Lac La Biche - History - Technology

SAWMILL

Alberta's First Water-Powered Sawmill

"The dam at lac des Oeufs is working marvelously ... We have finally made a large wheel for our mill and have succeeded far beyond our hopes; it turns with a frightening speed and nothing stops it. The six inch planks or the eight inch ones do not slow it down much. The belts slip everywhere, but it keeps on turning. The wheel is fifteen feet in diameter, at that height it was pretty low in the water; when it turned it was two to three feet in the water and that is why it kept a slower speed not going any faster or slower. When I saw that I began widening the mill stream ... there is [now] a real rapid under the wheel. It was then that your brother Alexis sweated for he was sawing even by moonlight as it was late and even the fathers were still milling flour." Brother Alexis Reynard, 1873

Alberta's first water-powered sawmill appears to have been built near Notre-Dame-des-Victoires in 1871

There were two factors that prompted the construction of a sawmill. The first was the growing demand for lumber to construct more buildings at the mission and to build boats to supply the northern missions. The second was the existence of a water-powered flour mill. Father Albert Lacombe had lugged a grist mill from St. Boniface, Manitoba in 1862. The Oblates then laboriously built up a beaver dam and dug, by hand, a 200 meter canal. The pond behind the dam became known as "Lac du Moulin" or Mill Lake.

Although more improvements were needed to provide the water power necessary to drive a sawmill, the Oblates proved equal to the task and on October 5, 1871 the sawmill began operating. Much of the work had been directed by Bishop Faraud.

Observers were impressed. Father Hippolyte Leduc, for example, was amazed at the speed of the mill. "At this time," he wrote, "Mgr. Faraud has provided an eminent service to the Mission by adapting the power drive of our little flour mill to a second drive for a circular saw designed to supply boards and timbers needed at our establishment. This capability is of greatest value to us; one can appreciate the great cost which had accrued to us through the need to saw by hand the eight to ten thousand boards or timbers needed to build the cathedral in Saint Albert. I was proud then when two men could deliver 25 planks per working day. Today, thanks to the energy and mechanical knowledge of Mgr. Faraud, I can get up to 150 planks in eight hours of work."

The sawmill boasted a 30-inch diameter circular saw capable of handling logs up to a foot in diameter, or two feet if the log was turned. To supply the extra power, a 15 foot diameter water wheel was constructed. Water pressure was always a problem and the Oblate brothers were constantly digging out the channel to improve the flow. During times of heavy rain, the sustained force of the stream provided enough force and they sawed steadily. Brother Alexis Reynard wrote of sawing lumber by moonlight when the going was good.

The sawmill operated until the late 1890s. In the winter of 1898 it was dismantled and hauled to St-Paul-de-Métis. No evidence of it remains except for the 200 meter canal the Oblates dug by hand.