P.A. forestry instructor keeps saw milling alive
If you thought saw milling was dead in Prince Albert, think again.
A man whose life and passion has been teaching others about the forestry industry is expanding his own modest independent milling operation in the RM of Buckland. It’s a rare scenario given the absence of any significant milling in or around the city.
“Working with wood, it’s all recyclable and reusable and when we cut it it’s going to be re-planted again,” Lorne Renouf told paNOW. “It’s a good product, it comes right from the earth and we can keep growing [trees] all the time.”
That’s the simple philosophy from Renouf who has taught forestry for 25 years and works full-time at the Prince Albert campus of Saskatchewan Polytechnic. By day he’s instructing classes in Integrated Resource Management, Resource and Environmental Law, and Geographic Information Systems, but at night, on weekends, and during the holidays he gets hands-on. That’s where you’ll find him pursuing his hobby-turned-other-profession which is cutting mostly white spruce into rough dimensions for a variety of clients, including farmers, and for re-sale through coops, peddlers and truckers. A lot of his product goes south of the border.