Empire of Wood: The MacMillan Bloedel Story

Robert W. Sexty is a commerce professor at the Memorial University of
Newfoundland and author of Canadian Business: Issues and Stakeholders.

Fourteen chapters document in a chronological sequence the formation and growth of Canada’s forty-third largest industrial corporation, MacMillan Bloedel Ltd. (1983 The Financial Post 500 rankings, by sales). Chapter 1 describes the beginnings of the British Columbia lumber business in the 1800s and MacMillan’s arrival in 1907. The following three chapters examine the three main corporate entities that eventually merge — MacMillan, Powell River Company, and Bloedel. Chapters 5, 6, and 7 describe MacMillan’s growth through 1945. Chapter 8 examines the 1951 merger with Bloedel and Chapter 10 the 1960 merger with Powell River Company. The corporation’s employees — buckers, snipers, fallers, hooktenders, bull whackers, whistle punks and high riggers — are described in Chapter 9, “High Riggers & Headrigs.” The last four chapters review the fortunes and misfortunes of the corporation in the 1960s and 1970s.

The book contains 122 photographs carefully organized in five groups paralleling the written text (as do maps indicating the location of operations). The author has used a wide variety of sources in preparing this corporate history. The listing of references and an index are unusual in this type of book; they make this book a valuable research source.

Commissioned corporate histories are often suspect, as they present a limited view of the corporation; but Empire of Wood is one of the best histories written on a Canadian corporation.