Bark presses and retirement gifts of old

Old News

Posted By Julie Latimer

Posted 3 months ago

The bark press given to Reino Timberg on the occasion of his retirement.

Retirement presents was the theme of one of this summer's museum exhibits. I wanted to highlight "the good old days" when someone worked for one employer for a very long time and was appreciated for his/her long service. I also wanted to show how that appreciation was shared by the employer and the employee's colleagues.

In the exhibit were numerous photos of retirees taken from Spruce Log magazines and retirement presents given to employees of various companies.

These objects included ceramic tiles decorated with Canadian National locomotives. Roger Gingras received these in 1980 as a retirement gift from the Canadian National Railway. He was station agent in Kapuskasing from 1950 to 1967.

There was also a painted wood plaque of Spruce Falls engine #108 and a 3-dimensional depiction of that same engine. Yval Côté, who was a conductor on Spruce Falls' engines from September 20, 1946 to January 31, 1985, received these presents from his crew. Mr. Côté had an impressive work record of no accidents or lost time due to injury. Céline and Don Nolet of Kapuskasing made the plaque.

Mr. Reino Timberg received this impressive miniature model of a bark press as his retirement present. He worked on the townsite and at the Spruce Falls mill from 1950 to 1983. He worked as a carpenter for twelve years, then was Foreman in the woodhandling department and was Superintendent for the last 3 years of his career. The engraved plaque reads: THE BARK PRESS - PRESENTED TO REINO TIMBERG ON HIS RETIREMENT FROM SPRUCE FALLS MARCH 4, 1983. Octave Lebrun built the model in 1982.

The bark press was in the Rossing Plant of the Spruce Falls mill. It is no longer in use or in the mill, and unfortunately, we do not have a photograph of the real machine. (Hint! If you have one, we would like it, or a copy, for the museum's collection).

In today's era of Reduce-Reuse-Recycle, it seems that the Bark Press and the mill were ahead of their time. They used the de-watered bark from 4-foot logs to fuel various parts of the mill.

This is how the Bark Press worked: logs came into the mill via the river or the yard, so they would be wet (river, rain, snow). The debarking drums were filled to slightly more than half with 4-foot logs. The logs tumbled against each other in the drums, separating the bark from the logs.

The de-barked logs then dropped out of an outlet of the debarking drums and onto conveyors that carried them to the sorting floor for further processing.

The wet bark fell into the chute at the top of the bark press in small clumps, not big ones that could clog the machine. If the bark did clog the machine, workers used pokers (like the two on the model, a shorter one is on top) to push against the door (open on the model) on the side or on top with the smaller poker.

The plunger driver (the big wheels on the model) turned and forced the wet bark through the pressure chamber. The bark went through this narrowing chamber with steel plates/screens to press the water from the bark.

The de-watered (but not completely dry) bark dropped out onto a conveyor belt on its way to the boiler house to be used as fuel.

This model is so well done that it features little pieces of bark in the chute and the big wheels actually turn. For Mr. Timberg, this was a nice souvenir of his work and co-workers, now, because it belongs to the museum, its story can be told to many people.