RIVER VALLEY- Several members of various area tourism outlets recently joined Western Maine Economic Development Council for a tour of western Maine’s working forest industry, which included tours of the Region 9 woods worksite in Mexico and the Irving mill in Dixfield.

“This tour was an opportunity to learn how many people and how much planning and knowledge goes into forest management,” stated Mia Purcell, tour coordinator for WMEDC. “From creating the woods products people use every day and the ecology of the forests from interrelationships of birds and mammals to forest practices, and about the balance between preserving the forest for recreation while creating wood products and making a living from the woods.”

Participants were urged to ask questions of those people whose work is closely related to the woods such as those foresters, loggers, mill managers, wildlife biologists, land owners, guides and representatives who were all present during the tour.

“This tour was designed to enlighten guests to area businesses and help them appreciate Maine’s working forest,” stated Purcell. “We hope this education will enhance your customers’ experiences and increase your value and bottom line. Our hope is that you came away with a new understanding of the Maine forest and the various ways that people use it.”

The workshop was a collaborative effort as part of the Maine Woods Tourism Training Initiative by the Bethel Area Chamber of Commerce, River Valley Chamber of Commerce, Greater Franklin Development Corporation, Maine Woods Consortium, Maine Tree Foundation and the Western Maine Economic Development Council.

RIVER VALLEY- Recently the Western Maine Economic Development Council partnered with J.D. Irving in Dixfield to demonstrate the importance of, and the impact of the forestry industry here in western Maine. The tour was designed specifically for members of the tourism and hospitality industry to “follow the wood” from the forest to the mill, in order to gain knowledge to share with tourists and others passing through.

At the top of a beautiful morning, 20 local informational volunteers, business owners, foresters and other members of state conservation converged on the J.D. Irving mill in Dixfield to load a bus headed for the Region 9 Forestry program’s wood lot that is owned by Wagner Forest Management.

Region 9 Forestry instructors, Mark Beaudoin and David Mason, along with two of their senior students, Julian Baldinelli and Jeremy Grignon, who came back after graduation to help demonstrate their work, were very informative in sharing the ins and outs of their program with the group.
With two separate classes at the technology school meeting every other day on the 500 acres of Wagner property, students are able to see the differences between the two harvesting strategies; whether they’re cutting per landowner specification of clearing the land for housing or to encourage of a certain species of wood, but most often the soil will dictate which species will be dominant in any given area.

Students are taught how to flag trees to be cut, how to operate a skidder, forwarder and chainsaw safely and properly, and taught to think as a land manager to insure best practices during inclement weather that may damage the forest and areas around it if they were to operate machinery.

“Our business is growing trees,” stated Ray Berthiaume, Wagner forester. “Wagner is owned by investors and we need to be sure they are satisfied with their return.”

Various conservation representatives spoke about animal, soil and tree habitat and how each cut area has a vital ecosystem and how even the slash from a logging job affects proper forest management.

Grignon demonstrated proper felling of a tree, per the Certified Logging Professional program, while Baldinelli performed safe loading of logs, and then participants loaded back on the bus for the trip back to the mill for the second part of the tour.

Upon arriving back to JD Irving, we were informed that the mill is the largest eastern pine producer in the world and that there is very little waste from the finished product. With one of their largest customers being Home Depot. Not to mention the tons of chips, bark mulch and sawdust that leave their yard annually that contributes to the creation of biomass, animal bedding, wood pellets and paper.

Jay Wheeler, procurement forester for Irving Dixfield Mill, led the group, starting at the log yard where the large crane was working to deliver the logs from the yard to the second story of the saw mill for debarking.

From there, we made our way through the sawmill via catwalks where we could view the operations of the various machines without being in the way of the workers. The tour included all parts of mill operation, including the $1.7 million investment in a grade scanner in the planer mill.
There is roughly $30 million worth of impact from the small 230-employee mill.
JD Irving is the largest private landowner in Maine with 1.2 million acres of woodland and since the purchase of the former Highland Lumber mill in 1998, a whopping $7.5 million has been invested to upgrade the mill to where it is today.
The mill ships 1.5 million board feet of lumber, 30 tons of chips, 30 trailer loads of sawdust and 15 trailer loads of bard out of their gates per week and prides themselves on being a world-class leader in safety.