1

One afternoon, in the dying days of 1910, a large crowd of interested spectators clustered on the end of the Powell River pier. Suddenly, from one keen watcher, came a shout, "Here she comes, folks." And around the point swung into view the white sails and tall spars of a full-rigged sailing ship. It was the barque British Yeoman with the first load of concrete [cement] to arrive in Powell River--a cargo with which to lay foundations of a new industry on British Columbia's western shore line.

Powell River Digester
Vol. 8, No. 5
May, 1929

2

Unloading cement at Powell River
1910
Powell River, British Columbia, Canada

Credits:
P07816
Rod LeMay, photographer

3

In 1911 there was no Panama Canal. The Company's first paper machines were shipped 17,000 miles by water, around Cape Horn from New York. No. 1 was, of course, the smallest, but it was a big piece of machinery for its day. Its 32 drier rolls were each 5 feet in diameter and 12 feet 2 inches long. Overall, the machine was about 15 feet wide, 200 feet long (excluding the winder) and 11 feet high. Built by Pusey & Jones, No. 1 Machine ...........was the height of papermaking technology in 1911.

4

S.S. Queen Alexandra
1911
Powell River, British Columbia, Canada

Credits:
P05656
Rod LeMay, photographer

5

At the end of April 1912 the first roll of saleable newsprint came off Paper Machine Number 1 and into the history books.
Powell River was now the first pulp and paper mill on the west coast of Canada and a flourishing new industry had been created.

6

First rolls
April, 1912
Powell River, British Columbia, Canada

Credits:
P00167
Catalyst Paper, Powell River Division

7

By May of 1912, Number 1 and 2 paper machines had been built and were producing paper. In 1913 Number 3 and 4 were in production and in 1925 an expansion for Number 5 and 6 paper machines was begun. The next expansion was in 1930 when a new building to house Number 7 and Number 8 was constructed. Number 7 began production in December of 1930 and installation of Number 8 was delayed for economic reasons. Number 8 was finally built and began producing paper in the spring of 1948.
On February 28, 1957 Number 9 paper machine was started followed by Number 10 in June of 1967. The Powell River Mill now had 10 paper machines all running. Number 11 paper machine came on line in April of 1981 and by the end of the year was running at 3,510 feet per minute. When Number 1 began running nearly 70 years earlier, it ran at 660 feet per minute.

8

Number 1 and Number 2 Paper Machine
Circa 1914
Powell River, British Columbia, Canada

Credits:
FC057
Catalyst Paper, Powell River Division

9

By February, 1913, Nos. 1 and 2 machines were producing close to capacity. Powell River was making 102 tons of newsprint daily. In April of that year, No. 3 came on line, producing another 40 tons. It was a 186-inch machine (175-inch sheet when trimmed), 32 inches wider than No. 2 and equal in other dimensions. The mill's output was increased to 142 tons a day. But that was not the end; No. 4 was completely assembled and producing by the following September, raising the plant's daily outputto 185 tons. Yearly tonnage had increased from 17,000 in 1912 to 44,000 in 1913.

The B.C. newsprint market was now satisfied. For three years, it had been almost ceaseless outlay on the part of the Company. It was now time to profit from their investment.

Bill Thompson,
The Powell River Mill Story

10

Number 3 and 4 Paper Machines
Circa 1914
Powell River, British Columbia, Canada

Credits:
P00926

11

(1799) in France, Louis Robert conceived the idea of using an endless wire cloth for forming a sheet of paper and sold his model and patent to his employer, Leger Didot. Didot moved to England, where, with his brother-in-law, John Gamble, they secured the help of Bryan Donkin to improve upon the original Robert model, and from their efforts the first paper-making machine ever built and operated successfully was started in Frogmore, England, in the year 1803.

The following year Henry and Sealy Fourdrinier purchased the interests of Didot and Gamble in the improved Robert's machine, and Henry Fourdrinier was granted a patent on July 24, 1804, for a "method of making a machine for manufacturing paper of indefinate length."

So the machine invented by Robert, promoted by Didot and Gamble, improved by Donkin and financed by the Fourdrinier brothers became known as a Fourdrinier machine, and the same basic principles for the manufacture of paper are still in use today.

H.B. Moore,
Powell River Digester
Vol. 25, No. 1
Jan-Feb 1949

12

Number 3 Paper Machine Fourdrinier
7 September 1949
Powell River, British Columbia, Canada

Credits:
A13-37-2
Owen Keddy

13

The cutter room is one of the important auxiliaries in the modern paper mill. Here the orders, varying in size from the small handbill to the larger sheets are made up, sorted and packed; here is cut paper for the primitive hand press, to whom rolls are useless; here, the many and widely extended demands of printer, jobber and merchant are filled.

Powell River newsprint is utilized in many fields other than the daily and weekly press. Down in the cutter room, they may be making scratch pads for a merchant in one of the big coast cities, they may be turning out the pages of a telephone directory, and they may be serving as a medium for the corner grocer's weekly or semi weekly announcements. Scribbling books or scratch pads, they are all part of the daily lives of the cutter crews.

The cutter room also has the privilege of serving many newspapers in the western hemisphere. Throughout the length and breadth of the continent are many small weeklies whose circulations do not justify the establishment of the big newspaper press.

Powell River Digester
Vol. 10, No. 11
November, 1931

14

Cutter Room
8 December 1955
Powell River, British Columbia, Canada

Credits:
PC-CU1
R.F. Metcalf, photographer
Reg Halford