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CASTLEGAR NEWS, May 18, 1980

Su Prices effective Tues., May 20 to Sat., May 24 at all SuperValu
stores In Trail, Waneta Plaza, Rossland, Castlegar, Nelson,

Grand Forks, Cranbrook, Fernie and Elkford. We reserve the

Locally owned and operated. right to limit quantities.
mon «0 OD

Whole or Shank, 7 e A UICE

Gov't. inspected .. |b... \ A eed r a c

PORK GHOPS Concentrate, 12% 02... .se sees ees ww

Gov't. inspected, quarter loin, 1 3 Q > : ore (ag ‘| eee = a

centres & ends mixed ..........+. Ib. a 1 mpscteese | | Oo H Sota!
= ae <i soft
DINNERS HINES

Beef Chuck, boneless, grade ..... al a 8 g Watsons cues Nee MARGARINE

BLADE ROAST $1GQ UKRAWIAN SAUSAGE $4.99 sh." oe “Tis

Can. Gr. A, Beet Chuck Blade, bone removed, Ib. .. Vancouver Fancy, natural, 300 gr......- § 1 A i] 5 g

CHUCK STEAK = a..1,,88 CHICKEN LOAF
DETERGENT SPIG & or TOOTHPASTE

PORK BUTT STEAK
BOL Liquta, Aas
99.69 ooLeamA | res

VEAL GUTLETS
24 oz. bottle «2... 2eeeeeeeees Tiltre .. ' TOU mtube ...
31.69 1.59 SHORTENING. SOOKIES

Breaded, frozen philat:
Peek Fre: C 0 R N
is Nice, 400 gr. .. ean

PORK CUTLETS
MR. CLEAN CAT FOOD tee
plies. $1 89 a me

sa wae

LING COD

Fletch allced, 500 gr. pkg. : Previously frozen,
95° el chunke, Ib.
*1,69 18
53.69 ...
veveeeee On FISH 'N

Vancouver Fancy, 300 gr. bulk

FARMER SAUSAGE
V.-P., 12 oz. tins

2... 19°

FRENCH
FRIES

Sno Cap White Swan
2 Ib. pkg. 2 roll pkg.

: | Berdoghorg ences
$1.19 112.99° CUCUMBER:

bi 3 39 Grapefruit

TOWELS

Super
Selacts ..0.......0006 for

: Ruby Reds California
jobte Of 8 Ib, bag

«OF ORANGES
| cotter $ sy a |
CORN ON COB

Pure vegetable, 12S re ees eee ss Ibs.
California 4
Golden Ears . ~ Hi cobs

vy SurfLaundry,
Zhge Ot cecvcvecrccsencern

\ CANTALOPE |

Hard work and long hours:

By ESTHER LANG.
{First of Three Parts)

The Castlegar area with its many.

* mountainous forests has been known for
many years for its lumbering operations.

which have played a great part in the’
economy of the district: Many .names:
come to mind as being owners of small
sawmills in the past, but.the name of
William Waldie distinctly stands out’in
the minds of most people in this district.

Possibly this is bécause hjs was one of .

the most prosperous’ enterprises, and
because it endured for the longest
period of time. *

In 1896, William Waldie Sr. brought
his family from Ontario and settled in
the West Kootenay region. He, like
many others coming in at that time,
came to find his fortune in mining. Such
operations were just opening up in this
area, espe in ihe regions T
don, Salmo and Christina Lake, where.
the Kootenay: gold rush had been in
operation since the 1880's. i

There is no doubt that Mr. Waldie
succeeded in mining because .he was
able to profit from his claim, and to put
his money to good use. After selling his
claim, he bought shares in the
Edgewood Lumber Co. Ltd., then
‘situated at Edgewood, and became a
major stockholder.

Mr. Waldie had had a great amount
of sxperisrics in lumbering in Eastern
Canada where his father had owned and
operated a “Waldie's Mill” on Georgian
Bay. Due to this fact, his colleagues felt
that he would make an excellent
manager for their business enterprise,
and at once gave him this responsibility.

There was.a‘great deal of business
to transact before production could take
place. There were permits and licences
fo obtain.from the government, such as
“timber sales” to cut timber on Crown

-Waldie's sawmill origins

Edge rad Saw mut

timber in sufficient quantity to make it
commercially valuable.”

* ~The latter, were given for each
square mile of forested land, so as the
mill operations grew, more timber licen-,
ces were required. There were also
workers to hire ond buildings to erect

* before business could begin.

Finally, machinery and equipment
had to be purchased and set up. y
During the active operation of the

- sawmill at Edgewood, a better location
‘was being sought because ‘there were’

William Waldie Sr., founder of William Waldie & Sons, Ltd. Born on Jan.
17, 1867, he died on July 14, 1932. This picture was taken in 1922 when
Mr. Waldie was 55 years old. He and Mrs. Waldie had three sons, W.T.

(Bill Jr.), John and Bob. The latter two brothers are now deceased, bi
aw

« but..

." still lives in Robson with his wife Marjorie and continues active in

Castlegar's community life.

Background:

This history of the Waldie Sawmill
was written by Esther Lang to give a
“word picture” of Waldie’s Sawmill as it
carried on business from 1909 until 1962,
and to.show its effect on the Castlegar
district. Soe

, Miss Lang says she was fortunate to
have a great many prominent resource
people who had direct ties to Waldies'

+ Mill, and who were anxious to provide

assistance to her. :
In particular, she says she is indeb-

ted to the late Bob Waldie and to W.T.”

(Bill) Waldie, of Robson, for much of the
information and for correction of errors.
People interviewed for the history
study included former workers of the
mill, their, wives, and direct relatives of
deceased workers. g
The people interviewed were from

all walks of life and no two workers in-

mill,
Miss Lang says she found no

previous articles written about the mill ©

(which was located where Castlegar's
sewage lagoons are now located), but
she did read some lumbering books and
studied four cécord books of the
Edgewood Lumber Co. Ec

She expresses the hope that this
history properly portrays Waldies’
Sawmill “as a stepping-stone to the
prosperity and future of the Castlegar
area.”

SS

Edgewood Lumber Co. mill around the time it became
the Waldie mill in 1928. The CPR bridge can be seen in

C.aséle gar BC.

The Waldie Sawmill was-located near the CPR bridge
where Castlegar's sewage lagoons are now. The
Edgewood ‘Lumber ‘Co. built the mill there in 1910.
William ‘Waldie Sr. bought shares in the Edgewood

“land, and “timber licences” to cut, as
+ stated in the Forest Act, “merchantable

blaze in 1962.

no railway tracks near the town, and as"

a result all incoming equipment and all
outgoing lumber products had to be
barged. Finally, a place was located at
Castlegar, on the opposite side of the
river to where Castlagar itself was built.

There were many good reasons for
choosing this location. The mountains

- were covered with a thick starid of

valuable timber suitable for: good lum-
ber. The mill site would be situated with
a downstream current from a swiftly
flowing river, the Columbia, Log tran-
sportation would not be difficult, and the

site would lend ideally to the building of -

a breakwater area.

The village of Castlegar was a
Canadian Pacific Railway terminal. on
the Kettle Valley Line. This lent strength
to the choice of the mill location because
it offered transportation in shipping the
finished lumber to markets.

This Kettle Valley Line was one of
the main branches that connected with
the main lines elsewhere, and so it was
economical to ship products by means of
the CPR because of its coast-to-coast
network,

When all advantages were con-

sidered, the land was purchased, and in -

1909 the Edgewood Lumber Co. moved
tts sawmill headquarters to Castlegar.

Once again, setting-up operations
had to take place and these took man-
power, horsepower, time, and money —
manpower to actually erect the
buildings, horsepower to pull the lumber
fo the actual site, time to.build, and
money to buy necessary equipment such
as saws, nails, bolts, ropes and pulleys,
windows, doors, and cement for foun-
dations. :

Construction began immediately af-

ter the land was surveyed and cleared .
and lumber had been transported from .

the Edgewood mill site. Buildings to be
erected included homes and bunkhouses
for the workers,.a dining hall and kit-
chen to feed these workers, stables for
the horses, and the mill itself; :
Some of the buildings constructed
would have to be set up on walkways. to
prevent total .flooding in the spring
season, so large, strong posts had to be
driven into the ground before construc-

tion of permanent buildings could take °

place. a
Because this mill was to. produce
lumber, shingles and lath, buildings had
to be constructed according to need, and
would include ing sheds, and at a
safe distance urner" to dispose of
sawdust and refuse not used to fire the
steam boilers. parecer!

eS te et

Lumber Co., eventually gaining sole control of it.-In
1928 the mill became th
Celgar Mill. It burned to the ground in a spectacular

@ Waldie Mill and in 1952, the

SNS

About the author: :

Esther Lang is the daughter of
longtime Castlegar residents, Mr. and
Mrs. T. Lang.

An SHSS graduate of 1968, Miss
Lang wrote this history of the Waldie
Sawmill as a History 216 term poper at
Selkirk College in 1970. '

She now teaches a grade 6 class at
Ashcroft, in the South Cariboo School
Distelct.

SN

In constructing this burner the out-
side was built of boiler plate. It was
cylindrical in shape, about 40 to 50 feet
in diameter, and 50 feet high. The bur-
ner was air-cooled which meant that the
bottom was open to let in the air. The
top of the cylinder was enclosed with a
dome-shaped screening to keep sparks
from spreading, but to allow the smoke
to escape.

The sawmill building was a long
one, built in a double-story style. On the
ground floor were the engines and
boilers which used sawdust and scraps
of lumber for fuel, which in turn
provided steam as the power for milling
operations. a

- A-long,.slanted incline called’a
“slip" was built from the water, and at-
tached to one end of the upper floor
where: the sawing operations would
take place. This slip was built to convey

- the logs from the “millpond” up to the

saw by means of a “jackladder,” to be
cut. :
Other buildings necessary to this

‘ operation were dry kilns, where the

lumber would be placed to. remove the
moisture, and a planing mill where the
lumber would be planed and made
smooth after it had been dried.

A lath and a shingle mill operation
wauld be included in the mill program so
those buildings also had to be constru-
cted. Even a small power plant, to
provide lighting, was erected on the mill

site.

The building of small family homes,
bunk houses for the workers who were
not married, a dining hall and kitchen,
barns to house the-horses, and sheds for.

harnesses. and wagons was no mean -

feat, nor was the furnishing and equip-
ping of each building throughout the
lumber mill site. :

Photographs courtesy of Corrie
Schafthuizen, author of the yet-to-be-
published The Life and Legends of the
Arrow Lakes Woodworker: 2

rN

the background while trees cover everything that can
be seen In the picture of present-day Castlegar.

May 18, 1980
ee :

The mill site was also the site of a:

well-built breakwater, where the logs
were forced through the swiftest part of
the river into a quiet pool. From this pool
conveyor belts would take the logs up
the "slip" and into the mill.

The Canadian Pacific Railway ran
right past the mill enroute to Nelson, so
it was easy for a spur line to be built to
the mill buildings. This would enable the
men to load the finished lumber on
railway cars in the mill yard.

Finally, in 1910, with equipment
brought from Vancouver in place,
houses furnished, and bunk houses
ready, men were hired and the mill
began to operate. Among the workers

_ ,higad was a cook whose duty was to

maintain the kitchen and dining room.
In this new location logs could be

"brought down in "booms" by a tugboat.

The tugboat used for these operations
on the lake was named the “Elco” and
the name was derived by taking the first
letter of each word of the Edgewood

* Lumber Co.

This was a most prosperous time to
begin a lumber industry because by 1910
the Canadian Prairies were buying 70
per cent of British Columbia's lumber.

To carry on any successful lumber
industry the woods operations must be
considered. Those operations can be
divided into two divisions, namely the
cutting of the trees, and the transpor-
tation of the logs to the mill.

The cutting of trees is far more
dramatic than sawmilling or even trans-
porting the logs.

Around 1910, when the loggers first
started operations in the Castlegar area
for the Edgewood Lumber Co., they used
axes and crosscut saws to fell the trees.
The axe was used to notch the tree on
one side so as to ensure which direction
the tree would fall. Sometimes, with
large trees, the axe was used to notch
the tree approximately halfway through
and then the crosscut saw was used to
cut the tree the rest of the way through,
starting from the side opposite the axe
cut and working towards it.

The long crosscut used in these
operations had a handle at each end,
and required two men to operate it with
a backwards and forwards, pushing and
pulling motion. ;

The “falling” of trees. was a
dangerous job. If the notch was’ not
placed properly there was a possibili
that the tree could swing and not fall
free of other trees. This would endanger
the logger by injury from flying limbs, or
by crushing him. Yet the logger, in spite
of these dangers, was a cheerful fellow
and proved to be a healthy, hardy man
in all seasons of the year.

In the spring the loggers went into
the woods to a well-built camp. These
camps were built conveniently close to
the area to be logged, so that the men
would not have too far to walk before
they could begin their work.

The work was hard, the hours long,
and the mosquitoes and black flies
sometimes unbearable. Any entertain-
ment or amusements which they had
were made entirely by themselves.
Some of the older men wondered if the
younger loggers stayed awake all night
scheming up the various jokes to play on
the other members of the crew.

These loggers cut down trees, lim-
bed and bucked them; and then piled
the logs ready to be transported to the
sawmill. This transportation took
various forms, according to the lacation
of the camp. At one camp, 9 timber
chute was built. This chute.was a long
slide down which logs coasted at a rajpid
speed. Since the chute was built close to
where the Robson townsite now stands,
the logs had to pass over a wagon trail
before -they entered. the water where
they were made into-a boom and hauled
by tugboat to the mill.

Because of this roadway, the logs
could not be just “shot down the chute
because no one at the top could tell if, at
the precise moment that the log would
shoot across the roadway, there was not
going to be someone travelling past.

One man was hired to be the wat-
chman and the day that the log pile
became large enough for a boom, this
man was notified to appear at the toad-
way the next day to “direct the traffic,”
or rather to stop the traffic until the last
log had struck the water with a resoun-
ding splash. :

The watchman knew exactly when
the logs would be coming down because
the Waldies had established a private

telephone system from the man at the |

top of the hill to the man at the bottom.

Other camps had to pile their logs
on wagons or skids and convey them
over brush and around stumps to the
water's edge. Here boom sticks had
been chained together in the take and
anchored to the shore in a semi-circular
shape with the open side towards the
shore. The logs were rolled into the lake
at this open side until the semi-circled
area became full of logs.

The tug then came along and joined
together the ends of the chain which had
been anchored at the shoreline to forma
boom. This boom was securely anchored
to the tug by chains, and then towed
downstream to the mill. Here the boom
chains were undone and the loose logs
whirled through the breakwater channel
into the quiet storage poo! to await their
turn at the saw. 4

aoa

Continues Next Sunday