SD83 Careers Cutting into the Jobs at Adams Lake Sawmill
Salmon Arm Secondary students were mulling around on a catwalk overlooking a de-barking machine stripping bark off from a fir tree. “This is so cool to see this live,” muttered Grade 11 SAS student Jon Meadows to another classmate. Meadows wasn’t the only one in awe of his surroundings as 17 other SAS and JL Jackson students toured Canada’s third largest sawmill this week.
SD83 Careers, Interfor and the BC Council of Forest Industries sponsored the Adams Lake Sawmill tour to show students interested in the forest industry the career opportunities that exist at the mill for those just coming out of high school, with a trade or degree in hand. Students started the tour getting a safety orientation and then split into two groups where one group checked out the sawmill and planner mill first before heading to the conference room to learn basis information about industry processes, starting with planning cut blocks, harvesting trees, transporting them to the mill, manufacturing and creating lumber and then how to reclaim the land to grow more trees.
Adams Lake Mill Manager Ryan Oliver told students they can start at the mill as an 18 year-old weekend labourer and then branch off to pursue a trade, a technical diploma or a degree. Oliver says Interfor is willing to pay for employees to get that training as long as those employees continue to work for the company after their certification or degree. There are four dominate trades at the mill: millwrights, electricians, heavy duty mechanics and saw filers. Saw Filers are the most profitable trade at the mill. Over 230 people work at the mill and another 250 people work outside of the mill as logging contractors to supply the mill with trees.
Approximately one-hundred logging trucks full of timber come into the mill every week day and roughly 14 rail cars full of lumber leave the plant daily. That amount of lumber is the equivalent of one-hundred built homes. Put another way, the mill produces over 350-million board feet of timber a year. Interfor’s reach for trees for this mill extends from Blue River to the north to Lac La Jeune near Kamloops to the south and as far east as the Alberta border.
If you have an interesting idea for a SD83 Career field trip, please reach out to District Career Education Coordinator George Richard via text or phone at 778-824-1188 or you can email him at grichard@sd83.bc.ca.