Forest company in British Columbia
MacMillan Bloedel Limited
was a Canadian
forestry company
headquartered in
Vancouver
,
British Columbia
. The company was formed in 1951 as MacMillan and Bloedel through the merger of Bloedel, Stewart and Welch with the H. R. MacMillan Export Company. MacMillan and Bloedel then merged in 1959 with the Powell River Company to form MacMillan, Bloedel and Powell River, before adopting its final name in 1966. It was acquired by
Weyerhaeuser
in 1999.
Predecessor companies
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Powell River Company
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In 1908 two
American
entrepreneurs, Dr. Dwight Brooks and Michael Scanlon, created a
newsprint
mill at
Powell River
, northwest of Vancouver. The Powell River Company turned out the first roll of newsprint manufactured in British Columbia in 1912. It soon became one of the world's largest newsprint plants and today is credited with introducing the first self-dumping log
barge
to British Columbia.
Bloedel, Stewart and Welch
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In 1911
Julius Bloedel
, a
Seattle
lawyer, along with his two partners,
John Stewart
and Patrick Welch, began acquiring large blocks of
Vancouver Island
forests. Their
Franklin River
camp soon became one of the world's largest
logging
operations. Here, in the 1930s, the Canadian industry saw its first
Lidgerwood
steel spar yarder and
chainsaw
. In 1938, Bloedel, Stewart and Welch became the first logging company in the province to plant
seedlings
in a logged-over area.
[
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]
Bloedel, Stewart and Welch opened a large timber mill in
Port Alberni
. The company had large camps near
Menzies Bay, British Columbia
,
Comox
and Myrtle Point, just south of
Powell River
. The company was headquartered in Vancouver. Stewart and Welch were also partners in
Foley, Welch and Stewart
, who were prominent in
railway
-building operations in the same period.
H. R. MacMillan Export Company
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The last of the three pre-merger companies was the H.R. MacMillan Export Company, which was created in 1919 by Harvey, or
H.R. MacMillan
, British Columbia's first Chief Forester.
[1]
MacMillan reportedly gained considerable experience in world lumbering during
World War I
. With his colleague
Whitford Julian VanDusen
, another forester, MacMillan incorporated a company in 1919 to sell British Columbia lumber products to foreign markets.
[1]
In 1924, they established a shipping company that would become one of the world's biggest charter companies. With the creation of Seaboard Lumber by the other mill owners in British Columbia, there was a major threat to MacMillan, as Seaboard was to export all the lumber from the companies that founded it leaving MacMillan without the lumber needed to fulfill their orders. MacMillan responded by beginning to purchase mills and creating the first truly integrated forestry company in British Columbia.
During
World War II
, MacMillan acquired numerous small mills and timber tenures on the
south coast of British Columbia
.
History of MacMillan Bloedel
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MacMillan and Bloedel Limited, 1951?1959
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In 1951 Bloedel, Stewart and Welch merged with H.R. MacMillan to form MacMillan Bloedel Limited.
[1]
The two companies had timber holdings side-by-side and there was a natural synergy from this merger. Bloedel, Stewart and Welch held many timber resources and MacMillan was the first truly integrated forestry company in British Columbia. The merger in 1951 created a company that would be able to compete on the global scene.
MacMillan, Bloedel and Powell River Limited, 1959?1966
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On 31 December 1959, MacMillan and Bloedel completed its merger with the Powell River Company. The merger was carried out via a
stock swap
, whereby MacMillan and Bloedel shares were exchanged for shares in Powell River. On 4 January 1960, the name of the Powell River Company Limited was changed to MacMillan, Bloedel and Powell River Limited.
Beginning in the 1960s, MacMillan Bloedel expanded across
North America
as well as to
Europe
and the
United Kingdom
. At its peak, acquisitions and construction activities gave MacMillan Bloedel worldwide assets of more than
C$
4 billion.
MacMillan Bloedel Limited, 1966?1999
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At the company's annual meeting in 1966, shareholders voted to shorten its name to MacMillan Bloedel Limited. Along with the name change, in 1967 the company commissioned a new logo designed by
Lester Beall
(1903?1969).
The
Brutalist
MacMillan Bloedel Building
located at Thurlow and
Georgia Street
in downtown Vancouver was a highlight of the early architectural career of
Arthur Erickson
, who advocated the use of concrete as "the new marble" and employed it in the building's stark design, which is often compared locally to a concrete
waffle
. The building, completed in 1969, won the
Massey Medal
in 1970.
[2]
In 1993, the MacMillan Bloedel company composed an agenda of expanding its logging into new areas and refused to abandon its plans to
clearcut
a significant portion of the
temperate rain forest
around
Clayoquot Sound
on the west coast of
Vancouver Island
, in spite of opposition from several organizations.
Environmentalists
, together with private land owners and
indigenous groups
, launched the
Clayoquot protests
after discovering that MacMillan Bloedel was logging in one of the most pristine areas around Clayoquot Sound ? a clear violation of the recommendations made by top government-chosen scientists. This logging, however, was approved by the Ministry of Forests and was within the Tree Farm License (TFL) granted for that area to MacMillan Bloedel by the provincial government. The Science Panel for Sustainable Forest Practices in Clayoquot Sound was formed after 850 people were arrested for blockading MacMillan Bloedel's logging in Clayoquot in the summer of 1993. The Science Panel made stringent recommendations which MacMillan Bloedel promised to abide by, a commitment MacMillan Bloedel used to assure their international newsprint and phone directory paper customers that they should keep buying from the Canadian logging giant. MacMillan Bloedel made a commitment to phase out clearcutting and embrace the variable retention method of harvesting timber, but was occasionally accused of falling short of the commitment.
Acquisition by Weyerhaeuser
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In June 1999,
Weyerhaeuser
announced its intention to buy MacMillan Bloedel Limited of Canada for stock valued at about
US$
2.45 billion. The merger made Weyerhaeuser, which at that time was already the world's largest producer of
softwood
lumber and market
pulp
, a leader in
packaging
as well.
Leadership
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President
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Maj-Gen
Bertram Hoffmeister
, 1951?1955
Harry S. Berryman, 1956
Ralph M. Shaw, 1957?1959
Milton J. Foley, 1959?1960
Ernest G. Shorter, 1961?1962
Charles A. Specht, 1963?1967
Robert W. Bonner
, 1972
Denis W. Timmis, 1973?1975
C. Calvert Knudsen, 1976?1979
Raymond V. Smith, 1980?1990
Robert B. Findlay, 1990?1997
W. Thomas Stephens, 1997?1999
Chairman of the Board
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H. R. MacMillan
, 1951?1955
Maj-Gen
Bertram Hoffmeister
, 1956?1957
John Clyne
, 1958?1972
Robert W. Bonner
, 1973
George B. Currie, 1974?1975
J. Ernest Richardson, 1978?1979
C. Calvert Knudsen, 1980?1983
Adam H. Zimmerman, 1983?1990
Raymond V. Smith, 1990?1994
Richard F. Haskayne
, 1994?1999
References
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External links
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