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OLD MILLS & OLD TRAILS by Gerry Hardman It has been said, the Logging & Lumber Industry, as well as providing indirectly for over 50% of B.C.'s economy, has been a major factor in opening up the Province. The latter is most evident today with first class logging roads, heavy trucks and other giant machines used by the Big Operators. It was not always so, insofar as Hollyburn Ridge is concerned, the pioneer loggers cleared the lower slopes of the most available and best timber first, with most primitive equipment, gradually working up to about the 2000' level, opening up the area with their skid roads, flumes and railroads. The first serious attempt at logging on the Ridge above the 2000' level was undertaken by the operators of the Naisrnith Mill which was located about 200 yards south of milepost 7 on the present Cypress Bowl Highway. For those days, this was no small "Gypo" operation. Hov/ever, the economics of such a venture at that altitude was doomed to eventual failure, with long winter shutdowns, and high costs of getting the lumber and shingle bolts down the mountain, plus the fact that more accessible timber was available elsewhere. Naisrnith had first built a shingle mill at the foot of 27th street on what is now the south west corner of Marine Drive & 27th. To supply this mill with cedar bolts, a flume was built up 27th street to just about where the first power line is now located. The boTtsiiut in this area, mostly by Japanese men and women, were shot down the flume to a holding pond north of Marine Drive at 27th street and then hauled by horse and wagon to the mill across Marine Drive. The actual date when operations started at the upper mill is unknown to the writer but is believed to have been during the first world war, about 1915/17. The plant consisted of a complete but relatively small sawmill, less planer. Evidentally the Operators had considerable trouble moving the sawn rough lumber off the mountain and in due course reverted almost exclusively to a shingle bolt show. In addition to the Mill, there were a couple of bunk houses, cookhouse, and a few other smaller buildings. The Sawmill and the other machinery were all steam operated, the main boiler and other parts were dragged up the mountain on skids pulled by a steam Donkey engine via a tote road from 26th street and Palmerston Avenue. The tirmber 1imitsowned by the company at that time in part consisted of TL 13285P, some 400 acres on Hollyburn Ridge, plus a further 500/ 600 acres on Black Mountain. The only portion that was actually logged off was what is now known as District Lots 1124/1125, some 160 acres plus. The attached map shows these and other details. Initially, a considerable quantity of the pre-cut rough lumber was used in the construction of the Mill and other buildings. As the Mill changed over from cutting lumber, to a Red Cedar shingle bolt operation, the greater portion of the cut lumber was used in the construction of a "V" flume required to carry the bolts down the mountain. This flume ran from a holding pond at the Mill, on Rodgers Creek, down the mountain, almost in the centre of the present highwav to about mile 6, then steeply downhill to a point on the old PGE Railway at Sherman Station where the bolts were cut to shingles at another mill for loading to Rail cars. This mill also had a planer where an attempt was fnade to further process rough lumber shot down the flume. This did not work out and it was shortly after the company went broke. The flume was of substantial construction, 2 X 10 rough yellow cedar, some 2X8 and 2X6. In the days shortly after the Mill shut down, this flume was the source of much building material for the first cabin builders on the Ridge, the writer being one of them. Log cabin construction had not yet arrived.