MacMillan Bloedel Limited, sometimes referred to as "MacBlo", was a Canadian forestry company headquartered in

Vancouver Vancouver ( ) is a major city in western Canada, located in the Lower Mainland region of British Columbia. As the most populous city in the province, the 2021 Canadian census recorded 662,248 people in the city, up from 631,486 in 2016. ...

British Columbia British Columbia (commonly abbreviated as BC) is the westernmost province of Canada, situated between the Pacific Ocean and the Rocky Mountains. It has a diverse geography, with rugged landscapes that include rocky coastlines, sandy beaches, for ...

. It was formed through the merger of three smaller forestry companies in 1951 and 1959. Those were the Powell River Company, the Bloedel Stewart Welch Company, and the H.R. MacMillan Company. It was bought by

Weyerhaeuser Weyerhaeuser () is an American timberland company which owns nearly of timberlands in the U.S., and manages an additional of timberlands under long-term licenses in Canada. The company also manufactures wood products. It operates as a real e ...

of Federal Way, Washington in 1999.

Powell River Company

In 1908 two

American American(s) may refer to: * American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America" ** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America ** American ancestry, pe ...

entrepreneurs, Dr. Dwight Brooks and Michael Scanlon, created a

newsprint Newsprint is a low-cost, non-archival paper consisting mainly of wood pulp and most commonly used to print newspapers and other publications and advertising material. Invented in 1844 by Charles Fenerty of Nova Scotia, Canada, it usually has a ...

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 Barge nowadays generally refers to a flat-bottomed inland waterway vessel which does not have its own means of mechanical propulsion. The first modern barges were pulled by tugs, but nowadays most are pushed by pusher boats, or other vessels. ...

to British Columbia.

Bloedel, Stewart and Welch

In 1911 Julius Bloedel, a

Seattle Seattle ( ) is a seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the seat of King County, Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in both the state of Washington and the Pacific Northwest region o ...

lawyer, along with his two partners, John Stewart and Patrick Welch, began acquiring large blocks of

Vancouver Island Vancouver Island is an island in the northeastern Pacific Ocean and part of the Canadian province of British Columbia. The island is in length, in width at its widest point, and in total area, while are of land. The island is the largest by ...

forests. Their Franklin River camp soon became one of the world's largest

logging Logging is the process of cutting, processing, and moving trees to a location for transport. It may include skidding, on-site processing, and loading of trees or logs onto trucks or skeleton cars. Logging is the beginning of a supply cha ...

operations. Here, in the 1930s, the Canadian industry saw its first Lidgerwood steel spar yarder and

chainsaw A chainsaw (or chain saw) is a portable gasoline-, electric-, or battery-powered saw that cuts with a set of teeth attached to a rotating chain driven along a guide bar. It is used in activities such as tree felling, limbing, bucking, pru ...

. In 1938, Bloedel, Stewart and Welch became the first logging company in the province to plant

seedling A seedling is a young sporophyte developing out of a plant embryo from a seed. Seedling development starts with germination of the seed. A typical young seedling consists of three main parts: the radicle (embryonic root), the hypocotyl (emb ...

s in a logged-over area. Bloedel, Stewart and Welch opened a large timber mill in

Port Alberni Port Alberni () is a city located on Vancouver Island in the province of British Columbia, Canada. The city lies within the Alberni Valley at the head of the Alberni Inlet, Vancouver Island's longest inlet. It is the location of the head offices ...

. 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 Foley, Welch and Stewart was an early 20th-century American-Canadian railroad contracting company. It was owned and operated by Patrick Welch and J.W. Stewart of Spokane, Washington and T. Foley of Saint Paul, Minnesota. The company was created ...

, who were prominent in

railway Rail transport (also known as train transport) is a means of transport that transfers passengers and goods on wheeled vehicles running on rails, which are incorporated in tracks. In contrast to road transport, where the vehicles run on a p ...

-building operations in the same period. Workers hut

H.R. MacMillan Export Company

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 Harvey Reginald MacMillan, (September 9, 1885 – February 9, 1976) was a Canadian forester, forestry industrialist, wartime administrator, and philanthropist. Born in Pine Orchard, Whitchurch Township, Ontario (today part of Whitchurch–Stouf ...

, British Columbia's first Chief Forester. MacMillan reportedly gained considerable experience in world lumbering during

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was List of wars and anthropogenic disasters by death toll, one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, ...

. With his colleague

Whitford Julian VanDusen Whitford Julian VanDusen (July 18, 1889 in Tara, Ontario – December 15, 1978), was a Canadian lumber magnate and philanthropist,

, another forester, MacMillan incorporated a company in 1919 to sell British Columbia lumber products to foreign markets. 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 World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

, MacMillan acquired numerous small mills and timber tenures on the south coast of British Columbia. Macmillan1

Merger of 1951

In 1951 Bloedel, Stewart and Welch merged with H.R. MacMillan to form MacMillan Bloedel Limited. 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.

Global expansion

Rolls of finished newsprint at Macmillan-Bloedel Ltd in the Fraser River Valley, British Columbia, Canada

Beginning in the 1960s, MacMillan Bloedel expanded across

North America North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere and almost entirely within the Western Hemisphere. It is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South America and th ...

as well as to

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...

and the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and ...

. At its peak, acquisitions and construction activities gave MacMillan Bloedel worldwide assets of more than C$4 billion.

The MacBlo Building

The

Brutalist Brutalist architecture is an architectural style that emerged during the 1950s in the United Kingdom, among the reconstruction projects of the post-war era. Brutalist buildings are characterised by Minimalism (art), minimalist constructions th ...

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 A waffle is a dish made from leavened batter or dough that is cooked between two plates that are patterned to give a characteristic size, shape, and surface impression. There are many variations based on the type of waffle iron and recipe use ...

. The building, completed in 1969, won the

Massey Medal The Royal Canadian Geographical Society (RCGS) awards the Massey Medal annually to recognize outstanding personal achievement in the exploration, development or description of the geography of Canada. The award was established in 1959, by the M ...

in 1970.

Blockade of 1993

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 Temperate rainforests are coniferous or broadleaf forests that occur in the temperate zone and receive heavy rain. Temperate rain forests occur in oceanic moist regions around the world: the Pacific temperate rain forests of North American P ...

around

Clayoquot Sound , image = Clayoquot Sound - Near Tofino - Vancouver Island BC - Canada - 08.jpg , image_size = 260px , alt = , caption = , image_bathymetry = Vancouver clayoquot sound de.png , alt_bathyme ...

on the west coast of

, in spite of opposition from several organizations.

Environmentalist An environmentalist is a person who is concerned with and/or advocates for the protection of the environment. An environmentalist can be considered a supporter of the goals of the environmental movement, "a political and ethical movement that se ...

s, together with private land owners and indigenous groups, launched a

blockade A blockade is the act of actively preventing a country or region from receiving or sending out food, supplies, weapons, or communications, and sometimes people, by military force. A blockade differs from an embargo or sanction, which are leg ...

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.

Weyerhaeuser

In June 1999,

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 Scots Pine, a typical and well-known softwood Softwood is wood from gymnosperm trees such as conifers. The term is opposed to hardwood, which is the wood from angiosperm trees. The main differences between hardwoods and softwoods is that the s ...

lumber and market pulp, a leader in

packaging Packaging is the science, art and technology of enclosing or protecting products for distribution, storage, sale, and use. Packaging also refers to the process of designing, evaluating, and producing packages. Packaging can be described as a c ...

as well.

References

Forests.org: MacMillan Bloedel Announces They May Stop Clearcutting Oldgrowth Forests

* Taylor, G.W., ''Timber: History of the Forest Industry in B.C.'', Vancouver, B.C.: J.J. Douglas, 1975.

External links

Weyerhaeuser

MacMillan Bloedel Limited fonds
– A record of the company's history from the UBC Library Digital Collections
1958 film footage of the VanPly division
{{Catalyst Paper Defunct companies of British Columbia Pulp and paper companies of Canada Renewable resource companies established in 1951 Manufacturing companies disestablished in 1999 Manufacturing companies based in Vancouver Weyerhaeuser Defunct pulp and paper companies 1951 establishments in British Columbia 1999 disestablishments in British Columbia Manufacturing companies established in 1951