The Legacy and the Challenge: A Century of the Forest Industry at Cowichan Lake

Ken A. Armson, a former executive co-ordinator of the Ontario Ministry
of Natural Resources’ Forest Resources Group, is currently a forestry
consultant.

Covering the years 1870 to 1992, the four chapters in this small book
recount the forestry development of the Cowichan Lake area in southern
Vancouver Island and its effects on both the forest and the settled
communities. Particular emphasis is placed on the evolution of forestry
labor and unions from the 1920s to the present. The book is very
readable, and each of its chapters has annotations of the source
material on which it is based.

The same concerns that we hear now about access, clear-cutting,
mechanization, and foreign ownership of the industry were being voiced
over the past 100 years. What this book does is give those concerns
historical benchmarks to which people today can relate. As the author
states, “[h]istorical knowledge ... can be utilized to create a more
informed public debate and to evaluate the actions of governments and
multinationals against the standards of their rhetoric.”

Marring this gem of a book are a number of typos and the lack of an
index.