By Tom Morphet
Considering the town’s proximity to the 300,000-acre
Haines State Forest, it sounds absurd, but a local timber operator is importing logs from
the Yukon Territory to cut up and sell as firewood.
Sally Reno, who has sold firewood here for a decade and also
sells log homes for Canadian builders, said she will bring in as many as 75 cords of
bug-killed white spruce from a timber operator near Haines Junction, Y.T.
A recent load of 30 cords sold in a couple weeks, she said.
Reno sells the wood in rounds for $230 per cord, compared to
$150 per cord she charged for wood from Haines. The Canadian trees that seasoned on the
stump are drier than what she’s able to get from the state forest, she said.
“I tell people
what it costs, and they say, ‘No problem, bring me a load,’” Reno said.
“It’s pretty awesome.”
Reno said the wood she could get from local suppliers recently
was wet or green. Much of it could only be burned after being stored a year or two. “I
needed dry wood. Other people needed dry wood. I can’t get out of my house. My phone
keeps ringing.”
She’s not making a lot of money on the Canadian wood, Reno
said, and the high price of heating fuel is helping boost firewood market and provide her
a margin. The wood comes nearly 200 miles, arriving on a double-trailered truck. “People
want to stay away from burning oil. They’ll keep their oil as a backup, but wood is
their main source of heat. It’s better heat than oil.”
Resident Simon Ford said he’s happy with the load he bought
from Reno, despite its extra cost. “It splits nice and it’s real dry. So far I’ve
found I can use a lot less of it than my other (local) firewood, so it might actually be
more economical.”
Ford said he’d like to buy locally, but he also needs to
stay warm. “I kind of hate spending my money on Canadians, but at the same time, I’ve
got to be able to burn the stuff.”
He ran out of wood two weeks ago and was getting desperate, he
said. “We got to the point where we’re about to tear down the cabin to burn it.”
One long-time resident who requested anonymity because she works
with local firewood suppliers said she likes the Canadian wood so much – even the
smell of it – she’ll start parking her car outdoors to be able to fill her
garage with it. “Everything about it is absolutely perfect.”
Haines firewood sellers cite increased demand and reduced
volumes of local bug-killed timber as reasons it’s difficult to provide seasoned
wood.
Scott Rossman has sold firewood 19 years. He said years ago most
of his customers used wood to supplement oil heat in the coldest part of winter. Then
demand for wood shot up in 2005 as fuel prices increased. “Now people have become
dependent on wood for their main heat and are using oil as a supplement. It’s
flipped.”
For years he was able to provide dry wood from dead, standing
timber killed by spruce beetles, but those stands are mostly gone, and what remains is
mostly punk, Rossman said.
“The short-term answer is to buy early and let it dry in
the woodshed, or buy a big stove and burn green wood,” said Rossman, a logger whose
income also includes sale of whole logs to a local mill and other buyers.
In his eighth year in the firewood business, Nick Degtoff said
recent demand also has sent more residents into the forest, creating competition in the
state forest for good trees. There are also unlicensed operators who don’t pay local
taxes or fees and poach wood, he said.
“With more demand, you’re not finding (good wood) one
hundred feet off the road any more. It’s a thousand feet off the road,” Degtoff
said. Increased bond payments to the state, as well as increased fuel, labor and
transportation prices are creating pressure for him to sell green wood. “The demand
is so great in the summer, as soon as you harvest it, people want it. (But) it’s like
vintage wine. It needs to be aged.”
That Reno can get her asking price is “incredible,”
Degtoff said, but not out of line with prices in Juneau, where rounds of hemlock go for as
much as $275 per cord. “And you have to load it yourself. These pieces are huge, and
they’re still selling the stuff.”
Making money on firewood is more difficult than it appears,
Degtoff said. “Last year I hired eight guys and sold $70,000 worth of firewood, but
it cost me $90,000 to do it.”
Resident Tony DeWitt said she’s sticking with U.S.
firewood. She said she didn’t like the sound of buggy wood and she wants to support
local suppliers in the face of the economic downturn. But even Canadian wood is better
than burning oil, she said. “If it keeps people from supporting (fuel supplier) Delta
Western, I’m all for it.”