Bio & History - Watershed and Ecosystem Ecologist
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Erik Piikkila
Erik's Grandpa Toivo Koski and Erik's Dad Sauli Piikkila were Master Tree Fallers
Erik's Grandpa Toivo Koski worked from 1924–1964 and was retired as he was growing up and used to walk in the woods with Erik and tell him how forests grew. Toivo was a good storyteller and a Tree Faller.
Erik's Dad, Sauli Piikkila, was also a Tree Faller was still in the trenches (the regular daily grind and war to survive) from 1961-1986 so had no time to reminisce as Erik was growing up.
- Toivo and Sauli were master Tree Fallers!!
- Using the Art & Science of cutting down trees and cutting called bucking the cut trees into logs
- Each saw cut is manipulating an explosion, not controlling it!!
In 1982 after High School Graduation, Erik's Dad Sauli could have taken Erik to his logging camp in Kelsey Bay north of Campbell River and trained him up to be a Faller like Erik's Grandpa Toivo and himself, but he chose not to.
However, Erik desperately wanted to be a Tree Faller, but they said:
"NO! 12 – 15 coastal Tree Fallers get killed out there every year."
"It’s a war out there."
"You're not tough enough."
"Go use your brains instead!"
It all started with Erik's Grandpa Toivo Koski
He was the third son of his family, the first son got the family farm, pasture lands, forests and lakes. Erik's Grandpa Toivo loved these lands, especially the forests, and he loved to hunt.
The second son married into and returned to the ancestral Jylha Family and he inherited farm, pastures, and forests lands at Jylha.
As the third son, Erik's Grandpa Toivo got nothing. pon his return from the Finnish Army in 1923, his father said to him:
"There is nothing here for you!! Go West, Young Man."
He wanted to emigrate to America and had two aunts living in Astoria Oregon, but they wouldn't sponsor Toivo so he came to Canada instead with a distant cousin Waino Jylha arriving in Vancouver in late November 1923.
It also started from Erik's Grandmother, Berttha, who came to Canada and landed in New Brunswick from a boat in 1927, the day after her 18th birthday. Berttha had also left Finland because there was nothing left for her. Her mother and sister had died, she was being shunted from aunt to aunt, and her father was nowhere around.
So she came to Canada, not speaking a word of English, and travelled across Canada by train to reach Vancouver to work as a maid for rich people in Vancouver. Berttha and Toivo were the parent's of Erik's Mother, Miriam.
Erik had started cutting the family's firewood in 1979 at his grandparent's farm in Merville. Cutting lots of alder trees and a few Douglas-fir snags. He had actually started cutting logs a few years earlier in 1972.
Erik was out with his Dad and Grandpa on a weekend cutting up a Cedar log that had been cut and left beside its large Springboard stump during the 1914 logging of the area by Comox Logging.
Erik's Dad and Grandpa were cutting shake blocks from the old cedar log which had laid on the ground for nearly 60 years and was as sound as the day it was felled. He got a chance hold the trigger of the chainsaw an old Homelite, and power the cutting as his Dad held the main handlebar of the chainsaw.
In those days, Erik used to wear a smaller yellow hardhat and clipped on a loggers's measuring tape to measure log lengths, especially on camping holidays.
Pictures and Video From Toivo Koski's Working Career
Erik's Grandpa Toivo (left)
Video of Erik's Grandpa Toivo logging in 1935 at New Camp 3, Northy Lake, Black Creek, north of Courtenay:
Toivo Koski and Waino Jylha on video at:
- From 1:14 - 1:21, Toivo on right, Waino on left with back to camera
- From 1:40 - 1:45, Toivo on left, Waino on right
Erik Walked in the Woods with Toivo who told Erik how trees grew
From 1930-1932, Toivo his wife Berttha, Waino Jylha and his wife Meini, pulled apart the old houses of the soon-to-be closed Bevan Logging Camp Near Cumberland and Forbidden Plateau.
The houses at Bevan were being demolished and this group including another family took these Bevan houses apart and constructed three new homes on Howard Road in Merville.
In 1930, their three families had purchased land on Howard Road which was close to to the Comox Logging Headquarters Camp (at the base of Mount Washington) and the soon to be opened New Camp 3 at Northy Lake in Black Creek which is very close to Merville. These houses were to be home for the next 60 years for both Toivo's and Waino's families.
Toivo mentioned to Erik in his storytelling, that the trees were chest high in 1930 when they came.
There had been a 1925 logging started forest fire that had raced and burned down from the Quinsam Lakes area near Campbell River, jumped over the Oyster River and burned down to Merville.
From a young age, Toivo walked Erik around the 80 acres of Second Growth Douglas-fir Forests, explained how they grew, the massive stumps they found in 1930 from the 1914 logging, and all of their work to clear the stumps by blasting to create pasture land for hayfields to feed the cattle and horses with.
Toivo also told stories of the huge 1938 Bloedel Fire that had raced down from Menzies Bay north of Campbell River, and covered 80,000 acres in days.
From the family kitchen table, you could look out the window and see, especially in a setting sun, the lines of dead trees on the ridgeline of Constitution Hill that had been burned in the 1938 Fire.
At the Sunday dinner table more often as not over the years at family gatherings, Toivo told stories from the woods and logging camps he had worked in over his 40 year logging career.
Pictures and Video From Sauli Piikkila's Working Career
Erik's Dad Sauli in his element 1986
Erik's Dad Sauli (left standing) 1970s
Photos above of Sauli Piikkila are from Garry Clark's Collection who was a Faller at Kelsey Bay with Sauli in the 1970s & 1980s.
Video To Come
There are Two Rolls of 8mm film that show Sauli Falling Trees near Vernon Lake on Northern Vancouver Island in 1969/1970.
The film needs to be digitized and then uploaded to Youtube.
Sauli Piikkila Bio
Sauli's life was wrapped in a busy but quiet, small scale rural and farming life in Finland. Until the rise of Nazi Germany in the 1930s after World War I when Hitler's Game Plan was European and World Domination.
Sauli got wrapped up in another go round of World Wars of the 20th Century. As if the First World War had not been bad enough in Europe, but had not involved Finland. But this time, the Second World War was not going to miss Finland.
After Germany attacked Poland in September 1939, Stalin and the Soviet Union decided to attack Finland in the Northeast in November 1939. Completely unprovoked by Finland.
The men quickly enlisted or were called up, so at the age of 18 almost 19, Sauli was sent to Northeast Finland to push back the Soviet Invasion.
This was the first of three wars Finland fought in World War II:
- The Winter War: 1939-1940 against Soviet Union
- The Continuation War: 1941-1945 against the Soviet Union
- The End War or Lapland War against Nazi Germany
Sauli was involved in all of the fighting in all three wars. From the Southeast near Leningrad (St Petersberg), the length of Finland South to North, and in Lapland. He was involved with driving the Soviets and Nazis out of Finland!
Once the war was over, Sauli returned to farming with his father after 1945. Before the war, his father had been using horses to pull plows and other farm equipment and run the farm.
Bit by bit, industrialization was coming to Finland, and Sauli saw the need to speed up farming with less effort that equipment like tractors allowed. He pushed for 10 years for his father to start using tractors, to no avail.
In 1956, Sauli left Finland for Canada and the deep underground mines of Ontario in Sudbury, Timmins, and Kirkland Lake. So he went from the killing fields of Finland to a nice easy job of a Driller/Blaster deep down in the underground mines a thousand or more feet down!!
Also with next to no safety gear other than a hard hat, no safety ropes, and definitely no Hearing Protection!!
In 1960, he and work buddies came west to BC and the Yukon to work in mining in Hope BC and Yellowknife in the Yukon.
Logging in BC
We don't know how Sauli made the switch to an easier job of being a Coastal Tree Faller, not! But in 1961, he made the switch by working for Viv Williams in South Bentinck Arm near Bella Coola. Also in 1961, he worked for Art Mangles logging operation at Plumper Harbor on Southern Nootka Island.
He was assigned falling jobs by Fedje & Gunderson who were based out of Nanaimo. In the 1960s at some point he also went out to places on the BC Central Coast like Kingcome Inlet and Wakeman Sound. At one of those locations, he said that he cut down a tree that was 25 feet in diameter!!
In 1961, Sauli met his wife Miriam at a Finnish Dance in Vancouver and got married in 1962. As a result, he was able to get work at the Courtenay Operation of Crown Zellerbach.
He and Toivo overlapped for a couple of years, and Toivo was able to show Sauli all of the "Tricks of the Trade" about Falling that Toivo had learned over his 40 year career.
Training & Experience
Erik has experience in the forests of BC, Washington, Oregon, California, and Finland, attending BCIT to receive his Diploma in Forestry.
He received his Bachelor of Forestry in Finland, which included time at the University of Washington being trained in all of the Ologies by world-renowned Forest Ecologist Dr. Jerry Franklin, who has been involved in BC in the Clayoquot Sound Scientific Panel Reports 1995 and his development of Ecosystem-Based Management.
Ecosystem Decoding
Many people don’t understand the concept of Ecosystem Decoding. Maybe 1 in 10 actually gets it.
I have heard people say that historical information about forestry or logging operations, is historic, never coming back and belongs in a book on the shelf and has no bearing or relevance to the forests or forestry of today!!
Ecosystem Decoding is just using historical data, right? This is all covered in Historical Ecology and Historical Geography, right?
That is what some people think.
Erik's Grandpa Toivo Koski Working Career:
1902
Toivo Koski Born in Finland
1921 - 1923
Finnish Army in Helsinki
November 1923
Arrived on the boat from Finland to Eastern Canada, Then Train Across Canada to Vancouver without knowledge of English.
Spring 1924
Empire Lgging Company Cottonwood Creek, Youbou, Cowichan Lake
1925
Stave Lake, Lower Mainland Railroad Building
1925
Bloedel, Stewart, & Welch, Myrtle Point, Sunshine Coast
1926
Capilano Timber, North Vancouver, now British Properties, Capilano Valley
1927
Wood & English Logging Company, Beaver Cove, Nimpkish Lake, Northern Vancouver Island
1928
Robert Dollar Company, Bowser/Fanny Bay, South of Courtenay, Mid Vancouver Island
1928
Comox Logging Company, Bevan Camp, Courtenay, Central Vancouver Island
They Started on Switchback No. 4 on the Bevan Hillside (Forbidden Plateau). There were 12 Switchbacks in total on this Railroad Logged Hillside.
1928 - 1932
Comox Logging Company. A Frame on a Float Logging of Comox Lake Up As High As They Could Reach
1932 - 1940
Comox Logging Company. New Camp 3, Northy Lake Black Creek, BC & Quinsam Lakes
1936
Comox Logging Company, Opening New Ladysmith Operation for One Year
1938
1938 Bloedel Fire, 80,000 acres from Menzies Bay North of Campbell River to Dove Creek near Courtenay.
Homes and Towns were evacuated from Campbell River to Courtenay. People from Black Creek and Merville evacuated to Royston, south of Courtenay.
1940 - 1950
Commercial Fishing in the Summer & Logging for Comox Logging in the Winter
1950 - 1954
Powell River Company, Sayward, Northern Vancouver Island
Later years known as Kelsey Bay Division of MacMillan Bloedel.
1954 - 1964
Back working for Comox Logging in Courtenay which became Crown Zellerbach.
Axes, handsaws, and springboards were taken over by chainsaws in 1952 at the Courtenay Operation.
1964
Toivo Koski Retired
After a 40 Year Career as a Tree Faller.
Sauli Piikkila, Erik's Dad's Working Career:
1921
Sauli Piikkila Born in Finland
1931 - 1939
Farming with Sauli's Dad
On the Family Farm.
1939 - 1945
Sauli Fighting Nazis & Russians During World War II
Three Wars: Winter War against the Russians, Continuing War against the Nazis, and the End War against the Russians again!!
1945 - 1956
Sauli farming with his Dad
On the Family Farm. Until Sauli left in 1956 because his father wouldn't switch from farming with horses to farming with tractors!!
1956
Sauli arrives in Canada at Montreal Airport
Arrives not speaking a word of English.
1956 - 1961
Sauli is a Driller/Blaster in underground mines.
Sauli was a miner in Sudbury, Timmins, & Kirkland Lake in Ontario, Hope BC, and Yellowknife in the Yukon.
1961 - 1962
Sauli starts an easy job of Tree Faller in Coastal BC
South Bentinck Arm near Bella Coola, Art Mangles camp at Plumper Harbor on Southern Nootka Island, Alice Arm, north of Prince Rupert.
1962
Sauli starts working for the Crown Zellerbach Courtenay Operation
Sauli and Toivo work with each other for about two years until Toivo Retires.
1963
Sauli works at Kelsey Bay Division, for MacMillan Bloedel.
Sauli's first Quarter (Falling Area) is on the West End of Keta Lake. He only stayed the year because he kept getting lousy Quarters with lousy ground and lousy wood that was hard to make any money with on Contract Work.
1964 - 1967
Sauli Returns to Courtenay Operation, Crown Zellerbach
1967 - 1973
Sauli works at Nimpkish Valley, Englewood Logging Division for CANFOR
Sauli worked at Vernon Camp, Woss Camp, & Nimpkish Camp, and near Nimpkish Camp was Atluck Camp.
1973 - 1986
Sauli goes back working at Kelsey Bay Division for MacMillan Bloedel
1986
