Falling, bucking, and limbing a Sitka spruce-tree beside a fish creek near Winter Harbour on north-west Vancouver Island in 1989. Even with new growth on the branches, the tree was designated a snag, due to a broken top. Rainwater filled a cavity up at the break and then poured out the undercut, which doesn't happen often, so capturing it on video was an unexpected bonus.

Note the modifications to the Husqvarna 2101 XP chainsaw -- customised muffler with dual exhaust-ports and some internal baffles removed, giving the saw that "snarly" sound -- two circular air-intake ports on the back of the air-filter cover -- added "dogs" to the side-cover, known as "double dogs". A viewer commented that the saw is "Walkerized" which means the upgrades were done by Walker's Saw Shop in Nanaimo, B.C. on Vancouver Island. The bar (blade) is a 36-inch Oregon roller-tip, running skip-tooth chain with .404-inch pitch. Souped-up rigs, like this one, are favoured by timberfallers in Oregon, western Washington, coastal British Columbia and Alaska.

As a side-note -- model numbers of Husqvarna (Husky) chainsaws are decoded as follows: the first digit is the generation and the remaining digits represent the cylinder displacement; therefore, a Husky 1100 is 1st generation, 100 cc -- its successor, the Husky 2100 is 2nd generation, 100 cc -- the Husky 3120 is 3rd generation with 120 cc displacement -- and so on for generation 4xx models, generation 5xx models, etc.

This video was filmed by veteran faller/film-maker Marcel Levesque using a Panasonic Super VHS camera. After the death of his teenage son, Marcel had a dream/vision where his son appeared to him and suggested that he use a video camera to record working-life in the forest industry, as a hobby to take his mind off his deep sorrow and grief. Then, the lyrics to a song by the late Oregon logger/musician Buzz Martin, describing when a faller packs his gear into the forest looking for a natural "opening" where he can begin placing his timber -- "now I've found my opening, and a whole new life is mine" -- meant to Marcel that his camera work was an "opening" for him. Many years later, the internet and then YouTube came along enabling Marcel to greatly enlarge his "opening" to a potential worldwide viewing audience. So, a spiritual inspiration helped Marcel and kept him motivated -- a man on a mission. During his decades of film-making, Marcel has compiled a visual record of various aspects of the forest industry. Videos by Marcel Levesque can be found on several YouTube channels.

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