Alaska timber industry says it needs more supply to survive
- Wrangell Sentinel
- 4 days ago
- 3 min read
By Larry Persily
Wrangell Sentinel
It was no surprise that everyone on the timber panel at this month’s Alaska Resource Development Council conference had the same message: The industry needs a larger supply of trees to cut.
And a steady, bankable supply, said Joe Young, of Tok, who started Young’s Timber in Alaska’s Interior more than 30 years ago.
Without long-term timber sales to supply a mill, “bankers will laugh you out of the room” when a mill owner asks for a business loan, Young said.
The Nov. 13 industry panel at the annual conference held in Anchorage also talked about demand for their product and the challenges in meeting that demand.
Juneau attorney Jim Clark, who has spent much of his life representing timber and wood pulp companies, said the Trump administration’s move to rescind the Roadless Rule, which has been around since 2001, could help open areas of the Tongass National Forest to logging.
The ban on road building has bounced between presidential administrations, like a ping pong ball, Clark said. “We’ll see if we can get this over with,” he said of the U.S. Department of Agriculture effort to rescind the rule, which will require an environmental impact statement.
In addition to the Tongass, the Roadless Rules affects tens of millions of acres of national forest lands in western states.
The lack of timber sales, financial pressures and opposition from conservation groups have knocked down Alaska timber industry jobs from almost 4,000 in 1990 to about 700 in 2015 and just 360 in 2024, according to Alaska Department of Labor statistics.
The timber industry in Southeast is getting only one-third of the log supply it needs, said Sarah Dahlstrom, public relations manager for Viking Lumber, which has operated a sawmill in Klawock for about 30 years.
Viking, the second-largest employer on Prince of Wales Island, needs more timber sales on federal, state and municipal lands, she said, contending that the U.S. Forest Service has failed to meet its commitment under a 2016 land management plan.
The mill cuts Sitka spruce, hemlock, red and yellow cedar, Dahlstrom said, and is a leading supplier of wood for piano soundboards and guitars.
“Steinway pianos would not exist if not for old-growth timber from the Tongass,” she said.
In addition to supplying the prized, tight-grain wood to Steinway & Sons’ factory in New York City, Viking supplies piano makers Kawai and Yamaha, and guitar manufacturers Gibson and Martin.
Steinway is worried enough about its wood supply that the company has written Alaska elected officials to advocate for the mill. “We use the top 1% of the top 1% of spruce,” company Chief Executive Ben Steiner told The Wall Street Journal this summer.
Dahlstrom said there are other small operators on Prince of Wales Island, cutting wood for pianos and musical instruments. And they all have the same problem of insufficient and unpredictable supply.
Viking also supplies manufacturers of doors, trim, fences, staircases, railing and window trim nationwide.
She complimented efforts by Wrangell Borough Manager Mason Villarma, who has been working to coordinate timber sales on the island between the state Department of Natural Resources, Alaska Mental Health Trust land office and the borough.
“I was born into a timber family,” she said of her dad and uncle, who built a mill in Hoquiam, Washington, more than 40 years ago, milling timber from the Olympic National Forest. She said she was not happy when her family moved to Klawock in 1994 and her dad and uncle took over the bankrupt mill.
In addition to lumber and boards, Viking sends wood chips south to be used in making corrugated boxes and supplies chips to the Craig School District which burns the wood waste to generate electricity and heat the swimming pool.
“Growing up, I didn’t know how cool it was,” she said of the industry she now calls home after resisting it when she was younger.
• This story originally appeared in the Wrangell Sentinel.
