There are a number of different logging systems used on the Community Forest. For most of the operating areas, harvest blocks are accessed by forest roads that are built specifically for logging. Due to the large size of the timber and the steep work sites, most of the timber is felled by hand using powersaws. After a faller fells a tree on the hillside, he then bucks the tree into a series of logs of specific lengths. Branches are also trimmed and the top is bucked off where the stem is at minimum diameter. Felling is one of the most dangerous jobs in logging as there are many variables, like rotten stems and snag trees, that make it difficult to control how the trees come down.
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With the mountainous terrain around Bella Coola, the main system of logging is ‘high lead’, whereby logs are winched to the roadside by wire rope cables suspended from a tower crane. The main highlead machine on the Community Forest is a 45 ft tall mini-tower. Once the logs are at roadside, they are further processed to preferred lengths and broken ends and defects are also trimmed off. Then the logs are loaded on logging trucks by a hydraulic loading machine. The load is then hauled to a local mill or to the log dump at the ocean, west of Clayton Falls. Each load holds from 30 to 35 cubic meters of logs. Loads that are dumped into the water are stored in bundles in the booming ground and when there are enough bundles for a full load, they are barged down to the lower mainland (Vancouver) where the logs are scaled, processed, sorted and sold.
On more gentle sloped terrain, ground based harvest systems are used where by logs are transported to road side by a skidder that drags the logs behind it to roadside. Or ‘hoe chucking where a hydraulic log loader works systematically through the setting, and in a progressive series, picks up the logs and swings them towards the road. For stands with trees that are not too big, we are starting to use a ‘feller buncher’, which is a machine on tracks that can fall the trees and bunch them together for more efficient skidding to the landing. The mechanized felling system is modern and efficient and primarily used in younger stands or second growth on gentle terrain.
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In areas that are not accessible by road or the highlead system, heavy lift helicopters are used to lift logs from the hillsides and fly them to a landing or a holding pen in the ocean. This is an expensive form of logging that is only feasible in areas with good timber and where flying time allows for a maximum 2 minute return time between picking a log up, dropping it at the landing and returning to pick up the next ‘turn’. Helicopters that can lift from 10,000 to 20,000 lbs are used for this special form of harvesting. Smaller helicopters are used to transport fallers and ground crews to the site.
