Bridgestone Commercial Truck Tires

The "sort yard" where logs are prepared for shipment and loaded onto barges at Silver Bay Logging's Cube Cove, Alaska, facility.

It's more than twice the size of Texas, but Texas has over thirty times as many people.
No wonder Alaska calls itself "the last frontier." This is the first time Real Answers has
featured a company that's not primarily into trucking. But, as you'll see, Silver Bay
Logging is into transportation—in Alaska-sized ways.

In the sort yard at Silver Bay's Wrangell sawmill, logs are "scaled" (graded according to quality, size and type), before processing.

HOW DID YOU GET INTO THE LOGGING BUSINESS?

Dick Buhler, president, Silver Bay Logging, Inc.: "Self-motivation began my career when I started logging in Washington in 1945. In the early 70s, I gave Alaska a try. We loved it, and we've been here ever since."

WHY ALASKA?

"Because of Cold War tensions, the government decided that to protect Alaska, it needed roads, water, power and communications. "It seemed the best way to get those things was to have private industry do it."

"You have to be self-sufficient to be a logger. with so many islands in this area, you have to barge in your trucks, loaders and heavy equipment. "Then, you create living quarters, and build your own roads to get to the trees."

WHERE DOES LOGGING COME IN?

"Logging requires all the things the government wanted—roads, water, power and communications. Opening the area to logging would create the necessary infrastructure."

HOW SELF-SUFFICIENT ARE YOU?

"At our Cube Cove headquarters, we have our own power plant, water treatment plant, garbage and rubbish service, a school with grades K-12 and a full-size gymnasium, our own church, 16 channels of cable TV, and a landing strip. All for about 400 people."

DO MOST THINGS COME IN BY AIR NOWADAYS?

"People travel by air, as do most of our groceries, but the big stuff—equipment and logs— still travels mostly by barge."

HOW FAR IS IT TO TOWN?

"Juneau, the state capital, has around 30 thousand people. It's about 20 minutes away by air."

A loader picks up a "bundle" of logs, which can weigh upwards of 45,000 pounds.

YOU HAVE FACILITIES THERE. DO YOU GO TO JUNEAU OFTEN?

"Our aircraft operation is there. And I travel a lot, because we're spread out over more than 800 miles. I always say I really don't do anything—I just help run the place."

HOW DOES A TREE GET FROM THE FOREST TO THE LUMBER YARD?

"First, we usually have to build a road to it. We get our materials, crushed rock and gravel, right on site. Sometimes, we even crush the rock ourselves. Then we build the road.

"Our crews cut the trees, then use what we call a 'tower' to drag them to a central spot. Loaders put the logs onto trucks, which haul them to the sort yard, where they're loaded onto barges."

Besides Cube Cove, Silver Bay Logging operates camps on Afognak Island, Corner Bay and Montague Island, and its own sawmill on Wrangell.

HOW FAR DO THOSE TRUCKS GO?

"Not very far. At Cube Cove, we're about 15-25 miles from the sort yard. At Montague, it might be 65 miles."

BUT IT'S SLOW GOING, ISN'T IT?

"The roads have steep grades, and our loads are very heavy, upwards of 160,000 pounds, so we keep our speeds around 25 miles per hour."

WHAT KIND OF TIRE MILEAGE DO YOU GET?

"We don't track mileage. Some of our trucks don't go much more than 25,000 miles a year With our loads and road conditions, if drive tires last a year, we're doing well."

Silver Bay Logging has to make its own roads to haul logs out of the woods.

DO YOU RETREAD?

"We try, but by the time we've worn out a tread, the whole tire can be pretty well worn out. It's not unusual to have two or three repairs by the time the tread is worn away.

"Most of the time, we move out Bridgestone L317s from drives to trailers to run them out. I'd say about one or two out of ten can be retreaded."

ARE YOUR TIRE NEEDS CHANGING?

"We're hauling lighter loads, because the Forest Service, especially, concerned about damage to the roads. We're running at higher speeds and making longer runs. That's going to change things.

"Of course, sometimes we don't use trucks at all. Errol Champion can tell you about that."

Rotating tungsten carbine blades strip bark from each log as it heads for the sawmill. The bark chips become landscaping mulch.

HOW DO YOU HAUL LOGS WITHOUT TRUCKS?

Errol Champion: "Some places, we can't—or aren't allowed to—build roads. The terrain may be too steep, the area may be surrounded by somebody else's property, or it may be too small to justify a road."

"Helicopters are ideal in these cases. We can lift close to 20,000 pounds in a single load. And, once we've picked up, we can go 60-80 miles an hour with a load."

WHY NOT HAUL EVERYTHING WITH HELICOPTERS?

"They're expensive. They use about 500 gallons of fuel an hour, and cost $5-10 thousand an hour to operate."

"Still, pound for pound, they'll beat just about any other method of hauling heavy loads."

Errol Champion and Bridgestone representative Mark Stevens with one of Silver Bay's helicopters on the ground in Juneau.

YOU ALSO HAVE OTHER AIRCRAFT.

"About 21 in all, including small helicopters and several airplanes—one of which can carry about a ton of payload. "It hops from camp to camp, delivering groceries, mail and other supplies."

One of the Silver Bay Logging's sky crane helicopters prepares to pick up a load of logs. [Photo courtesy of Logger's World Publications]

WHAT HAPPENS TO THE LOGS ONCE THEY GET ONTO THE BARGES?

"The next stop is our sawmill at Wrangell. Dick's son, J.R. runs that operation."

IS THIS WHERE LUMBER IS MADE?

J.R. Buhler: "When we're finished with it, it's still a bit rough and a bit green. We ship it to the lower 48 for final seasoning and finishing."

WHAT DO YOU DO IN WRANGELL?

"Once we get logs off the barges, we have to 'scale' them. That means we measure each log's length and diameter, and check the quality of the wood."
"Low-grade wood that can't be used for lumber is processed for pulp to make paper. Every log is tagged, and each bundle of logs has a bar code, so we can track each through the process."

HOW BIG IS A BUNDLE?

"About 45,000 pounds. Our loaders can pick up a whole bundle at one time."

WHAT HAPPENS NEXT?

"The logs go to the sawmill. First, we strip the bark, then computer-controlled, laser-guided saws cut them into rough lumber."

WHAT HAPPENS TO THE CHIPS,
SAWDUST AND BARK?

"Nothing is wasted. Chips and sawdust are sent south for paper making. Bark is made into mulch."

HOW DO YOU SHIP FROM HERE?

"We own nine tugboats and 18 barges. We can load a barge with close to a million pounds of chips or lumber, then send it off to Silver Bay Marine, our sea operation in Seattle."

HOW LONG DOES IT TAKE TO GET THERE?

As bark-stripped logs head for the sawmill, J.R. Buhler observes operations in the sort yard.

"It depends on the weather, but usually , we can get a load from Wrangell to Seattle in about a month."

AND YET, A 2 BY 4 STILL ONLY COSTS A FEW DOLLARS AT THE LUMBER YARD.

"High volume, hard work and efficiency help keep things affordable. Sometimes it's tough, dirty, dangerous and lonely work, but for us, it's a way of life we could never give up."

Our thanks to everyone at Silver Bay Logging for
an unforgettable visit to America's "last frontier."


Cube Cove is about a thousand miles north and west of Tacoma, Headquarters of Shaub-Ellison Co., Inc. But Silver Bay Logging has been Sandy Shaub's customer for the past eight years. "Sandy was in logging himself," Dick Buhler says, "so he understands our business and knows the problems we face.
"We make most of our own roads, from coarse gravel and broken rock. We might haul over 60 tons of logs in a single load. Tires wear fast, treads get chipped, cut and chunked. Impact damage is common." Sandy comes up about six times a year when we're busy. He'll visit several locations, and with the kinds of distances we have in Alaska, his round trip could be four or five thousand miles. "Sandy sends our retreads to the Les Schwab facility in Prineville, Oregon. With all the transportation, it takes about three months for a casing to go through the process. You might say that it already has several thousand miles on it by the time we get it back.
"His experience in logging, and his willingness to go lots of extra miles to take care of us helped Sandy win our business. That—plus the fact that the Bridgestones he's been selling us also go a lot of extra miles—is why he keeps it."