Timber

by Connor Danylenko

Sitka Cove was founded by 4 brothers that shared a dream. Oliver Barrick and his brothers Emile Barrick, Arcady Barrick , and Bastien Barrick wanted to be logger barons. So they gathered up their wives and bought up as much land as they could afford around Sitka Cove, in Northern Ontario. As they could afford more and more land, they bought as much as they could, eventually owning a sizeable amount of the forest. They moved to the area as soon as the winter snows of 1800 had melted. While the four brothers cleared the land and built a house big enough to shelter them all over winter, their wives put in a garden large enough to feed them all. One week after the house gained a roof, winter blew in off Lake Superior.
Over the following years, by working together, the four families carved out a clearing among the trees. While the wives made the house a home and raised fruit and vegetables for their food, the brothers felled trees, hunted, and fished for their meat. When they had amassed a large number of dried logs, Arcady made his way south to Sault Ste. Marie, where he sold all their lumber to one man. A carpenter who wanted to make a name for himself as “The Builder of the North”.

Arcady also secured a contract for future lumber and got into a fistfight with a logger baron from Michigan, but that’s a story for another time.

By the time all four brothers had homes and children of their own, their dream had materialized and taken the form of Barrick Lumber Co. They were smart, and planted seedlings in clearings they'd logged themselves - ensuring their descendants would have trees to cut and sell in the future. This is why so much of the forest that surrounds Sitka Cove stands in tall, straight rows.
By the time their grandchildren were old enough to vote, the community of Sitka Cove (named by Oliver’s wife, Anja) was owned almost entirely by Barrick Lumber, who was the main employer of all young men and a few young ladies who worked in the office.
Today, Barrick Lumber is still the main employer in town. A very few independent businessmen have bought woodlots here and there around town, but none of them pay as well as Barrick Lumber.
The woods that surround Sitka Cove provide firewood, timber for building homes and furniture, and even log home “kits”, but most of the wood is sold to construction companies and firewood “vendors”.