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Mjolness brothers devoted lives to SLS

“This is the start of Mjolsness Bros. Ltd. Oct. 1 – 1946.
Chester Mjolness, 94, remains close to the business he founded with his late brother Lloyd.
Chester Mjolness, 94, remains close to the business he founded with his late brother Lloyd.

“This is the start of Mjolsness Bros. Ltd. Oct. 1 – 1946.”

Scrawled in ink and now reprinted in thousands of copies of Tales Of The Tall Timber, the declaration of partnership between brothers Chester and Lloyd Mjolsness, marked the moment when one pioneering family would transform a shared dream into a foothills legacy.

Fast-forward to 2013, surviving Spray Lake Sawmills (SLS) founder, Chester, age 94 and seated in his log home on his Bottrel farm, can’t think of any better industry to have devoted his life to.

“I loved the work. I loved the bush. My goal was to make it a viable business…it was all I knew,” said Chester, shaking his head in memory over his humble beginnings, when his mother, Minnie, loaned him $500 in 1943 to purchase his first timber license.

Chester said it was his mother who instilled strong morals and Christian principles in her four children from a young age. His father passed away suddenly of liver cancer when Chester and his three siblings were young.

In their first year of sawing, the brothers cut 105,000 board feet. SLS exceeds that in one shift.

Crediting the success that was to ensue over the years to come on “dedication and determination,” Chester said their primary goal in the early years was to provide year-round employment; this objective was made possible with the purchase of a block of timber in the Spray Lakes area, south of Canmore in 1953.

Beginning in 1954, the Mjolsness Bros. would operate the summer season in the Spray Lakes area (planed at the Eau Claire planer in Canmore) and set up camp at their Williams Creek area for the winter (shipped to Sundre Lumber).

The 1950s and ‘60s saw the brothers expanding their operations: buying the Eau Claire planer in Canmore, starting up Canmore Lumber and Building Supplies Ltd. and opening up a second Canmore mill.

Then in 1966, the Alberta Forestry Service brought in the quota system. This new system basically allowed the Mjolsness Bros. to secure their annual timber supply, as well as encourage centralization of operations.

By 1969, the brothers decided centralization was the way to go. Construction of Spray Lake Sawmills in Cochrane began in 1972.

Stepping away from operations in 1980 when the brothers sold the business to the next generation, Chester has remained close to the business in the decades since. To this day, he stills visits SLS weekly.

Lloyd passed away in 1998.

Chester has spent a great deal of his retirement years as an avid trophy hunter.

His extensive hunting and world travelling have led him to hunt every continent except Antarctica and South America.

The Sundre & District Historical Society has an exhibit of more than 150 animal mounts hunted and donated by Chester and wife Martha, entitled the ‘Chester Mjolsness World of Wildlife Museum’.

Chester’s son Barry has continued to operate SLS in a similar mindset of his father and uncle — remaining diversified and reshaping and modernizing both logging and business practices to ensure logging is a sustainable practice.

“I’m so proud of Barry. I really am,” smiles Chester. “He’s a very astute businessman — he’s just exceptional in my way of thinking…especially at choosing people with the right character for the right jobs.”

“My father and uncle built the company on a firm foundation of honesty and integrity, finding good people and treating them well,” said Barry.

“We have tried very hard to follow and build on those values. Their vision when they built the mill in Cochrane was for 100 per cent utilization — zero waste. We are very proud of the fact that we have been able to achieve and maintain that dream. We have always tried to be innovative and produce a variety of products, which in turn, adds value. That philosophy has served us well.”

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