The series consists of company records relating to a wide range of functions and activities concerning logging, mill production, and marketing of products. They also relate to the residential communities and employee facilities built at Honeymoon Bay and Gordon River logging camp, Vancouver Island, BC.
The textual records and a small number of maps include: annual general meeting and board of directors meeting records (agendas, minutes, and manager’s reports); camp committee meeting minutes; safety and accident prevention committee activities; an organization chart and staff directories; visits and tours information, including company histories; property and insurance appraisals; assessments for the Honeymoon Bay plant and Gordon River camp; mill and machinery inventories; townsite house and property lease information; cruise maps and timber estimates; newspaper clippings and press releases; information retained as library or reference material; company-union agreements; cost summaries and costs data; invoice books; employee earnings record books; mill sales ledgers; journals, notebooks, log books, supervisor’s record book, and weekly time book. Records related to personnel matters include seniority lists, salary information, change in status forms, and job descriptions.
The series includes company publications created by Western Forest Industries, Alaska Pine and Cellulose Limited, Rayonier Canada (B.C.) Ltd., ITT Rayonier Inc., Doman Industries Limited, British Columbia Forest Products Limited, Western Forest Products Ltd., Hillcrest Lumber Co. Ltd., and Seaboard Lumber Sales Co. & Seaboard Shipping Company.
Some of the records may have been created and maintained by departments, including accounting and personnel. Many appear to have been maintained in the manager’s office, as a large proportion of the records bear the name of Donald F. Hammond, who started with the company in the 1940s and became manager and corporate Vice-President. As no creator classification system was discernible, and file titles were often not used, many artificial files needed to be created by the archivist, based upon subject matter.
The series also consists of ca. 900 photographs (colour and black & white), including prints, slides, and negatives. (Many of the latter are undeveloped). The images include scenes of the Honeymoon Bay plant and workers, environs of the plant, machines and equipment, logging locations and old growth timber, and photographs of residences in the Honeymoon Bay townsite accompanied by property appraisals.
The series includes a weekly time book which appears to give employee names, days worked, amount paid out, and method of payment. It is dated from 1909 to 1916, which is much earlier than the creation of Western Forest Industries Limited, and also earlier than WFI’s predecessor companies. The book is without company or location information, and therefore of unknown provenance.
Western Forest Industries Ltd.
