Meadow Lake turns losing mill around

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The Meadow Lake Tribal Council saw potential in the failing sawmill,

which was losing $1 million a year as a provincially operated Crown

corporation. With a $250,000 grant, a down payment and the assumption

of the mill's debt, they formed Norsask and bought a 50-per-cent share.

The union employees formed a company, TechFor, and bought the other 50

per cent.

That was in 1988. Now the mill processes 300,000 cubic metres of wood

a year and is the biggest supplier in Alberta for Alberta Pacific Forest

Products Inc.

The tribal council, which represents five Cree and four Dene

communities, also got the Forest Management Licence Agreement with the

mill's purchase. In 1990, Mistik Management was formed by Norsask,

which owns 40 per cent, Millar Western, which owns 20 per cent and the

employees own the other 40 per cent, said Mistik president Barry Peel.

Mistik's mandate is to manage the licence agreement, protect the

environment and consult the people who live on and use the land.

The company contracts out the logging, which is done using methods that

include both clearcutting and selective logging, depending on the land

and what kind of vegetation is growing there, Peel said.

The methods used are also dictated, to a large extent, by the land

users themselves, the trappers and the Elders, who are consulted for

advice and involved in the actual process. Factors that have to be

considered include animal calving areas, gathering areas, big game areas

and remote burial sites.

"It made a world of difference in how we go about doing our business,"

Peel said.

Mistik tried to get area residents involved in the development of the

plant and to address the socio-economic issues in the area.

"If they do get involved it's not an up-and-down thing, boom for 20

years and then bust for 40 years.," Peel said.

More than 50 per cent of Mistik employees and contractors are

Aboriginal -- maybe as high as 75 per cent, Peel said. Metis

contractors account for more than half of the one million cubic metres

harvested per year. The council has received a total of $1.5 million in

grants from the Canadian Aboriginal Economic Development program but has

returned more than $10.7 million in corporate taxes since 1988,

according to an audit by Price Waterhouse.

But it has borrowed much more than that from commercial banks, said

Vern Bachiu, Meadow Lake Tribal Council's director of policy and

programs. This has financed the expansion of the original sawmill, the

formation and operation of Mistik and the purchase of new equipment.

Together, the companies employ about 250 people of which 60 per cent

were previously on welfare.