Temiskaming sees the forest for the furniture.

John Gauvreau can see clearly now.

The project developer for the Temiskaming Shores Strategic Economic Development Unit has a vision for the irregular wood pieces spat out by local dimensional lumber mills during production, and it does not involve chips.

"I can see all of the opportunities and obstacles clearly," he says of a proposed $15-million plant that could turn what is now mostly finished, but wasted, lumber into furniture.

The proposed value-added wood product plant could employ as many as 100 people within the next two years, if the plan gels as Gauvreau expects.

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Currently, the tailings from dimensional lumber production in the area, mostly one-inch by two-foot and one-inch by three-foot pieces, are chipped for use in pulp and paper production.

In the hands of the right operator, that wood could get a lot more bang for the buck as ready to assemble furniture pieces, Gauvreau says.

The plant could produce slats for bed frames, drawer pieces and unfinished garage shelves, for example.

He adds the idea falls in line with both the forestry practices occurring under the watchful eye of the Timiskaming Forestry Alliance--regarded as a model to be emulated elsewhere by the province--and common business sense.

By the time the wood is cast aside, it is 75 per cent finished--debarked, cleaned and dried. So it is a waste of effort to just cast the scraps back into a chip cooker, he says.

A small pilot plant could be up and running before mid-2005, but the full-size "mega-plant" cranking out truckloads of finished furniture and furniture products is at least a year or two down the road, he says.

"There's legwork yet to be done, but this needs to move forward."

There are some venture capitalists warm to the idea, he says. What is needed now is a strategic plan to map the vision.

"It's a unique situation because we're kind of working backwards on this," says Gauvreau. "We have an idea of the price we can get and the volumes we can sell. Now we have to fill in the rest of the business plan."

Whatever operation sets up will have to mesh with the existing forestry products industry. Gauvreau is not interested in stamping out one business to create space for another.

"We don't want to make wood chips more expensive, because there are companies out there that rely on them," he says. "The price of wood is dear enough right now as it is. We're being very cautious to ensure we enhance the industry because it is critical in Temiskaming."

The developer of the proposed plant will not be one of the mill operators that helped to establish the Timiskaming Forestry Alliance, according to Gauvreau.

"The wood (industry) is cyclical and we're at a high point right now," he says. "These companies built their empires by shipping dimensional wood down south. To reinvent what they do now just wouldn't work."

An entrepreneur with access to the necessary capital, and a working knowledge of the ins (wood harvesting) and outs (automated furniture assemblage) of what the plant's function will be key to the development.

When all the stakeholders are on board, the economic development unit can start to levy funding from FedNor, interested municipalities and the Northern Ontario Heritage Fund. The alliance is a consortium of forest companies that includes forest product producers such as Cheminis Lumber, Grant Forest Products, Domtar, Tembec, Norboard Industries and Liskeard Lumber, as well as independent logging operators such as Rosko Forestry Operations, Paiement and Sons and Greg Woolings.

www.temiskamingshores.ca

BY CRAIG GILBERT

Northern Ontario Business