By Andrew de Souza

Big River sawmill officially opens

Oct 6, 2011 | 4:52 PM

A crowd of Big River residents gathered at the shuttered saw mill to celebrate its reopening under the ownership of Carrier Lumber on Thursday.

The symbolic chains that held the gates closed for the last five years were cut by Big River mayor Brian Brownfield, Saskatchewan minister of energy Bill Boyd and Saskatchewan Rivers MLA Nadine Wilson.

“I’m ecstatic,” said mayor Brownfield following the chain cutting. “It’s just so good for the community and one of the best days in the last six or seven years since the mill closed.”

Meanwhile Boyd said the opening was indicative of a larger trend to reinvigorate the forestry sector across the province.

“It’s certainly a part of the restart of the forestry industry clearly being anchored by the pulp mill in Prince Albert,” he said.

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“This is an integral part of it. This is a community that’s had forestry dating back 100 years, so it’s a great announcement today for Big River.”

The mill is being opened by Carrier Lumber after they first won a lumber allocation from the province the succeeded in purchasing the facility.

Carrier president Bill Kordyban said the new facility first need to be brought up to current standards before it would become fully operational.

That process alone would create around 50 jobs. Once opened fully it would create about 100 direct jobs and many spinoff jobs in other industries.

“There’s a lot of things that have to be done yet,” he said. “We have to enter into contracts, engage the workers and hire and we’ve also got some changes to do inside the mill.”

Kordyban said the timeline for bringing the mill back into operation had not yet been finalized, but that it would take at least a few months to figure out all the logistics and capital works needed.

Mayor Brownfield said the reopening would be a turning point for the community, which had been struggling ever since the plant closed.

“There’s guys in the oil industry right now that are probably looking to come home because they’ve got a job here and can be with their families,” he said.

adesouza@panow.com