The precise origin and location of “Old Logging Mills” whose opening title card reads “British Columbia’s Largest Industry” is not known. The caterpillar tractor, according to the Library and Archives Canada, has “Tanskey Logging” written on it, though this may only be derived from the film print itself. Library and Archives Canada also reports that Hastings Mill is referred to in notes in the collection that contained other films. When the film was received by the Archives it appears the film was split into two cannisters, but it is not clear what happened to the first part. Nevertheless, the film opens with the felling of a tree and then provides detail on the work inside the sawmill. The highly mechanized nature of the work is striking. 

Old Logging Mills, film, 1930, 8 minutes, 34 seconds, F.W. Thirkell Collection, Accension number 1979-0294, ISN Number 345217, Library and Archives Canada.

Film editing and musical direction: Mariana Hutten 

Songs: Burning Sands - Vincent Lopez and His Hotel Pennsylvania Orchestra; D. Onivas

Bee's Knees - The Original Memphis Five; Lopez and Lewis, 1922

Woodland Echoes - Taylor Trio; Wyman, 1922

Further Discussion

Rajala, R. A. (1993). The Forest as Factory: Technological Change and Worker Control in the West Coast Logging Industry, 1880-1930. Labour Le Travail, 32, 73–104

Hak, G. (1989). British Columbia Loggers and the Lumber Workers Industrial Union, 1919-1922. Labour Le Travail, 23, 67–90. 

Gordon Hak, “Bus Griffiths’ Now You’re Logging: A Graphic Novel about British Columbia Coastal Logging in the 1930s,” Labour/Le Travail, 55 (Spring 2005), 167-85.