Say goodbye to Weyerhaeuser. The Washington-based company officially left the islands at midnight on May 29, replaced by Cascadia Forest Products Ltd.
The new company is owned by Brascan, which acquired all Weyerhaeuser's BC coastal assets in a deal which closed on the weekend.
Cascadia's operations include annual harvest rights to 3.6-million cubic metres, five sawmills and two remanufacturing facilities, as well as more than 2,000 employees. On Monday (May 30), Brascan Timberland managing partner Reid Carter announced that Hugh Sutcliffe, an engineer and forester with over 30 years experience, will be the president of Cascadia.
Brascan launched another company, Island Timberlands, to operate the 635,000 acres of private land it acquired from Weyerhaeuser. Some of the private land is located on Haida Gwaii. The Island Timberlands headquarters will be in Nanaimo.
At the Juskatla office, they were answering the phone with "Cascadia" on Monday morning. Forester Garth Johnson said things were the "same as normal" in Juskatla, with no new sign up and no baseball caps being handed out.