2018 International Forest Industries IFI June July 2018 Digital | Page 34

The installation team
puts the final touches on
Northland Forest Products’
new HewSaw R200 before it
is lifted through the roof and
into position in the mill
Innovative Solutions to
a Challenging Environment
Northern Alberta
is a challenging
environment for the
forest industry, but
Northland Forest
Products in Fort
McMurray takes it all
in stride.
N
orthland Forest Products
has seen its fair share
of challenges over the
years. The mill is located in Fort
McMurray, Alberta, Canada, which
is in the heart of Canada’s oil
sands, making it hard to attract
employees when they have to
compete against the high wages
offered by the nearby oil sector.
And then there were the recent
forest fires which destroyed
valuable timberlands, forced an
evacuation of the city of 80,000
people and shut the mill down for
over a month (see sidebar on the
fires).
But for the family owners of
Northland – brothers Craig and
Howie Ewashko and their sister
Kim Norris, dealing with these
challenges is all in a day’s work.
“We have learned over the years
to be flexible and adapt to different
and challenging situations,”
explains Craig. “We keep pace with
technology and market conditions
and we continually position
30 International Forest Industries | JUNE / JULY 2018
ourselves to be successful in both
types of markets – the good and
the bad.”
In 2016, the team at Northland
saw one of these opportunities
to reposition the mill for future
growth. “Following the acquisition
of another mill in the region,
we solidified our fibre supply in
early 2016 and immediately went
to the white board again to see
how we could maximize our new
investment,” says Craig. “It was
clear that the volume of logs under
12 inches (30 cm) was going to
increase so we turned to our long-
term small log primary breakdown
supplier, HewSaw, to see what
could be done. They presented us
with a turn-key solution for a new
primary breakdown machine that
would eliminate major mill flow
changes and minimize the risk of
integrating scanning, programming
and mechanical installations from
various suppliers.”
The new HewSaw at Northland,
which was commissioned in the