Chemainus sawmill

The sawmill is operated by Western Forest Products.

Chemainus is a community on the east coast of Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada. It was founded as a logging town in 1858. (Wikipedia)

In 1983, after operating for 120 years, the Chemainus lumbermill closed.
Almost 700 people became unemployed in a community of just under
4,000 people. (City of Chemainus)

The Chemainus sawmill was built in 1984. It is the fifth mill on this site, the first dating back to 1861. In 1944 H.R. MacMillan purchased the mill, starting its succession toward Western Forest Products today.

The current mill was built at a cost of $22 million. It is a large log sawmill designed to extract high value and recovery, running three shifts, and employing 160 people.

Chemainus processes 500,000 m3 of Western red cedar and Douglas fir per year. (Western Forest Products)