“Canada's forests are offering inmates of federal penitentiaries an opportunity to step out of their institutional environment. Trees for them point toward living again in a free society, and a job; their manpower contribution is plugging a gaping hole in a labor market crying for experienced help — they are woodcutters.
The art of clearing a forest, felling trees and reforestration is being kept alive by men often publicly considered "nogooders." They come from five correctional camps and work-parties across Canada; in New Brunswick, Ontario, Saskatchewan, Alberta, and British Columbia.
In the backwoods of New Brunswick the forest has become home to inmates on temporary parole. Since March of this year they've been running a mechanized pulpwood cutting operation and are paid the local union rate. It's their knowhow that's bolstering a dying trade.
Dungarvon Forestry Camp, located 34 miles northwest of Newcastle, and 14 miles from its neighboring town of Blackville, is a CPS-run institution where inmates train as skilled woodsmen. The program, jointly funded by CPS and Canada Manpower, sponsored by the Moncton Jaycees, also creates employment for inmates during and after incarceration.
Before learning how to fell a tree, handle a chainsaw and skidder, the inmate-woodcutters are given classroom instruction by a certified forestry technician in safety, first aid, and machine maintenance.
Dungarvon acting director, Paul Swan said, "We call them employees, for they are fully employed. They're paid the local union rate, out of which room and board, unemployment insurance and workman's compensation are paid. They are also encouraged to send money to their families."
At full capacity, the camp has 20 inmates — 15 employed in the woods, two cooks, a handyman, a mechanic, and a clerk. Eight CPS staff supervise.
It's an early morning call for the woodcutters. Up at 5:30 the men don't have to be called twice; the air is already filled with an enticing breakfast aroma. Two inmate cooks set the day's pace. Starting at 4:30 they prepare a typical lumberjack breakfast of beans, eggs, fried meats, homefried potatos and pots of hot coffee. A heavy meal for a heavy day's work is their motto.
It's usually a 15 minute drive to the worksite, where in all weathers, mud and dust, pestered by blackflies and mosquitoes in the summer, and snow, sleet, and frost in the winter, they cut trees and clear underbrush.
Its a toughened group of woodsmen who return to the camp at the end of the day. Lingering over a meal is their recompense for a long day in the forest, before hitting the sack. An angler's dream, is the Dungarvon River, that runs close by their camp. Spring and early summer finds many a woodcutter landing a fine salmon or trout.
Hazen Smith, former director of occupational and social development, CPS, now on the National Parole Board, visited the camp during its first month of operation. "Those men are terrifically motivated because they are making good money. You don't see that kind of interest and motivation inside institutions!"
Dungarvon has won the approval of the Solicitor General. He referred to the camp as, "What rehabilitation is all about — training an inmate, restoring his faith in values, the value of his contribution to society, and preparing him to meet the responsibilities of society."
A similar operation is underway at Nova Scotia's Springhill Institution, but with a difference. Scott Maritimes Pulp Limited offered a two-phase forest harvesting technician's course, with classroom instruction and on-the-job training. As for any other work outside a federal penal institution, inmates must qualify for parole before applying. During a 10 to 12 week training course at Springhill a Scott Maritimes instructor takes the trainees through a do and don't session. They graduate to a Scott woodlot, cutting pulpwood under the watchful eye of the instructor.
Phase two of the program takes place at a company halfway house at Apple River, 60 miles from Springhill. While continuing the course as on-the-job training the men are paid at local union rates. Room and board and insurances are deducted. After successfully completing both training phases the men receive a forestry technician's certificate.
In the western reaches of Canada where lush British Columbia forests provide a major industry, other correctional institutions and temporary work camps are involved in forestry work. Two are active now. Plans for three others are underway. Agassiz Correctional Camp and Ferndale Institution, located in the B. C. interior, have men constantly working in the forests.
Norman Baker, director of forest camps, Regional Headquarters in Vancouver, described the forest camps as semi-permanent trailer units. "British Columbia is a garden of trees and lumbering is our major industry. So by comparing the woods to a vegetable garden, inmates weed the forest of brush and prune the trees."
Agassiz Correctional Camp has used inmates as woodcutters for 14 years, and Ferndale Institution since 1973. And men from William Head on Vancouver Island have also been involved in many bush-clearing operations.
For 69 inmates from B. C.'s correctional institutions, 1974 has been a chance to win parole and earn a regular wage. Working out of three temporary forestry camps, at Toba Inlet, Wakeman Sound, and at the head of Stave Lake, they earned $3.99 hourly grooming the forests. They paid room and board plus insurance.
There were no weekends on the town for these inmate woodsmen. Isolated in the bush, they worked four weeks straight — returned to the institution for a week's breather, and started again. According to Norman Baker, CPS correctional forest projects are unusual; as in New Brunswick, the B. C. men are supervised only by a foreman, with no security staff.
Mentally, the work gives a man a chance to assume responsibility and help support his family. It is also an opportunity to prove himself. How he fits into and copes with the program, Baker adds, will work in that man's favor when his parole consideration date comes due. "Physically, he gets a lot of exercise, and the community benefits."
From the lavish growth of British Columbia's forests to the inland flat prairies of central Canada, and outward to the eastern coastline forests of New Brunswick, trees offer inmates an insight into a steady job and life back in the outside community.
At Grierson Centre in Edmonton, 16 Indian residents are learning bush-clearing skills and chainsaw use while employed clearing the boundary lines of Elk Island National Park. They do similar work for Strathcona County and are paid the provincial minimum wage.
Program operations are credited to a LEAP grant, but getting the project underway was the work of the Neegan Society, a group of local people belonging to native organizations. The Centre's director, Doug Clark, says the program has proved successful. Recidivism has been literally chopped to 37 per cent.
It hasn't been all smooth sailing though. Clark says he's been having trouble recruiting enough Indians to take on the job. "I don't know the reason, but if we don't get enough people participating, we'll lose the LEAP grant."
Determined to keep the project going, Clark says he hopes to recruit Indians from provincial jails. "It's a good program. It would be a real shame to let it fall through."
Farther east in Ontario, two other correctional camps have inmates working in forests. Beaver Creek Correctional Camp supplies the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources with two crews of 15 men. They prune trees, clear brush and do other clean-up jobs; but they are not paid. Trained to answer a forest fire emergency, they have become experts at spotting outbreaks.
Similarly at Landry Crossing, 11 inmates are employed at the Dominion Experimental Station, Chalk River. For a variety of jobs, clearing, planting trees, and sawmill work, they are paid $1.50 daily.
Not all projects provide monetary rewards. Many offer only training. Inmates from William Head institution benefited from a massive land-clearing job at Camp Barnard, 29 miles west of Victoria. Their contribution to the second British Columbia and Yukon Provincial Boy Scout Jamboree saved hundreds of dollars for the organization.
According to Norman Baker, the program is a success. "There's an abundance of work to be done. But where has to be agreed on by CRS, forestry departments, and community groups." He acclaims it as a sound job-training project. By 1975 his long-range plans for British Columbia will extend even further — four more semi-permanent camps will be working. Not only do inmates benefit as trained woodsmen and camp cooks — but CPS staff and forestry officers learn how to manage a camp. "It's a real learning endeavor," says enthused Norm Baker.
In an age when industry can utilize every scrap of wood, demands on Canadian forests are soaring. HelPing to care for the rich forest harvest are men removed from freedom. The trees they care for repay Canada in world markets. - Information Services, Ottawa, “Opportunity Grows on Trees.” Discussion, Vol. 2, no. 4, dec. 1974.
Top to bottom: 1) Dungarvon Forestry Camp.
2) An inmate checks a chainsaw before starting work in the bush. Grierson Centre inmates clear the boundary lines of Elk Island National Park.
3) A woodsman's lot isn't easy. Seas of mud after summer showers and spring thaws tum bush roads into a quagmire. lnmate-woodcutters from Grierson Centre, Edmonton, had to give a mighty heave-ho to a camp truck, as they rescued it from a mud bath. They were on route to Elk Island National Park to clear boundary lines from overgrown bush.
4) There's a lot of paper work for Paul Swan who runs Dungarvon Forestry Camp. Woodsmen at the camp live in modern-day mobile traiter units — not Paul Bunyan style log cabins.
5) Agassiz Correctional Camp has beautiful British Columbia mountains as a backdrop. One of several forest camps in B.C., inmates work in nearby forests.