August 13, 2014 12:00 pm Leave your thoughts
As anyone living in the western half of this country already knows, forest fires are a big issue this year. The smoke drifting down from the territories is so bad, it is causing air quality warnings in the central prairies, hundreds of kilometers away.
All of the hot weather we’ve had so far isn’t helping with the fires either.
August 13, 2014 11:59 am Leave your thoughts
Welcome to August, everyone. Summer is coming to an end. I always know when summer is wrapping up when the crickets start chirping. They haven’t begun yet, so we still have some time.
The tree plant has come to an end, though! The tree planters have all gone back home until next year’s plant starts again. I would like to thank all the tree planters for being awesome to the Millar Western checkers.
August 13, 2014 11:53 am Leave your thoughts
Over the past couple of weeks I have been spending some time over in the Okanagan-Falls Weyerhaeuser office. Located about 100 km east of Princeton this opportunity has given me the chance to gain even more exposure to different geographies of the B.C. interior and how things are done differently in different areas.
One thing however about the office being so far away is that a requirement for getting a full days work in is to leave very early in the morning,
August 11, 2014 4:28 pm Leave your thoughts
As I return from a long weekend vacation to Vancouver and Whistler, it has hit me like a ton of bricks that I’ve only got four weeks left here at Millar Western. Not only do I have lots of work to wrap up, but I still have lots of weekend activities planned to do before I go. There is no doubt this is going to be a busy month!
August 11, 2014 10:27 am Leave your thoughts
Over the many, many weeks I have been here, my supervisor has taught me so much. I am very thankful for all of useful knowledge he has when it comes to the forestry and saw mill industry. So I thought I would do an interview with him to help promote the forest industry and give people who read my blog some insight on the forestry industry and saw mill industry.
August 7, 2014 3:24 pm Leave your thoughts
Hello Folks!
The summer is quickly coming to an end, but it won’t go quietly. Tropical storm Arthur slammed many of us on the east coast, including my home near Fredericton, and the mill here in Nackawic, NB. I know this news is a few weeks past, but I realized I had forgotten to mention it.
I won’t bore you all with a sob story about myself;
August 5, 2014 3:51 pm Leave your thoughts
Well the tree plant is officially done! 8.7 million trees in 3 months is awesome considering all the last minute changes implemented because of the fire on Weyerhaeuser’s FMA. Luckily we only lost about 3000 hectares; they will probably be on the list for the 2015 tree plant.
This means I am on to the next project of the summer,
August 5, 2014 3:32 pm Leave your thoughts
This past month I was fortunate enough to get a taste from home. My older sister Jessie travelled to Grande Prairie from Toronto to visit me for a week. She flew in Wednesday night with a tent and her steel toes, ready to see what Alberta had to offer. Thursday Jessie came to work with me and met some of the tree planters.
July 31, 2014 4:43 pm Leave your thoughts
This past week, my roommate and fellow Green Dream Intern, Emma, and I were featured in the Whitecourt Star in an interview regarding our internships at Millar Western and how we’ve enjoyed living in Whitecourt. This opportunity was a lot of fun. It’s great to feel so included and welcomed in this town’s inviting community.
Funny story- As it turns out,
July 29, 2014 11:46 am Leave your thoughts
This past week I spent more time on the planning side of the Weyerhaeuser operation. I had the opportunity to go out with Al Lawes of Lawes Forest Management, one of the planning contactors for Weyerhaeuser and walked some of the blocks that he had laid out in the winter.
At the very beginning of the layout process a broad target area is defined and then thoroughly walked.
July 25, 2014 9:46 am Leave your thoughts
Hello folks!
Earlier in the week, in my blog titled “A Fiery Situation”, I mentioned how the local Fire Station and City Hall were on fire. Well, the good news is that the buildings survived, but there is approximately $1.5million in damages to the fire trucks and structure. It was also fairly unique to see that this small town had made national news for the incident.
July 25, 2014 9:42 am Leave your thoughts
Hello fellow readers, I have really been enjoying my work here at DMI in Peace River Alberta. My mentor has taught me a great deal about the pulping industry, but there has also been an unanticipated benefit of moving 8 hours north of my hometown: Calgary. Through exploring the town of Peace River, these past 12 weeks, I have discovered that it is truly a great place to live.
July 25, 2014 9:36 am Leave your thoughts
Many of us dream big of a rewarding career, but this summer, I’m dreaming bigger with a career with perks.
As a human resources intern, I get to work at Tolko’s state-of-the-art corporate headquarters completed in 2008, surrounded by opportunities to grow my career. But I’m also surrounded with amenities like a fully-equipped exercise gym for employees with locker room facilities.
July 24, 2014 10:38 am Leave your thoughts
This is just going to be a mini blog post, but I felt the need to bring something up that I figured not many of the other Green Dream interns would be able to write about. I’m currently studying forest management at the University of Alberta, and have been gaining experience in the industry over the summers. Doing this, I have met all kinds of people who have come from unexpected backgrounds.
July 21, 2014 4:36 pm Leave your thoughts
These past three weeks I have been mainly out and about with the tree planters because production rates are insane! Between the two camps the planters can put in about 230,000 trees in one day. So for the most part I’ve been working along side them to ensure quality is maintained. I’ve also done a couple camp inspections, which is always interesting to see how each different camp is set up.
July 21, 2014 2:16 pm Leave your thoughts
Hello again folks,
The summer heat is making it far too hot to survive in the mill today, so I figured it is the perfect day to touch base with the Bloggers out there. A lot has happened since the last time I wrote, including a shutdown and a visit from a company with an interesting method of displaying their products.
July 21, 2014 1:28 pm Leave your thoughts
Busy, Busy, Busy! Lately, so much has been going on in my department. It’s been hard to find some time to sit down and reflect on the last two weeks and write about my experiences, but, alas, I have found a few minutes.
Recently, I picked up a project that was started by last year’s Green Dream intern,
July 21, 2014 12:01 pm Leave your thoughts
Planer in feed:
The Planer:
Planner out feed:
Grading:
Packaging and final product:
The End
July 21, 2014 11:27 am Leave your thoughts
From the Scanning:
From the scans a program decides how to turn the logs and what boards it can create from the log.
Rotation:
Second Scanning:
From scanning comes chipping and sawing :
Sideboard separator:
Gang Saws:
Drop Gate:
Edger:
Transfer:
JBAR:
July 18, 2014 11:42 am Leave your thoughts
I have started working on an Energy Survey project for the Mackenzie sawmill. For this independent project, I will be responsible for collecting amperage and voltage readings from different motors to calculate power consumption for 3-phase motors. The purpose of this survey will be to understand the energy consumption at the site and propose new methods to decrease energy consumption.
July 16, 2014 2:06 pm Leave your thoughts
Today, I just about drove into the back of a moose while quadding; I guess he just didn’t hear me coming. This sighting puts the total to 5 moose, 8 bears, 2 elk, countless deer, and hundreds of tracks from other animals (including wolf, lynx, fox and coyote) that I have encountered. I was hoping to hold off on this blog post until I got an actual picture of an animal,
July 16, 2014 1:21 pm Leave your thoughts
The tree plant is going very well, and I have been working very hard for the past couple weeks. Checking trees can be very physically demanding, because you have to walk all day in the summer heat and get to at least 40 plots in for the day. The most plots I have gotten to is around 70 plots in one day.
July 15, 2014 4:11 pm Leave your thoughts
One of the greatest parts about this internship has been the range of different parts of the forestry sector that I have had the opportunity to gain experience in. For the most part I have been spending time in the silviculture department, which handles the task of returning the log site to the way it once was. It is essentially the end stage of the logging process.
July 11, 2014 9:21 am Leave your thoughts
Hello everyone, what a busy past few weeks! I just finished a project that I have been working on for quite some time. My job was to create an energy monitoring screen that shows the current conditions of what is going on in a particular area of the mill. Like any sophisticated computer program, the learning curve was steep, but once I got the hang of using MOPS it was a breeze to create new components and edit existing ones whenever necessary.
July 9, 2014 11:30 am Leave your thoughts
Sustainability is an issue that the entire world is grappling with. The term pops up everywhere in our society, including the world of forestry. How to even define what the word means changes with the passage of time; thereby, changing how it is that we are able to achieve the idea. During the late 80s and early 90s, numerous conferences and protests were attended all over the world to determine what sustainability would mean to our economy,