Grinding Profile Grinding BC Williams Lake logger starts up salvage wood biomass operation By Maria Church or central B.C. logger Tsi Del Del Enterprises Ltd., harvesting is just one component of how they manage forest licenses belonging to the Tsideldel First Nation and other First Na-tions west of Williams Lake, B.C. The 27-year-old company – a joint venture between Tsideldel (formerly called Alexis Creek First Nation) and Tolko Indus-tries – is a fully integrated forestry company involved in forestry consulting, harvesting, log sales, silviculture, and, most recently, biomass harvesting in the bush. “The company belongs to the community of Tsideldel,” says Phil Theriault, general manager of Tsi Del Del Enterprises. “We’re not a contractor logger, we own the wood and we’re doing all the forestry management. It’s a full loop from harvest planning to reforestation. We’re a full forest management company.” Based in Williams Lake, B.C., Tsi Del Del Enterprises started up in the early ’90s as a way to keep resources within the First Nations’ traditional lands and to improve the economic and so-cial conditions of the community. The band originally partnered F with Jacobson Brothers Forest Products Ltd., which was pur-chased by Riverside Forest Products and later by Tolko. “After quite a few meetings we managed to form a joint ven-ture company,” says Percy Guichon, business development man-ager for Tsi Del Del Enterprises. “We started with a buncher, a skidder, a loader and two or three trucks – under 10 employees, including the foreman and the book keeper.” Today the company employs nearly 100 staff members and subcontractors, running around 40 machines in the bush. De-pending on the year, they harvest between 340,000 and 400,000 cubic metres a year – about 40 to 45 loads a day. The geography of the Tsilhqot’in region of B.C. presents chal-lenges for loggers like Tsi Del Del Enterprises, mainly due to small piece sizes and low volume stands. Typical volume is less than 100 cubic metres per hectare. Around 90 per cent of the trees are lodgepole pine, common in the B.C. Interior, which range from 0.07 to 0.16 cubic metres per log. “I would say at least 60 to 70 per cent of the volume is from Crew members from Tsi Del Del Enterprises and Borland Creek Logging. From left: Ryan Epp, Joe Webster, Spencer Friesen, Brian Ringwood, Curtis Webster, Alex Winegart, Phil Theriault, Scott Lees and Cam Cochran. Photo by Mitch Cheek, Solos Productions. 10 Canadian BIOMASS WINTER 2020
Canadian Biomass Winter 2020: Page 10
