Contributed by Revelstoke Community Forest Corporation
The year 2013 is a milestone one for Revelstoke Community Forest Corporation. It is 20 years ago that a group of municipal and industry leaders took it upon themselves to convince the provincial government that our community forest was a valid proposal and we were allowed to purchase a portion of the old Tree Farm License (TFL) 23 and to begin operations on the newly created TFL 56.
This was certainly ground-breaking in 1993 and we have been much sought‐after over the years for advice by other communities wanting to follow in our footsteps.
There are several communities now holding tenure under the newly created Community Forest Agreement, but we are one of only two communities operating a tree farm license in the province.
The 20-year path has not always been smooth – particularly during the most recent downturn in the world economy. We are slowly pulling out of that most difficult time but markets are still tight and profitability is earned by a lot of hard work by all concerned – RCFC staff and all the many contractors and their employees who are on the ground doing the layout, building the roads, logging, and performing the silviculture.
People going up towards the dam and passing by our logyard cannot help but have noticed that there are more logs there than ever before. This is because we are handling logs for other operators. It is a source of revenue for us and real help to them in dealing with their logs. For various reasons, it makes more sense economically or logistically to run their logs through our yard and we have always had excess capacity there.
This does not mean we are not handling our own logs in our yard. Our log marketing business is proceeding as usual there as well. Our log yard employees are showing their dedication and expertise in keeping things running smoothly there.
RCFC is a valuable community asset and we welcome input from the community. Our 20th anniversary gift to the community is a spectacular wooden carving by Rod Aspeslet that will be on display in the new visitor’s centre when it opens. I encourage the public to go and have a look at it.