Sandy Smith has a humourous kind of fatal optimism that accompanies any survivor in the sawmilling industry.
While many large producers and mom-and-pop shops have fallen victim to the forestry upheaval of the past decade, Garden Lake Timber has survived by making core boxes, survey stakes, pipe cradles and timbers for the mining industry.
“Right place, right time,” said Smith, president of the family-owned sawmill and planer operation, outside Thunder Bay. “Just dumb luck.”
Supplying forest products to the mining industry accounts for 75 per cent of its sales.
“The core box business has been good, steady growth,” said Smith, “and it's really increased over the last 10 years.”
The location on Highway 527, northwest of the city, certainly helps the small operator be closer to customers.
Just 60 kilometres up the road is North American Palladium's Lac des Iles mine as well as a possible future producer, Magma Metals, which is drilling off and expanding its Thunder Bay North base metals deposit.
“But that could get shut off tomorrow,” Smith chuckled, “you don't know. We've been through this many times,” he said remembering exploration downturns in the late 1980s and early 1990s. “You couldn't give a core box away.
“If you got an order for 1,000 that was unbelievable. Now things have changed so much.”
Last year, Garden Lake Timber produced 150,000 core boxes and sold 300,000 board feet of mining timbers.
The company's mining clients aren't just limited to northwestern Ontario.
“We have customers from Yellowknife to Newfoundland,” said Smith. “It's a small world in mining as (project) geologists move from job to job.
“We've had very good relations with people for many years and they've carried us wherever they've gone. It's been repeat business and business is booming.”
The company began in 1980 making railroad ties for Canadian National and Canadian Pacific. Started by Smith's father, Basil, who was in the gravel business, he took advantage of a forest fire in a jackpine stand at Garden Lake and began cutting ties until the wood ran out.
In catering to the mining industry, the company uses large logs for custom orders and specialty dimensional items like 8-by-8 and 12-by-12 timbers.
“For a small operator, we have to do a lot of different things,” said Smith, who is a regular at the Northwestern Ontario Mines and Minerals Symposium in Thunder Bay every April.
For years, Garden Lake Timber always had to scrounge for fibre on the open market and cut whatever was available.
The Crown wood fibre basket was always closed to the company, eaten up by the large producers.
Starting next year, for the first time ever, the company will start tapping into 10,000 cubic metres of hardwood and conifer awarded to them by the Ontario government in the provincial wood supply competition.
“I was happy, but I was quite surprised that we got it,” said Smith. “The allocation sustains us...it gives us a future.”
With eight to 10 employees, Garden Lake Timber only runs two to three days a week.
“When the markets recover, we'll still be a small player on a big field. We're a specialized mill and we'll always be.”
