Macmillan Bloedel Limited - 1977 dated $1,000 Canadian Bond - Canada

$1,000 9% Bond printed by British American Bank Note Company Limited. Vignette of Forest Ranger with trees in background.

MacMillan Bloedel Limited, a Canadian forestry company based in Vancouver, British Columbia, was formed in 1951 through the merger of Bloedel, Stewart, and Welch with the H.R. MacMillan Export Company. In 1959, MacMillan and Bloedel merged with the Powell River Company to form MacMillan, Bloedel, and Powell River, which later adopted its current name in 1966. In 1999, the company was acquired by Weyerhaeuser.

In 1908, two American entrepreneurs, Dr. Dwight Brooks and Michael Scanlon, established a newsprint mill in Powell River, located northwest of Vancouver. In 1912, the Powell River Company produced the first roll of newsprint manufactured in British Columbia. Over time, it became one of the world’s largest newsprint plants and is credited with introducing the first self-dumping log barge to British Columbia.

In 1911, Julius Bloedel, a Seattle lawyer, along with his partners John Stewart and Patrick Welch, embarked on a journey to acquire vast forests on Vancouver Island. Their Franklin River camp soon became a prominent player in the global logging industry. During the 1930s, the Canadian lumber industry witnessed the introduction of innovative equipment such as the Lidgerwood steel spar yarder and chainsaw at Bloedel’s camp. In 1938, Bloedel, Stewart, and Welch made history as the first logging company in the province to plant seedlings in a logged-over area. They also established a substantial timber mill in Port Alberni. The company’s operations extended to large camps near Menzies Bay, British Columbia, Comox, and Myrtle Point, just south of Powell River. Headquartered in Vancouver, the company also had partnerships with Foley, Welch, and Stewart, a prominent railway-building firm during that era.

The final pre-merger company was the H.R. MacMillan Export Company, founded in 1919 by Harvey MacMillan, British Columbia’s inaugural Chief Forester. MacMillan gained valuable experience in global lumbering during World War I. Alongside his colleague Whitford Julian VanDusen, another forester, MacMillan incorporated a company in 1919 to sell British Columbia lumber products to international markets. In 1924, they established a shipping company that would eventually become one of the world’s largest charter companies. However, the creation of Seaboard Lumber by other mill owners in British Columbia posed a significant threat to MacMillan. Seaboard was intended to export all the lumber from the companies that founded it, leaving MacMillan without the necessary lumber to fulfill their orders. In response, MacMillan initiated a series of acquisitions, ultimately establishing the first truly integrated forestry company in British Columbia.

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