Profile: Meet Ken Wilson, Of Kenny’s Loggin’

Aug 24, 2022 - 3 years ago

Ken Wilson worked in the logging industry in B.C. for over 50 years. Ken is a regular contributor to Supply Post newspaper with his column “Kenny’s Loggin’”, and resides on Vancouver Island, B.C.

Ken began his career in logging in 1966 at the age 14. He started working in Port Neville for Norie Bros. He mostly worked on Northern Vancouver Island and surrounding area.

Ken’s logging career had him working for Nories, Dougan Logging, G.W. Cox and Sons, Wilco Logging, and finally M&B, which eventually became Western Forest Products. “Once I became a grader operator,” remembers Ken, “on my days off from Western I would go and grade road for various contractors.”

Ken Wilson

Ken operated a 404 Timberjack skidder for Nories. He also operated a “TD 20 Cat plowing snow following my Dad who was running the D-9,” Ken said.

“I ran steel spar for a day at Dougan Logging, and when Sammy found this out I ran Nories’ yarder for the rest of the summer,” he remembers.

“I had lots of shifts running yarder at Menzies Bay for M&B,” Ken added. “I got a scalers licence and scaled on the ‘wet-sort and dry sort’ for a bit.”

In 1993, Ken injured his hip and needed an artificial hip. After that, he got a trainee position on a grader, and ran the grader for about ten years.

“Sometimes, I would work for other companies on days off — Fearless Logging, several roads around Campbell River. Worked for Dennis Dystant, who had a hauling contract at various places in the area, Mohya Bay, Brooks Bay,” he added. “I flew by helicopter several times to the head of Loughborough Inlet for Benwest Logging. Ran a 16-G for Matcovich Logging in Ucluelet grading Kennedy Lake Mainline. Ran a 16-G at the head of Bute Inlet at Potato Point for George Uzzell,” Ken remembers.

When asked what he most liked about logging, he responded, “It was like teams sports, lots of physical activities and ‘the paycheque’ — EVERYTHING!”

Ken Wilson Ken retired in 2015, and these days you can find him writing stories for Supply Post about the logging industry, using his Dad’s old 8mm movies and slides

“I’ve got lots of material with 7,000 slides and 8mm movies to work with,” said Ken. “After watching this stuff I said to myself, ‘Self, you can write a story about that!’”

“It’s a wonderful experience posting my Dad’s movies and slides,” Ken said. “Dad had communicated with my son, Clayton, about how he filmed these movies so people could see what logging was all about.”

“It’s really cool that I’ve had many connections with people that I worked with and are in some of the movies,” said Ken. “For example, Jim Whittaker — who was in my ‘Loggers Sports video’ featuring Phil Whittaker — said that he could remember when my Dad was filming these movies,” he continued. “I was able to talk to him and he supplied me with lots of information about the movies. Jim was just one of many people I connected with,” he said.