I n three short years from now the greatest show on earth will be just about over. A memory. I refer to the world’s fair of 1986 – or as it is expeditiously called – Expo ’86. Vancouver will be its home and the exciting new area on False Creek, in the heart of the city – B.C. Place – will be its site.
....Expo ’86 will last from May 2 till October 13, and by the people who do the talking, bring 11 million people to this beautiful Pacific city. With a recovered economy – that we all anti-cipate – Expotime could be a very im-portant time for British Columbia.
....So what could it mean to our forest industry? An industry that is always in need of challenging our competitors, keeping our forest products on display to the world, and making sure our mills and logging camps are operating as they should be – full out.
....I’m sure, dear reader, you don’t need a reminder – but maybe just once more. B.C. produces 25 percent of the world’s pulp, and produces 25 percent of North America’s lumber production. We live by our forests and we had better never forget it!
....So let’s have a look at what Expo ’86 and B.C. Place can do for us. Remember that Expo ’86 with its world attention will last for a limited time. But B.C. Place will be a permanent vital area of Vancouver’s downtown core. It will, among other things, provide a year-round park-like setting for the continued showing off of our forests and our forest industry. The Forest Centre will be in this area – close to the action of the successful new soft domed Stadium at B.C. Place.
....The setting is a natural. And the city is a natural. I am reminded that this beautiful city seems shy about calling itself the forest capital of the world. It is – and simply can’t help being such. What other single major city in the world is so dependent on her surrounding forests – such as British Columbia’s – for her real livelihood!

Let’s look at it.
....The headquarters for all the large integrated forest companies of B.C. are in Vancouver. The new, very modern offices of the International Wood-workers of America – whose mem-bership reaches to the Great Lakes – are also in Vancouver.
....Sawmills, plywood mills, pulp mills and all forms of forest converting mills are situated, in abundance, within an 80 kilometre radius of Vancouver.

---

---

.... The city has a top forest faculty at the University of B.C. And in how many other major cities will you find huge inventories of log booms tired to shorelines?
....To make the point further, the major distributors of machinery for the forest industries are based in Vancouver – a multi-million dollar piece of business for the fair city.
....The shipping industry that handles forest products – whether across the Gulf of Georgia or across the world’s oceans – brings a large revenue to the Port of Vancouver.
....I could go on and on about this city that always seems to shy away from acknowledging its greatest contributor to its growth and health – the forests of B.C.
....It would look like a pretty good marriage – the city, the industry and Expo ’86 at B.C. Place. All it takes is a little encouragement, a little organizing and the parties concerned will all benefit.
....World’s fairs are a tremendous event in a city’s life. The first one held in North America was in 1876 in Philadelphia. At this event the type-writer and the Singer sewing machine were introduced to the public for the first time.

They unquestionably changed business procedure and the clothing industry.
....The year 1893 will always be remembered as the Chicago Cen-tennial Exposition celebration of the 400 years since Columbus landed in America. There was a later World’s Fair in Chicago in the slump of the ‘30s that will always be remembered as the introduction of Sally Rand’s fan dance. Now this did not alter history – but I’m sure it made a lot of chaps see things in a different light.
....The emergence of the fantastic audio visual industry on the world will always be credited to Montreal’s Expo ’67. The growth of this industry from that day forward has changed all our lives.
....Montreal’s Expo and Osaka’s in the early 1970s both featured excellent displays of the forest scene. My log burling friend, Jube Wickheim, put on a fine show of loggers’ sports at Montreal, that had as its backdrop a huge load of west coast logs. The show was immensely popular with the crowds. Very large logs were shipped to Japan to form a spectacular wood display as Canada’s part in the Osaka World’s Fair.
....Expo ’86 has a theme of trans-portation and all levels of government will co-operate to build in Vancouver and its outskirts a new automated light rapid transit system that will have an elevated fast transportation service ready by the time the world’s fair opens. Controversy surrounds the project, but I suppose that’s par for the course when new systems are being introduced. I wonder if the Singer sewing machine had the same trouble. Back in your cages you disbelievers!
....The forest industry is a trans-portation business. Since the first oxen team hooked on to a Douglas fir in the pioneer days of B.C.’s history, people have been transporting logs or forest products from here to there. Oxen gave way to steam donkeys that pulled logs  to  the  water  or  to  a  railroad

siding. Trucks and tractors – some huge, some small – have played their part in the transport of forest products.
....Ships, barges and tugboats have been the prime transporters of the big coastal trees of B.C. From the Queen Charlotte Islands to the manufacturing mills of the Lower Mainland, the British Columbia salt water main street of our Pacific coast has provided an ideal waterway for the movement of logs in rafts, in barges and in booms.
....Now with the advent of helicopter and balloon logging a new mode of transportation is offered that will certainly see great use in the years to come as the logging reaches further up into the now inaccessible mountains.
....The forest industry of B.C. is, and always has been, in the transportation business. There is certainly a great story to be told about it to the millions of visitors who will come to Vancouver from so many distant places.
....Let us show these visitors new innovative ways to use our lumber. We talk so much about needing markets other than North America – so the world’s fair is the time and the place to show off our products to the people from all the other continents.
....It is hoped that a special time can be set aside for forests and forestry to be high-lighted at Expo ’86. Possibly the two-week period beginning with Labor Day of 1986 would be an ideal time for such an event.
....The “Greatest Logging Show on Earth” could be shown in the new soft-topped stadium at B.C. Place giving interested visitors a chance to see the great variety of machines used to harvest forests today – not just here, but all over the world. It could be a show of shows for forest-related machinery.
....To further enhance such a time, the best of the world’s chain saw loggers could be brought to B.C. for a truly World’s Best Logger Competition. At present and for the past 15 years such contests have been held in northern Europe. Logger teams from as many as 20 nations participate and the com-etition is on an Olympic Games caliber.
....If such a competition could be held in Vancouver at Expo ’86, loggers could also be attracted from Australia, New Zealand, Fiji, Japan, Brazil and many countries. This could be the World’s Chain Saw Competition at the World’s Fair.
....Because the public is so fascinated by loggers’ sports it would only be natural to also have our North American type of contests. Tree climbing, axe throw, chopping and all the others that people have come to

enjoy. These would be apart from the World’s Chain Saw event – but would play a real part in entertaining the visitors from many lands.
....There is now no question as to the drawing power of loggers’ sports. It has been proven all over North America on live television, at fairs and exhibitions. With such a world attention at Expo ’86 – and properly staged – loggers’ sports will be long remembered by our millions of visitors. Think about it.