Tag: Maine

This Week in Wood: Maine Firm Makes a Splash with Underwater Log Flooring

Posted on by Jeff Easterling

Reclaimed Underwater Wood Flooring 1

A century or more after they sunk to the bottom of Quakish Lake in Millinocket, Maine during transport to a nearby paper mill, submerged logs are brought to the surface and transformed into new products, including Eastern White Pine flooring. Maine Heritage Timber Company discovered a trove of logs estimated at an astonishing 700,000 to 1 million cords stacked in the bottom of the 1,000-acre lake. That’s enough to harvest for around 20 years, according to company co-founder Steve Sanders.

The lake is located along the west branch of the Penobscot River, which was a highway for delivering wood to mills throughout the rich history of Maine’s historic lumber industry. While being transported, some were naturally lost to the water, sunken and long forgotten. While Maine Heritage Timber Company initially reclaimed the old logs for use as pulp in biomass boilers, they’ve discovered a use that preserves the wood’s heritage.

Reclaimed Underwater Wood Flooring 2

“The waters of the Penobscot River have protected the timber from deterioration and ingrained the wood with an amazing assortment of grays, blues, and reds,” says Sanders. “Cut by hand, this lumber has characteristics found in no other wood.”

The company glues layers of the lake-salvaged wood to a thin layer of Baltic birch to create an engineered flooring product. They’ll harvest about 12,000 tons of the submerged wood this year to create this flooring for lines like Penobscot, made of Eastern White Pine, and the 1899 Collection, made of red oak and yellow birch.

Read more about how the wood is harvested and treated at MaineBiz.

The Pine Tree State: A History of Lumber in Maine

Posted on by Jeff Easterling

Maine Pine TreeThe towering Eastern White Pines of Maine, stretching up to two hundred feet into the sky, were an incredible sight for Europeans arriving for the first time in what would later become New England. Maine is now known as the Pine Tree State, and has taken the Eastern White Pine as its state tree (and even the White Pine Cone and Tassel as its flower, even though it’s not technically a flower.) This tree has played a major role in Maine history, from the very first days of colonization to the modern era.

Those tall trees were in such great demand, they played a role in sparking the Revolutionary War. Their trunks were ideal for use as masts in large seafaring vessels, and while Colonists depended on them to build their own ships and architecture, Great Britain began to claim the largest and strongest for its own ships. The conflict led to an incident known as ‘The Pine Tree Riot,’ one of the first real acts of rebellion against British rule.

Before it was settled, Maine was covered in forests, but colonists quickly began clearing large tracts of land for homes and farms, and to use the wood. The first sawmills of Maine were reportedly established in the early 1630s, and the lumber industry was in full swing by mid-century. By 1682, there were 24 sawmills operating in what is now Kittery, Wells and Portland.

By the 19th century, Bangor was the lumber capital of the world, home to over 300 sawmills. The Penobscot River played a large role in the industry, allowing loggers to send large logs from the northern Maine woods to Bangor, where they were processed. Today, the North Woods are a beautiful 10.4-million-acre undeveloped forest offering recreational opportunities for Mainers as well as visitors from all over the world.

It may seem, with all of this logging in the state’s history, that Maine would be in danger of exhausting its supply of trees. Yet today, almost 89% of the state is forested. In fact, it’s the most forested state in the nation. Timber continues to be a large part of the state’s economy, and Maine has been on the forefront of sustainable forestry.

Photos: Ohio State