Everyday Heroes: Meet Finning's service ... - Finning Canada

Move Over, Paul BunyanVicki Holman fondly recalls her first fewweeks as manager of the BC Forest DiscoveryCentre. The 100-acre operation, located twokilometres north of Duncan on VancouverIsland, offers a detailed look at the evolutionof a provincial industry that Holman calls“the backbone of the economy.”“I remember when I first started this joband going through the exhibits, I followed afamily whose grandfather was narrating whilethey walked through the bunkhouses,” shesays. “He told them the story of when he wasin camp and how he slept in a bunk like thatand worked in the shop. He had a sense ofpride, and we have a role to play in keepingthose stories alive.”The BC Forest Discovery Centre has beendoing just that since it first opened in 1964 asthe Forest Museum Park. Gerry Wellburn, anEnglishman who moved to Victoria with hisfamily after the turn of the century, donatedthe original collection of artifacts and loggingmachines housed at the centre. Wellburn,who was one of the first loggers in the areato use Caterpillar equipment, recognized thechanges occurring in the industry and begancollecting the various tools of the trade.By 1974, the BC Forest Museum Societytook over the centre, which is now fundedthrough a combination of government support,fundraising and private donations. Approximately30,000 visitors per year passthrough to see the wetlands, exhibits and maturesecond-growth forest complete with trailson a dynamic piece of land.Many of the machines on display at thecentre – open from Easter to Thanksgivingand then once again at Christmas – are vintageCats, including loaders, D7s and D6sand even a 1930 Model 20 tractor, whichFinning borrowed to display at logging showsthroughout 2007. A sweet 1910 steam traintakes visitors on a tour of the grounds.“They gave me a tour,” says Rob Sarich,Finning’s products and services sales managerfor Vancouver Island. “There’s a ton of old storiesthere about machinery and the history ofthe Island. With each piece, there’s a story.”Location, locationIn 1964, an appropriate locationwas identified for what would eventuallybecome the site of the BC ForestDiscovery Centre. A six-hectare pieceof property south of Drinkwater Roadwas chosen because of its visibilityfrom the Island highway and historicalconnection to the Cowichan Valley.The site was a mink farm but moreimportantly it had been the locationof the Cowichan Valley’s first publicbuilding – a combined schoolhouseand chapel, erected in 1863.“To me, the coolest part about this is thatartifacts aren’t just sitting out there in theforest,” says Holman. “You could flash themup and start them and if you wanted to, youcould actually do some land clearing.”Volunteers, many of them retired loggers,are key to the centre’s ability to connectthe past to the present. The centre offerseducational programming available for primary,elementary and high-school students.“There’s a real opportunity to tell the historicalstory and talk about where forestry isgoing in the future and why it’s important tovalue the forest,” she says.The BC Forest Discovery Centre has becomeeven more meaningful in recent timeswith the logging industry facing serious challenges.Devastating forest fires and the unrelentingmarch of the tree-killing mountainpine beetle have transformed the industry,making it that much more imperative to rememberthe rich tradition and role it hasplayed in shaping British Columbia.“Here on the coast, guys that logged inthe ’30s, ’40s and ’50s up to the present day,they’re like folk heroes,” says Sarich.“You really get a sense of that at the BCForest Discovery Centre.”Visit discoveryforest.com for moreinformation on the centre.10 TRACKS & TREADS • Spring 2008 www.finning.ca