Yukoner makes chairs from fire-killed wood, as association pushes for easier access to deadwood

From Ulrich Trachsel's driveway, just west of Whitehorse, you can see the deep orange slash of the Takhini burn — a visible scar from a past wildfire.

Stands of trees that even from a distance look like toothpicks fringe the spine of a hill. Trachsel uses trees like these to make furniture.

"I just see all this wood around and I want to use it," he said. "I just started to really appreciate dead standing wood and how convenient it is — and also how pretty it is."

Most lumber sold in the Yukon is trucked up from places like Alberta and British Columbia. Trachsel, the owner of Ibex Valley Wood Products, said that doesn't work for him — the costs to the environment and climate are too great. 

Trachsel cuts deals with local harvesters targeting dead trees mostly destined for someone's woodstove. Right now, the majority of wood commercially harvested in the Yukon is sold as firewood.

By doing this, Trachsel spares live forests and avoids greenhouse gas emissions linked to transportation.

The wood harvested from Yukon burn sites is also perfect for his purposes.

"It is already mostly dry," he said.

Association pushing to get at dead trees quicker

Peter Wright, executive director of the Yukon Wood Products Association, said he wants to see more local timber used not just as a heat source. Trees like white spruce are valuable in other ways, he said, and that could bolster local economies.

"Every time that a truck brings something in, whether it's a chair, whether it's a table, whether it's a 2x4 that could have been made here, when that truck hits the road south, all of the revenue, all of the profits, all of the employment leaves with it," Wright said.

There are longstanding problems, though, he said. Timber harvesting projects are getting mired in delays during the Yukon Environmental and Socio-economic Assessment Board process. The whole deal — from the submission of a proposal to the decision — takes on average about six months, said Wright, and that's not including likely extensions.

Wright wants to see more trees in burn areas felled and the environmental assessment process move far more quickly. That's something the Yukon Wood Products Association is negotiating over with the Yukon government this year. 

"How can we identify and get into these areas much quicker, making sure that we're still doing all of our due diligence from an environmental side, from an information-sharing side, honouring First Nations culture and traditional use, and still being able to access it and get it so that we're still salvaging the highest volume like this?" Wright said.

Wright said unlike places in the South, the Yukon doesn't have an industrial-sized kiln capable of quickly drying wood. That makes harvesting trees that are already dead an obvious priority.

"We're not taking green trees that are still growing," he said. "We are salvaging areas. And every month that stands more of it is falling down naturally on its own. We're battling time."

Conservation scientist says pump the brakes

Hilary Cooke, a co-director with the Wildlife Conservation Society, said both dead and living trees play crucial roles in the territory's boreal forests. 

Of course, forest fires are part of a natural process, helping to regenerate woodlands. 

They also make for prime wildlife habitat.

"There's life in these burns," Cooke said. "There's one species of black-backed woodpecker — this is what they want, you know. The same way we think of wetlands species. That's where they're going to nest. This is it for them. This is the buffet. This is like all the trees that they could use to put their nests in.

"As they [forests] regenerate, it becomes habitat for moose, and a whole community of bird species that like that regenerating willow, aspen," she said.

Cooke said the ecological importance of burns is understudied in the Yukon, and she'd like to see the territory take a more measured approach when eyeing these areas for timber harvesting.

"The best thing we can do, and what we have an opportunity to do, is to think in advance about what values we want on the landscape," she said. "That's a process of regional land use planning and regional forest management planning.

"It's where everyone comes together."

Trachsel working to give his business legs

Trachsel's business is small and just getting off the ground.

He's confident there's a market for what he's making, like the set of chairs he was recently crafting out of aspen — the same type of tree that surrounds his home.

To Trachsel, it's pretty simple. 

"What we can buy in this town is not good quality," he said. "It's usually from far away, and it's cheap because it's mass-produced.

"I want everyone to enjoy locally-made, locally-grown wood products."