Fourth generation logger Bob Marquis has lived and breathed the forestry industry on the Sunshine Coast as well as globe-trotted around the world competing in logger sports games for more than 40 years. He is a former logger sports world champion, and the current president of the Powell River Logger Sports Board.
“I started [competing] for my brother’s memorial show,” said Marquis, in an interview with the Peak. “He passed away in a logging accident.”
Marquis and his brother were both into logger sports when the event was held in Lang Bay in the 1970s. Marquis believes the local event is “Canada’s first real global competitive sport here in Powell River.”
In 1971, BC premier WAC Bennett proclaimed logger sports to be BC’s official industry sport. At this year’s event, which takes place July 14 to 16 at Loggers Memorial Bowl (Willingdon Beach), BC’s current minister for sport and culture, Lana Popham, will be at the opening ceremony (11 am, July 15) to proclaim July 15 as Loggers Sports Day in BC.
“I have competed all over the world: Europe, the United States, New Zealand, Australia, and in Canadian competitions,” said Marquis. “I don’t compete anymore, it’s a young man's sport.”
He believes the logger sports competition is the closest the general public can get to the forest sector.
“It’s rare to have an industry where there has been a sport created,” said Marquis. “Going way back, the ‘wooden tree boys’ in the 1910s to the 1920s, after their dinner, would throw an axe or see who could saw wood the fastest, or climb a tree the fastest.”
Many of the traditional sports connected to the history of logging are still played today such as axe throwing, springboard chopping and pole climbing. A few more modern challenges have been added, such as the one-foot power saw races.
Marquis is positive and hopeful about the future and current logging industry in BC, especially in the qathet region.
“The industry is going through some rough times, throughout the whole province of BC,” admitted Marquis. “The forest sector is still a huge part of the economic drive in BC and especially in the communities that rely on it.”
He acknowledged that “it has also been a tough time, losing the 110-year-old Catalyst Paper Tis’kwat mill, and the jobs that went with it.”
Marquis understands there are naysayers [about the industry] and public concern for the preservation of old growth. However, he also thinks the general public needs more awareness about the industry and how local lives in some way or another depend on forestry.
“The industry has changed and we are in more control of our forests now,” added Marquis. “We have one of the best run forest communities in the province and Powell River Community Forest (PRCF) is a model for every other forestry community out there.”
PRCF manages the Community Forest Agreement (CFA), which is a forest tenure issued by BC Ministry of Forests that allows harvest of provincial forest land. The idea is to create a sustainable local industry with the money going directly back into the community, and to allow communities to have more control over their local forests.
“If only everyone understood how much the forest industry reflects an individual’s life,” said Marquis. “What you use every day, the house you live in, the paper and pencil you use, there are all sorts of products that use wood fibre, including ice-cream cones.”
Marquis believes BC has one of the strongest and strict forest practice codes and laws in the world, but most folks don’t realize that reality about the forest sector.
In a Powell River Logger Sports media release, Marquis said “the work that Tla’amin Nation and the Powell River Community Forest are doing, alongside many other excellent local industry leaders, is a beacon of hope for the future here. Never before has so much of the forest been under local control, being logged with local values.”
He added that Powell River Logger Sports is thrilled to showcase the heritage and contemporary skills, and that the industry that has made this region prosper for so long will, sustainably, for generations to come.
Admission to Powell River Logger Sports is free, but organizers are asking attendees to bring a non-perishable food item, or cash, for donation to Powell River Action Centre Food Bank, in order to fill a gravel truck each day with donations.
