Woodfibre, originally Britannia West, was a

pulp mill A pulp mill is a manufacturing facility that converts wood chips or other plant fiber sources into a thick fiber board which can be shipped to a paper mill for further processing. Pulp can be manufactured using mechanical, semi-chemical, or ful ...

and at one time a small

company town A company town is a place where practically all stores and housing are owned by the one company that is also the main employer. Company towns are often planned with a suite of amenities such as stores, houses of worship, schools, markets and re ...

, on the west side of upper

Howe Sound Howe Sound (french: Baie (de /d')Howe, squ, Átl'ka7tsem, Nexwnéwu7ts, Txwnéwu7ts) is a roughly triangular sound, that joins a network of fjords situated immediately northwest of Vancouver, British Columbia. It was designated as a UNESCO Biosph ...

near Squamish,

British Columbia British Columbia (commonly abbreviated as BC) is the westernmost province of Canada, situated between the Pacific Ocean and the Rocky Mountains. It has a diverse geography, with rugged landscapes that include rocky coastlines, sandy beaches, ...

. The mill closed in March 2006.

History

In 1912, a mill opened at the site where Mill Creek empties into Howe Sound. The townsite of Woodfibre was soon constructed at the remote location, which was accessible only by boat. The community was named by Sir George Bury, president of Whalen Pulp and Paper Company when the mill was built in 1920. The mill was owned by Alaska Pine and Cellulose Ltd when, in December 1954, that company was purchased by Rayonier Inc. ''

Rayonier Rayonier Inc, headquartered in Wildlight, Florida, is a timberland real estate investment trust ("REIT") with assets located in some of the most productive softwood timber growing regions in the United States and New Zealand. Its core business s ...

'' operated the mill under the Alaska Pine and Cellulose name until 1959, when the company name was changed to Rayonier Canada, Ltd. Rayonier continued to operate the mill until 1980, when the company exited the pulp business in western Canada and divested the company to Western Forest Products. Until the 1960s, whole families lived, worked and were partially educated at Woodfibre. At that time, the townsite began to be demolished, and families moved to other nearby communities such as Squamish and

Britannia Beach Britannia Beach (Sḵwx̱wú7mesh: Shisháyu7áy, ) is a small unincorporated community in the Squamish-Lillooet Regional District located approximately 55 kilometres north of Vancouver, British Columbia on the Sea-to-Sky Highway on Howe Sound. I ...

. Mill owner

Western Forest Products Western Forest Products Inc. is a Canadian lumber company based in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. History Following its initial acquisition of the assets of Doman in 2004, the Company undertook a series of restructuring activities includin ...

provided

ferry A ferry is a ship, watercraft or amphibious vehicle used to carry passengers, and sometimes vehicles and cargo, across a body of water. A passenger ferry with many stops, such as in Venice, Italy, is sometimes called a water bus or water taxi ...

service, by way of the ''

MV Garibaldi II MV may refer to: Businesses and organizations In transportation * Motor vessel, a motorized ship; used as a prefix for ship names * MV Agusta, a motorcycle manufacturer based in Cascina Costa, Italy * Armenian International Airways (IATA code MV ...

'', an identical design to smaller BC Ferries, until the mill's closure in 2006. In January 2013, Western Forest Products announced that it has entered into a conditional agreement for the sale of its former Woodfibre Pulp Mill site for the purchase price of $25.5 million. The site, consisting of of industrial waterfront land, is located at the head of Howe Sound, southwest of Squamish, British Columbia. The net proceeds from the sale are expected to be approximately $17 million In 2015, the site is undergoing an

environmental assessment Environmental Impact assessment (EIA) is the assessment of the environmental consequences of a plan, policy, program, or actual projects prior to the decision to move forward with the proposed action. In this context, the term "environmental imp ...

for use as a

liquefied natural gas Liquefied natural gas (LNG) is natural gas (predominantly methane, CH4, with some mixture of ethane, C2H6) that has been cooled down to liquid form for ease and safety of non-pressurized storage or transport. It takes up about 1/600th the volu ...

plant. That was approved in 2016 and Woodfibre LNG received an export license as well. The $1.6 billion LNG plant is expected to be operational by 2020. In March 2020, construction was delayed until 2021. Construction work finally started in June 2022, with site clearance and preparation work being undertaken by Graham Infrastructure on behalf of EPC Contractor McDermott International.

Hydroelectric Dam

In operation since 1947, it generates 2.6 MW of electricity with a single

pelton wheel The Pelton wheel or Pelton Turbine is an impulse-type water turbine invented by American inventor Lester Allan Pelton in the 1870s. The Pelton wheel extracts energy from the impulse of moving water, as opposed to water's dead weight like the trad ...

Gallery

Image:Woodf1a.jpg, Woodfibre, BC (foreground mill) and Howe Sound. From Mount Roderick. Image:Woodf2a.jpg, Mill at Woodfibre, BC. Mount Sedgwick, background centre. July, 2005 Image:Woodf3a.jpg,

Rail yard A rail yard, railway yard, railroad yard (US) or simply yard, is a series of tracks in a rail network for storing, sorting, or loading and unloading rail vehicles and locomotives. Yards have many tracks in parallel for keeping rolling stock or u ...

s and

berth at Woodfibre, BC. Image:Woodf4a.jpg, Woodfibre, BC from Britannia Beach. May, 2004

References

External links

MV Garibaldi II, ferry history

Aerial view of Woodfibre, Mount Elphinstone in background
fro
Randall & Kat's Flying Photos website

{{coord, 49, 39.8, N, 123, 15.3, W, region:CA_scale:30000, display=title Unincorporated settlements in British Columbia Ghost towns in British Columbia Company towns in Canada Populated places in the Squamish-Lillooet Regional District Sea-to-Sky Corridor

History

Hydroelectric Dam

Gallery

See also

References

External links