, and jamming our arms, full length, into the sand to pull out the clam. Shrieks were heard by all when a clam attacked Shana, but in the end, we all escaped with a bounty of clams, and memories of a very unique Western Washington experience.

So after an uneventful morning, we were now off to Grays Harbor Paper. We were treated to an informative tour through the facility, from electricity generation, to cooking the pulp, and the steps to making all sorts of different paper products. Grays Harbor Paper produces copy, waxed, printing, and other specialty paper products, and for those of us who had been through paper mills before, this was a great opportunity to see another side to the process.

And now for education, Grays Harbor College was our next stop. Here, we met with the lectures from the Natural Resources programme, and learnt of the history of Forestry education in the USA and Grays Harbor's role in delivering high quality and relevant forestry education. The education system in the USA is structured a little differently to that of Australia's, and best of all, they have plenty of students to teach.

As you can tell, a great day was had by all, and as we attended our final Aberdeen/Hoquiam gathering at the Polson Museum last night, it was clear that this GSE experience has by far, exceeded expectations already, and we still have over three weeks left.

Next Stop Port Angeles

Trees, trees, and more trees

So this is why Forestry is the best job in the world. Check out that view. I mean the view of Mount Washington in the background, all covered with snow.

This week has been jam packed with our vocational days. The photo above was taken at one of Green Diamond's properties near Shelton. We were able to interact with planting, cable yarding, and road construction operations, and yes, the weather was very kind to us.

As you can see, tree planters have it pretty tough in this part of the world. It's steep, there is no ground prep, and there's certainly no mounds or straight lines to follow, in fact neither of us could figure out the system they had for planting the trees in 9ft x 9ft spacings.
While in Aberdeen, a visit to Sierra Pacific Industries was arranged. Our first Saw Mill. This mill takes in approximately 1.2million m3 a year, and processes Hemlock and Doug Fir. The photo on the left shows their scaling operation at work. It was interesting to compare the log delivery points, processing technology and the CoGen plant, with the mills back home. The CoGen plant allows the mill to burn forest and mill waste, to not only create steam to run through the dry kilns, but also to generate electricity through turbines to run the entire mill, and sell excess megawatts to power companies. Overall, we were all very impressed with the capabilities of the mill, and were amazed by the scale at which they operate. Just check out the crane that unloads the truck in one grab, and how about the size of that log pile, it just won't quite fit in the photo. Fortunately SPI are able to keep operating this mill during the tough times the industry is facing over here, and we certainly hope that they, and the rest of the Forestry and associated industries can bounce back to full production in the near future.

Yeow, is it still winter out here?

Hi Blog followers, we have been falling behind with posts because we have been so busy but we have an update today. Yep, thats Andrew at 5500 feet with Mount Ranier in the backgroud. This mountain is huge and can be seen from all over on a clear day. Shana and Andrew were lucky enough to make the trek on our day off on Sunday.

The "price is right" Shana is showing off some lovely Doug Fir logs destined for export from Olympia Port. Logs like this are in the 100+ years old category.

We have all been struggling this week with the conversion from board feet to cubic metres. Although Jerry has been claiming to have completed the conversion in his head the final answer has been indisputably inncorrect and with the brains trust failing miserably the rest of us have given up!

We have made the transfer to the Shelton area right at the southern end of Puget Sound. The hospitality of the local Rotarians has been outstanding as we have come to expect from all our hosts. Weather here has been on the improve and today the temperatures topped 70F!

Today we visited with Green Diamond a family owned timber and sawmilling company with a mere 140,000Ha. We were all very impressed with the professionalism and tidy operations.

Keep tuned for more soon!