A competitor of a Canadian firewood supplier involved in a tax dispute with the Haines Borough this week said he wouldn’t rule out bringing logs to town, but he has enough customers in the Whitehorse, Y.T., area to keep him busy.
“It’s not on the radar for us to do that, but who knows what the future holds,” said Ivan Thompson, president of Bear Creek Logging.
The Haines Junction area is still rich in firewood logs resulting from a spruce bark beetle epidemic in the 1990s. There are about 250,000 acres of bug-killed forest remaining in the area and 150 permits have been issued for commercial cutting, said Kirk Price, director of the Yukon government’s forest management branch.
The wood, shipped through the border as logs, has become favored by residents for its low moisture content and manageable size.
Wood deliveries ended this spring when Dimok Timber Ltd. suspended service, saying a borough requirement that the firm collect local sales tax was illegal. The borough’s attorney has reviewed and supported the borough’s decision.
Bear Creek’s Thompson said his impression was that Dimok was low on wood to sell to Haines customers. “They just didn’t cut that many trees this winter. They talked to me about buying wood to haul down there,” Thompson said.
Dimok Timber’s manager, John Clunies-Ross, this week said wood supply didn’t affect his decision to stop supplying Haines. “We have lots of wood available. That doesn’t factor into the decision. The borough is trying to force us to collect taxes, which is illegal.”
Yukon foresters this week said they could not disclose volumes cut by loggers but said Bear Creek and Dimok are the two largest timber operations in the area. Bear Creek’s Thompson said his company is trucking 100 cords of wood daily, nearly all of it to Whitehorse.
“We can hardly keep up with the demand we have, so we never figured (that supplying Haines) was worth the hassle,” including trucking and customs paperwork, Thompson said.
Thompson said supplying Haines without incurring the obligation to collect borough sales tax might work if a common carrier trucking firm with permits to cross the borders was used. Dimok brought logs to town in its own trucks.
Forestry official Price said supplying Haines is still an option. “If Dimok could do it, any of the other firewood sale loggers could do the same thing… I imagine someone’s working on it. It’s just down the road from where the wood is being cut.”
Some of Dimok’s local customers this week said they’d have no problem paying sales tax to get the bug-killed wood. Longtime resident Mary Cochran said she’d have “absolutely” no problem paying the additional tax.
“I’d pay 5 percent (sales tax) on what I burned the past three years. I’d buy it from anyone. It was a consistent product. It’s superior wood. It’s a great product,” Cochran said.