Logging On Its Own Scale
Ontario's S.W. Madill Forestry Ltd.'s hands-on approach brings value to customer and landowner alike.
by Scott Jamieson
Forestry professional Scott Madill lists three things a good hardwood logger must do to ensure repeat business year after year.
"Upgrade, upgrade, and upgrade. You always have to be looking for value in every log you touch. If I can turn a $25 log into a $60 log, or a $100 log into a $200 log, those are the decisions that are going to help everyone involved - The landowner, who gets more value from the stand, and the mills, who get the higher value logs they need right here. It helps our business too, since it is that extra value that gets the landowners to call us the next time they have a patch to cut."
It may not sound like rocket science, but in an era of shrinking margins, poor markets, rising costs and a shortage of seasoned hardwood cutters, many operations take one too many shortcuts, or lack the experience required for consistent, valuedriven log scaling. This is not an issue with this forestry company located in Huntsville, ON. Watching Scott scale his way through some roadside black cherry in early March, it's clear the forestry graduate from Sir Sandford Fleming College (SSFC) is in his element. Tape in hand, the talkative hardwood specialist walks around some of the logs two or three times before making his decision, turning them with his cant hook, and then finally grabbing his Husky chainsaw and bucking out the final product. He marks it with paint, and then moves on to the next log on deck, a small, twisty log with little hope of making the grade. Still, he takes a second look before signaling to loader operator George Wemecamp, who swings it to the firewood pile with the crew's Prentice 180C loader.
"This is how I spend 90% of my time - out here scaling logs," he comments while tapping the results from the last few logs into his DAP handheld computer. "I used to be involved in everything, cruising, the yard, you name it, but as we grew it just became too much. This is what I like to do anyway, and it is a big part in capturing the value in this business. That last log ended up as firewood, true, but as long as you make the attempt, you're sure you're not missing something, and the landowner will get the maximum value." In fact, several times over the morning, that second look netted an extra sawlog, although Scott is not stopping to keep track. The forestry company owner and scaler likes a steady pace, and with the winter nearing its end, he's got no shortage of work at hand. He has support back at the yard, where forestry tech and fellow SSFC graduate Darrell Haskin takes care of things, while Larry Barrette handles the bulk of liaisons with landowners wanting their land cruised. His wife Deb holds the fort back at the office, handling payroll, accounting and much more. "Deb is also usually the first contact with the landowner, and she handles all the advertising. Then if we're interested, Larry will walk the patch, and after that I will usually cruise it with him if we think we're going to make an offer. Larry also verifies ownership and property lines, as you'd be amazed at what we've seen people try to do from time to time."
All S.W. Madill jobs are on private land, with a standard job being a 100-acre wood or bigger. If the timber is good and access easy, Scott will take smaller jobs, but it's a fine balance. "As soon as you put a landing in and upgrade parts of the road, it's a couple of thousand dollars, and we have to move in the gear, so it needs to be a decent volume of good wood. Also, we're usually taking just 30% or so out, so the overall volume and quality has to be there."
The scale makes sense, as from Day 1 the venture has been an international commercial forestry and log procurement business, not your local firewood cutting operation.
Made from Scratch
Unlike many of the operations in this hardwood country three hours north of Toronto, S.W. Madill is a first generation business, started just a dozen years ago by Scott and Deb. Scott had been working in log procurement further north in Wawa, ON, but his wife wanted to get back to her roots in the Huntsville region, and Scott was keen for a change.
"I had been dealing with a few American log buyers, and two approached me to start a hardwood operation here. They were looking to increase their supply, and were willing to help me get started. It was impressive, how aggressive they were. We met a few times to discuss it, both here and at their operations in the Lake States, and then that was it - they bankrolled almost the whole thing to get started building up a log inventory."
Scott has not looked back since. The two American companies have since moved on, but the operation continues to grow, now employing 10 in the winter and five all year round, along with sub-contractors. Some 25% of the production still goes stateside.
The core of the company is a 10-acre sort yard in Port Sydney. Here the cut is sorted according to species and product, and stored until ready for shipping by contract truckers to one of four main clients and about a dozen smaller buyers. Walking the yard, Scott explains that this year's volumes are down significantly, not surprising given current markets.
"Normally at this time of year we'd have over one million bdft here, but this year the winter started off very mild, so we couldn't get into a lot of sites, and then once things froze, it was pretty clear the markets were way off. To be honest, I'm not sorry our inventory is low, since our customers are cautious about their own inventories."
He adds that he has a client in mind when each log is marked in the woods, so that by the time loads arrive here, they are spoken for. "We don't log just for inventory at all - every log here has a customer." Some of those customers come from a lot further a field than you'd expect. "At one time we sent as much as 10% of our production to the Far East - Korea, Vietnam - But that market has really dried up this year. Canadian logs are just too expensive for that market, as they've moved to alternative species, which they process into furniture or flooring and sell here. It's a double whammy, since it is affecting our core clients, who are losing their consumer business to these cheap imports."
This is in fact a sore point for both Scott and Deb, who have run an active letter-writing campaign to get people to buy North American wood products, or at least grasp the economical, and perhaps even environmental, consequences of massive volumes of cheap imported wood products (see the editorial in CFI April 2007). For similar reasons, the vocal logger and his wife have joined the Ontario Forest Business Association (OFBA).
"I am always talking about how things could be improved," Scott explains with a smile. "So I figured the least I could do was join an organization trying to make some changes. I've been busy with the winter cut, but I hope to get more involved come spring."
Hands-on Logging
On the operation side, the company runs several of its own logging crews, all using manual cutters and Timberjack and Clark cable skidders. It also contracts up to four similar crews in the winter cut to keep pace with the workload. Two company rigs collect logs from the various sites to bring to the sort yard, including a brand new Western Star tri-axle with a three-axle pup trailer and Rotobec 80 Elite self-loader.
"That's my first Rotobec, and it was a good move. I had run into a logger down in the Ottawa Valley using one, and I asked about it. He said for this kind of operation - picking through logs all day - you can't beat it. He was right - itŐs very smooth. There aren't a lot of experienced picker operators here, but with the Rotobec, even you could get on it and look pretty good."
Unlikely as that is, Scott assures me that at least the new loader makes him look pretty good. On most sites, however, Scott, George and the Prentice 180 are the first to arrive after the loggers leave. Aside from scaling logs, he does his best to help out his drivers, some of whom don't have much forestry experience.
"That's one of the reasons for the paint marking - That way they just pick up all the logs marked with an "S", for example. With up to 20 sorts on a landing, it helps." As for future challenges, Scott's list is familiar to loggers across Canada - Expensive fuel (or none, as Ontario was in the throes of a diesel shortage when CFI was visiting), a dearth of experienced staff, and falling log prices. The latter also puts him in the awkward position of trying to secure property to harvest while explaining to the landowner, often as far away as Germany, that his logs are no longer worth as much as last year.
"Yes, we're pulling in our horns a bit. We had been looking at adding a grapple saw to our loader, which I think would be a good addition to the scaling job, but we just bought the truck, and looking at my customers, I think we'll hold off and see where things go in the fall."
Still, for the long run, Scott has a hard time seeing how the business can't succeed. "We have the wood here, and we're logging it sustainably with selective cuts. I think if the industry would do a better job marketing our hardwoods to the consumer, we'd all be a little better off."
