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P.A. forestry instructor keeps saw milling alive

Aug 14, 2018 | 2:00 PM

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.

“No one ever called me a carpenter,” the Newfoundlander joked. “I just picked it up and turned it into a business.” He’s been milling since 2009.

Renouf has acquired a new state-of-the-art portable saw mill known as a LT-70 Wood-Mizer and will take that from his current location east of town onto a larger site on Pulp Haul Road. However, he needed the RM’s approval first and to pacify the neighbours who had concerns about the noise. During a recent public hearing he told residents the modern equipment is a lot quieter than they’d imagined.

“They seemed to settle down a little better [after the public hearing],” he said. “Once I get set up the proof with be in the pudding. The machine has around a 70 decibel rating and if you put it inside a building it’s a lot quieter of course.” A decibel output of between 70 and 75 decibels is equivalent to a dish washer or vacuum cleaner.

Renouf said people come to his current operation and can’t hear the mill if their car engine is running and figured if the wind was blowing the right way no one would be able to detect his operation in the new facility.

He’ll employ two to three people and hoped to be underway later this year once he gets power to the lot and erects the building.

“I’ll be sawing evenings and weekends…and all summer long as well,” he said.

 

glenn.hicks@jpbg.ca

On Twitter:@princealbertnow