MILLINOCKET, Maine — Steve Sanders thinks the tree stumps he keeps at his West Branch Heritage Timber LLC sawmill were part of a red oak that Henry David Thoreau paddled past in his famous canoe trip up the Penobscot River in 1846.
The gray and brown blocks are about as tall as tombstones and bear what looks like ax blade scars among their few hundred rings. Since his company’s workers fished the wood from Quakish Lake, which is part of the river system, and red oak grew only along the riverbank, the tree was probably among those harvested when river-driving loggers built a dam that expanded the lake in 1898 or 1899, Sanders said.
Sanders loves the stumps for their history.
“I am going to turn those into pedestals for glass tables so you can look at them and see history. You can see one man’s labor with an ax in a hardwood tree,” Sanders said Friday. “The wood brings you back to an era when everything was done by hand. When you think about the wood that came down the river every year and you realize that it was done by men, wood and oxen, you see it was just an incredible feat that they did.”
The company, which also is known as Great Northern Timber LLC, has harvested 20,000 tons of wood from the lake since it was formed in the fall of 2010. Sanders and company co-owner Tom Shafer seek as many commercial and industrial uses for the wood as they can find.
The owners see the lake wood as a specialty-niche product useful and highly decorative for its rich earth tones, created by the trees being submerged for hundreds of years among minerals that seep into the wood.
Its uniqueness was among the reasons Shaw & Tenney of Orono, a company that started making wooden oars and paddles in 1858, chose West Branch as its primary supplier of wood for nearly 300 paddles the Orono firm is producing for L.L. Bean to celebrate the retailer’s 100th anniversary this year.
West Branch has supplied wood for pulp tests at six Maine paper mills, including the new Great Northern Paper Co. mill in East Millinocket. The tests went well. The company hopes to land a contract as a mill pulp supplier and can produce 40,000 tons annually of wood for the next 20 years just from what’s in Quakish Lake, Sanders said.
“That’s enough to make us one of the largest suppliers of wood for any one paper mill,” Sanders said.
The new River Drivers Restaurant just outside Millinocket is a showcase for just about all of river wood’s decorative uses. Owner Matthew Polstein used West Branch products for almost all of the restaurant’s floors, wainscoting, interior trim, stair treads and architectural moldings.
“It looks great and with the character and history of it, it was really something we wanted to use,” said Polstein, who moved his restaurant on Millinocket’s Airport Road to his resort site in Township 1 Range 8 last year. “It is a green product, a reclaimed product. We didn’t have to cut down any trees to get it, and with our modern-day connection to river drivers and river running, we felt it was an ideal match.”
West Branch Heritage wood is too pricey to make it as a commodity in the flooring or furniture markets, Sanders said. However, it is competitively priced in the specialty-wood markets. It would, if contracted by a paper mill, provide pulping wood substantially less expensive than that available from other producers, he said.
Sanders said the company, which has nine full-time employees, wants to get a full year of production and land a pulping contract before expanding its work force.
Very cool story and a perfect metaphor for what’s happening in Millinocket today. Making money by reaching back into the past to try to retrieve some of what once was, but is no more. Sooner or later, the logs at the bottom of the lake will run out. Then what Millinocket?
worry about that in 20 years
that loser never has anyhing positive to say about anyone that is working, or about millinocket, he doesnt worry about his next welfare check, but he should.just another parasite lurching.
As a college kid I worked for Scott Paper Company in the early and mid 70s during the last log drives on Moosehead lake. At that time all we heard was that the sunken pulp was killing the lake. Now when someone does something really productive people think it’s killing the water. No it isn’t.
Bangorian is typical of the losers that immigrate here from the cities.
Too stupid to stay in Connecticut.
Too smart to stay amongst us idiots.
these people are making a living, and you? sucking up welfare? is that what you have been up to for last few years, and looking to do for rest of your life? it seems you have something crappy to say about anyone that makes a living , and never nothing good to say about millinocket. i’l bet you always suppoer liberal cracpot dems in elections.
You really need to get a life!!
Has anyone in Millinocket noticed anything unusual about the water quality at home since this reclamation began ? Any problems with the furnace , the hot water heater , the taste of the water or the corrosion on your pipes ? I’d be interested if this activity has stirred up any minerals or sediment contributing directly to this ! Has anyone even looked ? Does anyone care ? Has the water treatment facility needed to increase or add any chemicals as a result of recent water testing results ? Can of worms is officially opened !
The only thing being stirred up here is the stank of a greenie complaining…
I’m so far away from green it’s funny. The greenies are all in favor of reclaiming the wood from the lake , so am I for that matter. I happen to love good quality lumber. The fact is that Millinocket drinking water sucks. I also would like to say Ban Roxanne !
the water sucked before they started this, but the real crooks here is Aqua Maine
Poormaniac, don’t upset MeForest. He’ll call you names and get really angry. This is particularly true when it comes to the healthcare debate. He ain’t gonna be forced to do nuthin. Heaven forbid someone suggest anything that requires government to act in favor of the people. He’ll call you thick when you question his vague reference to the armed take over of America by the right wing extremist’s that he identifies with. He is not a nice person.
Poor I used to live on Poplar St. In the winter time them ****** at the water treatment plant would throw so many chemicals in that water…. I filled the bathtub up and the water was clear BLUE!! Looked like the friggin tidybowl man was rowing in my tub. Called them they came out and said well we have to put all that in there because they put salt on the roads. I’ve lived here 14 yrs if Millinocket ever dropped one crystal of salt on a street it must have been off their McD’s fries. It’s Aqua Maine for sure!
From the looks of cars and trucks there, it sure looks like they use a lot of salt on the roads.
Tests at GNP went well? Really??? When they ran that wood it made zero zilch nada fiber! They are stuck with what they bought and throwing in a log or two of it with good wood. Sorry to bust your bubbles ! Hopefully you’ll make a lot of paddles out of it.
Where do you get your info? Wood harvesting has been done all over the world and the wood stays preserved because of the lack of oxygen.I worked in the mill when the trial was done and guess what? The fiber was fine,it was the darkness of the wood that made it cost prohibitive. It would have cost more to bleach than the fiber was worth! I think your crystal ball is giving you wrong information.
All of the timbers that they use to maintain the U.S.S. Constitution are stored in a pond until they are needed.