Forest History Society Photograph Collection Sample Images: Canada -- Leon J. Kleiner Collection / FH1005th

Image ID: FHS1005
Image Date: 1920
Image Title: [Salvaged logs to be processed into pulp or lumber; Swanson Bay in British Columbia.]
Image Caption: [One of several] ... pictures taken at Swanson Bay, B.C. in 1920 [that] were taken at the site of a pulp and paper mill where logs had been so long in the water that they were pretty-well ruined by teredos. Some of the pictures show these teredo-infested logs quite well.

The government wanted these logs out of the water. H. N. Sereth who had mills and logging camps in various parts of British Columbia and Alberta and for whom Leon Kleiner and Morris Kleiner worked for many years, took on the job of getting the logs out of the water and turning them either into pulp or lumber, depending on their condition.

The logs cut for lumber were sold to a company which took them by ship to ports in Boston, New York, and Philadelphia. The longshoremen in Swanson’s Bay had to stack the lumber in such a way that the shipments destined for each port were able to be taken off in that port. The company doing the shipping was English.

Some of the logs were in such poor condition that if one piece, 2x4, could be salvaged the Sereths considered themselves lucky.

[One of several pictures from a scrapbook compiled by lumberman Leon J. Kleiner (b. 1894), a Polish immigrant to Canada, documenting the history of the lumbering industry in western Canada between 1914 and 1920. Many of the images were used to supplement the text of an oral history interview with Leon’s brother, Moritz "Morris" Kleiner (1889-1985), titled Recollections of Family, Community, and Business: Poland, Canada, and Tacoma, Washington, 1889-1974 (Berkeley, Calif: The Bancroft Library, 1974). Malca Kleiner Chall, the daughter of Morris Kleiner, conducted the interview in 1972.]
Photographer: [unknown]
Use Restrictions: Permission from the Forest History Society required for any use of this image.
Repository Contact Information: Forest History Society, Inc.; 701 William Vickers Ave., Durham, NC 27701; Tel.: (919) 682-9319; Fax: (919) 682-2349.