In north-central B.C., there are new forest sectors emerging.
A half dozen wood pellet mills pepper north-central B.C., the latest plant earmarked for Burns Lake. Pinnacle Pellet started construction last fall on the $30-million facility, which will double the company's production capacity.
A number of bioenergy projects are also proposed including in Burns Lake, Fort St. James and Mackenzie. Conifex Timber unveiled the latest energy plant plan, saying it hopes to have a $45-million bioenergy plant in operation by mid 2012 in Mackenzie, 175 kilometres north of Prince George.
Canfor Pulp also has proposed a $150-million plan to use its wood waste to fire up a boiler at its Northwood pulp mill in Prince George to produce energy for B.C. Hydro.
Even in the region's traditional sectors, there are changes.
The lumber sector has also been helped by emerging markets, particularly in China. In 2010, the province shipped a historic 2.8 billion board feet of lumber to China, which supplanted Japan as the province's No. 2 export destination.
The lumber shipped to China is equal to the production of about one dozen sawmills. The growing Chinese market has helped restart plants in north-central B.C. still suffering the impacts of a U.S. housing collapse.
For example, Canfor Corp. re-opened its Quesnel sawmill last summer to deliver lumber exclusively to China, putting 155 workers back on the job.
"Without China, there would have been a helluva lot more casualties -- the industry would be in the midst of a death rattle," says United Steelworkers local 1-424 president Frank Everitt.
Despite the looming presence of the pine beetle epidemic, Everitt said forestry workers are feeling pretty good about the future.
He noted the Chinese have, in part, embraced B.C. wood because of its environmentally-friendly properties. Because trees are replanted, and solid wood products store carbon, wood is viewed as more green than steel and cement.
It's not just the Chinese government that is embracing this concept, but major Chinese builders, said Everitt, who was part of a recent B.C. trade mission to China.
Everitt also likes the emergence of the bioenergy sector as it helps stabilize the traditional lumber sector, offering an additional income stream.
There is still more work to do, however, stressed Everitt.
The forest sector has not completely recovered from the U.S. housing collapse and the 2009 global financial crisis.
While many mills have resumed production in northern B.C., others like Winton Global and Rustad Bros. in Prince George remain shuttered indefinitely.
The Winton Global mill, down for nearly three years, sits between the Lakeland Mills and Brink operations below the Nechako River cutbanks.
Other mills have been shuttered permanently in the North: a linerboard plant in Kitimat, a sawmill in Terrace, a sawmill in Fort St. James, a newsprint mill and sawmill in Mackenzie, and a sawmill in Quesnel.
