Temagami Mill Gets the Nod
Arnie Hakala - THE NUGGET - Friday, December 7, 2001
A Temagami firm has received conditional approval to construct a white birch sawmill which eventually could employ 60 people.

The news "is the best Christmas present our community has seen in years," Temagami Mayor Wayne Adair said Thursday. The town, 100 kilometres north of North Bay, has been in dire straits for more than 10 years, since the closure of the Sherman open-pit iron ore mine, a sawmill and a Ministry of Natural Resources office.

Temagami Forest Products Ltd., headed by Ivan Beauchamp, has received notification of the conditional approval from Charlie Lauer, an MNR acting assistant deputy minister. In a letter to the Temagami company, Lauer said the plan for the mill and a fuel-wood processing plant has been conditionally accepted. "Representatives of the ministry will contact you in the near future to discuss the requirements of formalizing a wood supply commitment of 30,000 cubic metres of low-quality white birch from the Temagami Management Unit," Lauer wrote.

Beauchamp has been fighting for the mill for three years and came close to giving up several times. "We should be in a position to begin construction in the spring, with production starting next fall," said Beauchamp. "This news is great for the company and even better for the Temagami region."

There are few jobs in the area. Last year, a busload of women drove to Queen's Park to demonstrate, complaining that families were being split up because husbands had been forced to leave town to find work.

Temagami First Nation, based on Bear Island, is a 30 per cent shareholder in Temagami Forest Products Ltd.

Adair said the facility has the potential to create 60 direct jobs "as well as additional spin-off jobs within two years of commencement of operations."

Kevin Rankin, the MNR's acting Temagami area forester, said he was pleased to see that white birch will be used because many stands are becoming mature and, in a few years, will be worthless.

When white birch stands are cut, Rankin said, they usually are regenerated by the same species as well as some poplar and even white pine and jack pine in some areas.