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Canada’s woodsmart™ City Quesnel is one of North America’s major centres for wood products manufacturing.
As a proven location for a strong and diverse wood products industry sector, Quesnel offers many opportunities for smart companies to realize, including a wide variety of engineered wood products, wood components, to log homes and more. Approximately 100 firms directly related to the wood products industry operate in Quesnel - from forestry and harvesting, to high volume wood commodity processing, to high quality furniture production. Hundreds of additional wood products-related firms operate within a 200 km radius. Local firm range in size from major North-American companies like Canfor, West Fraser Timber and Tolko, to small local furniture production shops. The local industry has a strong reputation for innovation, and its products are shipped worldwide from Quesnel.
Quesnel’s unique concentration of wood manufacturing firms, along with critical support industries, wood products technology training at the high school and college level, and well-developed transportation infrastructure, offers an advantage to firms seeking a competitive location for wood products manufacturing. That competitive advantage has led Quesnel to identify itself as Canada’s woodsmart™ business location. See below for more information on Quesnel’s wood product firms and support services: Table of contents:Solid
wood, plywood and medium density fibreboard  Solid
Wood, Plywood and Medium Density Fibreboard
Quesnel is the only wood products center in western North America that produces four key primary products all in one place: dimension and specialty lumber, plywood, medium density fibreboard, and pulp. Those processing facilities utilize globally competitive technology and are supported by a sophisticated and highly trained workforce. More than one billion dollars is invested in Quesnel’s primary wood products industry.
Next to our strong primary industry, secondary or "value-added" manufacturing has developed rapidly in Quesnel in the last twenty years. One of BC’s most successful value-added pioneering firms, C&C Wood Products, is located in Quesnel, and a variety of other firms producing paneling and other specialty products are based in Quesnel. Larger operations, such as West Fraser's plywood plant (formerly of Weldwood) and the major lumber manufacturers, also create value-added products and are continually expanding their product range. For example, a division of Canfor (formerly of Slocan) is one of a few operations in BC utilizing lodgepole pine of as little as 7cm in diameter to manufacture precisely-sized components for the Japanese pre-fabricated housing industry.
Two plants manufacture pulp for paper products in Quesnel: Quesnel River Pulp and Cariboo Pulp and Paper. Both firms are international leaders in environmental controls and produce some of the highest quality pulp in the world. They have also been examples of innovative international joint ventures between North American and Japanese firms. West Fraser Timber has recently acquired 100% ownership of both pulp mills.
 Residue
Products Creating Economic and Environmental Value
The community prides itself on the increasingly effective use of residue from primary operations to create more value. The two pulp mills exclusively utilize residual materials from the regional sawmills to create its products. West Pine MDF (a division of West Fraser Timber Co.), the medium density fibreboard plant, uses waste from sawmills to create its high quality product, as does one of BC’s two wood pellet manufacturing firms, Pinnacle Pellet, to create heating fuel. One of BC’s largest forestry seedling nurseries is heated largely by excess process heat from a local pulp mill, and is one of BC’s most competitive operations because of that. Two firms produce dunnage and other products from waste medium density fibreboard. Pulp mill waste from one of the local pulp mills is recycled as agricultural soil amendment. Process heat from a major sawmill is used to fire wood-drying kilns, and process heat from a pulp mill is used to generate electricity.
Quesnel is home to Linden Manufacturing, which manufactures state of the art sawmill production facilities for export around the world. Another firm, Brigden Manufacturing, designed and manufactures TreeTow in Quesnel, an innovative grapple yarder for skidders. Quesnel is also home to software developers that, for example, assist local companies with programming and optimization of process controls and other digital systems or produce innovative multi-media training software for the forest industry.
 Sustainable
Forest Resources
Quesnel has an abundant supply of timber resources. The Quesnel Forest District has a land base of over 1,800,000 hectares, with 1 million hectares designated as Timber Supply Area. Standing timber available for harvesting is currently about 235 million cubic metres, of which approximately 167.4 million cubic metres is mature volume. The recent Mountain Pine Beetle (MPB) outbreak presents major opportunities in obtaining and processing beetle affected timber at favourable prices for years to come. In this regard, the total Annual Allowable Cut (AAC) has been increased to 5.3 million cubic meters in 2005 from 3.2 million cubic meters in 2004. The Government of British Columbia keeps information on Mountain Pine
Beetle related programs and issues on the Ministry of Forest web site: Non-timber uses are also beginning to be developed; one local firm, Birch Place Farm, has become one of BC’s largest birch syrup producers. The Quesnel Forest District is part of the Cariboo Forest Region, the subject of one of BC’s most comprehensive land use planning processes: the Cariboo-Chilcotin Land Use Plan. That plan is the product of a difficult and far-reaching effort to bring numerous forest land users together for land use planning. Participants included industry, labour, environmentalists, ranchers, the tourism industry, miners, trappers, and more. The Land Use Plan has helped the region to maintain economic stability and address important environmental and industrial issues. The forest industry in BC has been subject to one of the toughest environmental codes in the world, and there are logging firms in Quesnel that demonstrate some of the most advanced "sensitive harvesting" techniques in North America. Those range from low-impact log harvesting technology to the use of horses in conjunction with conventional machinery. Several major firms operating in Quesnel have attained ISO 14001 certification for their forestry practices, including one that has obtained CSA (CAN/CSA-Z809) certification as well.
 Workforce
and Workforce Education
A wood products industry workforce of about 3,500 people live in Quesnel, including highly skilled process control technicians. Worker turnover is low and worker recruitment has been aided by relatively high regional unemployment. The industry base within a 200km radius is an additional pool of many thousands more skilled wood products industry workers. Quesnel has a strong wood industry-focused education and training infrastructure. The Quesnel School Board has won a national award for a high school wood technology technical education program that creates partnerships between industry and the school system. The School Board has even developed a student-run wood products manufacturing business that successfully produces hundreds of wood products and gives exceptional experience to students. That program "ladders" into advanced wood industry technology programs at the local college and other post-secondary education facilities in BC. The College of New Caledonia (CNC) in Quesnel has begun construction of a brand new, $11.6 million campus in Quesnel. Construction is scheduled to be finished in the fall of 2005. For the wood products industry, CNC has developed a Wood Technology Program that is planned to be expanded at the new college campus in the future.
 Technical Support
Quesnel is also served by all major wood products industry technical support agencies, including Forintek, the National Research Council, UBC Dept. of Wood Science, and BC Wood Specialties Group. Furthermore, Quesnel is home to the national award-winning Wood Enterprise Centre (WEC), the first shared-use wood manufacturing centre in Canada. WEC focuses on small business entrepreneurs, prototyping for small and medium sized firms, and training in wood products manufacturing technologies. The Wood Enterprise Centre has close relationships with major technical support agencies, including the University of British Columbia’s Centre for Advanced Wood Processing.
Industrial sites with rail and highway or near-highway frontage are located in the city and surrounding area. A comprehensive land inventory has confirmed that Quesnel and District has a significant amount of suitable land available for industrial applications:
Please see the Quesnel & Area Land Inventory Summary Report or contact QCEDC for more information.
For more information on electricity supply, please see www.bchydro.com, and for information on gas supply, please refer to www.terasen.com. In terms of water, Quesnel has five deep wells that feed a central reservoir. The pressure system feeds 85 km (53 miles) of water mains, with an average pressure of 67-70 PSI.
The Quesnel Value-Added Wood Products Industrial Park Quesnel is developing BC’s first industrial park focused on the value-added wood industry. The first phase of the Park is a 22 acre (8.8 hectare) subdivision on the City’s airport lands. The park will be connected to the north end of the City’s current industrial park on Campbell Crescent on the Quesnel-Hixon Road. Subsequent phases will add up to 60 acres to the park. The first phase of the park is targeted at smaller scale firms that may benefit from co-location with similar firms, enabling companies to share facilities and resources (for instance, for waste management or shipping/receiving). Park planners hope that co-location may aid firms to be more efficient and competitive. Pricing is competitive. Land costs start as low as $20,000 per acre. To reduce the developer’s risk (the City of Quesnel), a certain level of lot pre-sales are necessary to trigger site development. Please contact the QCEDC for more information.
Highway
97, the primary north-south transportation corridor in BC, passes through Quesnel, and Highway 16, the primary east-west corridor
from the northern half of BC into central Goods can be delivered to major international shipping points in Vancouver the same day that they are shipped, and to the deep sea port in Prince Rupert: 600 km closer than Vancouver to the Far East. Highway The main highway, No. 97, runs North-South through BC’s Interior. To the North, it intersects with Highway 16 at Prince George. Highway 26 connects Quesnel with Wells, Barkerville and the Bowron Lakes to the East, and Highway 56 runs to Nazko in the West.
Railway Quesnel has been one of BC Rail's highest volume loading points in the province. BC Rail, which was acquired by CN Rail (CN) in 2004, serves Quesnel and area, and, running North and South, serves Quesnel and area, running North and South, it connects with other carriers in Prince George to the North and in Vancouver to the South. CN offers BC Rail shippers the shortest and fastest route to key NAFTA markets – 700 miles less to Toronto and Memphis than competing carriers and 650 miles less to Chicago. CN has strong relationships with connecting U.S. carriers operating in the Western U.S. CN’s network integration will create a critical mass of traffic at Prince George to start a new “Chicago Express” train for the forest products industry on a schedule of less than four days. Industry-leading “scheduled railroading” practices will offer BC Rail customers trip plans for shipments measured in hours, not days. CN will acquire 600 new centrebeam cars and upgrade 1,500 boxcars to accommodate anticipated truck share gains in the forest products segment. Fleet capacity will also increase as a result of improved car cycles. BC Rail www.bcrail.com Airport The Quesnel Municipal Airport, owned and operated by the City of Quesnel, is located within City limits about 5 minutes North of the City core. At an elevation of 544m (1,789 ft ), the runway is 45m (148 ft) wide and 1,672m (5,500 ft) long and accessible year-round. A self serve fueling facility with 100LL and JetA with additive is open 24 hours per day and accepts VISA. Quesnel is served by Air Canada Jazz (formerly AirBC) which provides multiple daily flights to Vancouver. The air distance to Vancouver International Airport is approximately 420 km (261 miles). Airport Manager 250-992-2208
Quesnel firms have access to high speed telecommunications infrastructure, including fibre-optics and wireless broadband. Cable broadband service is available in the Quesnel area. Service characteristics include:
Cellular service is digital in the municipality.
 Lifestyle Advantages
The Quesnel area offers a charming community with many advantages for management, the workforce and the whole family. Those include excellent housing prices, low crime rates, exceptional four season recreational opportunities, and many other features. Quesnel is also a BC hub for adventure and cultural tourism. Please contact the Quesnel Community and Economic Development Corporation for assistance with your firm’s location considerations regarding Quesnel.
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Quesnel & Area
Quesnel has excellent transportation
infrastructure. 
Click on the video icons below to view a video of a Quesnel mill in operation.
