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For over sixty years the Northeastern Loggers Association has published a highly respected monthly magazine that focuses exclusively on our region – The Northern Logger and Timber Processor. NELA also produces training programs, pamphlets and books, and the region’s largest exposition of forest products and tree care equipment. If you are interested in becoming a member, please click the link below.
Features
Selected articles from The Northern Logger & Timber Processor magazine.
From “A Guy With a Chainsaw” to “Logger of the Year”
Don Ryder’s first date with a chainsaw was a bloody one. He was just a kid growing up just outside Boston when his dad dropped a saw from a willow tree and hit him in the face, chipping his front tooth. “I got blood all over my face,” Ryder recounted to The Northern Logger, “and a big smile.” Ryder’s father loved to burn wood. “We always had a fire,” he remembered, and firewood eventually became a way of life for him as well.
After high school, Ryder’s love of skiing drew him to New Hampshire, where he split time between weekend trips and working near Boston. He moved north full-time in the early 1980s, just as heating fuel prices doubled and many switched to burning firewood.
French Trucking Adapts to Shifting Markets
These days large trucking companies that haul almost exclusively for the logging industry are few and far between in the Northeast and Lake States. Owner-operators have
become the norm as overhead costs have skyrocketed, while larger log trucking companies have downsized or branched out into other specialties.
French Trucking, based in northern upstate New York in the town of Fine, has defied those trends. Herb French started in the business right out of high school, first hauling for his father, David.
Following in his father’s footsteps in 1995, he bought his own truck, then another, growing his business with the help of his wife, Karen.
Let’s Put 2025 in the Rearview Mirror
Most people engaged in the Northeast’s forest industry are ready to move on from 2025. While this year hasn’t been a complete loss, markets aren’t strong, policy uncertainty has stalled decision-making and investments, and nothing the industry spends money on is getting cheaper.
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