THE WESTERN CANADIAN LUMBER WORKER _ UNDERWATER | LOGGING AT OOTSA LAKE Under-water logging is being conducted in the northern interior of British Columbia and it is the first such oper- ation in the province. Further- more, because of the positive early success of the venture, it is likely to continue for many years and may well lead to the clean-up of an old mess. The project was made pos- sible by the ingenuity of Richard and Mitchell Bond of 100 Mile House. They in turn attribute much of their success to the encouragement given them by Resources Minister Ray Williston. Scene of the operation is Ootsa Lake near the northern boundary of Tweedsmuir park and about 150 miles west of Prince George. But why under- water-logging? When the Aluminum Com- pany of Canada built the Kenny Dam on the Mechako River in 1952, it raised the water level behind the damsite as much as 317 feet, and flooded several mountain valleys. The stored water is dropped over half a mile through a ten-mile tunnel to Kemano at sea level nearly 200 miles west of the dam. There it turns the turbines which make the hydro-electric power for the Alcan plant at Kitimat. But the dam did much more than that. It wrought great geographical changes over the 5,500 square miles drainage area of the Nechako and created a 358 square mile reservoir or chain of reservoirs. Mountain streams became lakes and small lakes became big lakes. The rising waters covered great expanses of forest land containing prime stands of spruce, lodgepole pine and HYDRAULIC HEEL BOOMLOADER some hemlock. Some trees were completely covered but tens of thousands still show their heads above the waters of Ootsa, Whitesail, Tahtsa and Tatachuk Lakes. Total length of the newly created shoreline is about 1000 miles and most of it is dotted with tree tops. The tops are rotten and of no value but underneath the lake sur- face the timber is as sound and well preserved as when the waters first rose. The Bond Brothers have operated a sawmill at 100 Mile House since 1953 and on Horn- by Island in Georgia Strait before that. For several years they deplored the loss of . timber in the flooded areas and worked on a method of reclaiming it. With their own funds and their inventive skills, they designed a self- propelled steel barge equipped to nip off standing trees at the butt-end as much as 120 feet below the lake surface. They secured a licence from the British Columbia Forest Service authorizing them to harvest timber from the entire Alcan watershed for the next 10 years. A clause of the agree- ment states that they will pay the government the stumpage rate normally charged for sal- vage material. In addition the contract term be renewed for a further term. The all-important barge which measures about 60 feet by 30 feet was built in two sections in Vancouver and trucked to the Kenny Dam site. There it was assembled and fitted with a diesel power pod, the cutting mechanism, a grappling device for handling the trees after they are brought to the surface, and other vital components. A small second grasps logs as they are brought to the surface by the cutting grapple and loads them in a cradle alongside barge. —