Stephen Semeniuk. Dryden Paper Mill

Steve Semeniuk applied to work at the Paper Mill and in the process he had to undergo a brief assessment of his employability skills. With respect to previous work experience, he was asked to recount a problem that he encountered and what he did to arrive at a solution

Steve's first day at the mill in Dryden was May 29, 1979. His first shift was outside the Wood Room by the Pond. During the late 1970s, logs were still rafted to the mill for processing. Large powerful tugboats pulled logs from Dinorwic, Contact Bay and Rock Lake up to Olson's Landing. Smaller tugboats brought the logs down the river to just outside of the Wood Room. Tugboats called "Dozers" would push the logs into a landing called the Jack Ladder. Along the Jack Ladder was a dock that ran out to the river. Stephen walked along the dock and using a long aluminum pole with a hook at the end (called a Pike Pole), would push the logs onto the jack ladder which would pull the logs to a conveyor belt for further processing.

Here workers are using pike poles to move the logs to the jack ladder. Notice the conveyor that brought the lumber to the wood room. Picutre contributed by Charlie Rankin

Steve had never seen or understood the workings of the mill and was very intrigued with the machinery and the operations there.

All the training that he received was done on the job. There was no induction or safety training. If the operation existed today, Steven explained that the worker would be required to wear a life jacket and safety harness to prevent the worker from falling into the water. Nothing like that existed at the time.

Another picture where one can more easily see the Jack Ladder. Picture courtesy of Dryde District Museum

According to Steve, the most remarkable changes that have occurred at the Paper Mill have been the introduction of safety practices for the worker. Furthermore, it has always been hazardous working around the machinery used in the paper making process. In the past, all the gears, pulleys and chains for the paper making machines were exposed and this made it easy for accidents to happen.

Paper Making Process

The jack ladder would pull the logs to a conveyor that transported the logs to the slasher. The slasher was a large circular saw that cut the logs to the correct length. A second conveyor took the cut logs into the wood room. From there the logs went into large drums called barkers. These barkers were ten to fifteen feet in diameter. These drums would turn and in the process pound all the bark from the logs. As the de-barked logs left the drums they would go onto a third belt that led to a chipper. The chipper would cut the logs into small chips of wood. There were screens at the end of the chipper that would reject any pieces that were too large. At times, the screen would become jammed with chips of wood and the worker would shut down the chipper and walk up the ramp and manually dislodge any chips that were stuck on the screen. Any chips that were too large would go through the chipper again and be cut into small enough chips to pass through the screen.

At that time, there was no sure method of ensuring that the chipper, or any machine that was being serviced, would not restart and cause a serious injury to the worker. Today there are mechanisms in place that ensure that any stopped machine cannot be accidentally re-started. This mechanism is known as lock and tag out. Before attempting to service any machinery, the worker turned the machine off and put a padlock on the main switch. The worker would put a tag on the switch notifying anyone that the machine was off and being serviced.

After logs were cut into small enough chips they were transported on a conveyor belt into a digester. The digester was a large circular tank that had a diameter of about eight feet and was about forty feet deep.

Pictured here is the digester floor. Picture courtsey of Dryden District Museus

Once the lid to the digester was closed, a mix of chemicals called a liquor (derived from lime and a caustic acidic mixture) was pumped into the digester. This was to break down the fiber in the wood. In addition, heat in the form of steam was pumped into the digester. This process of digesting the fiber to become pulp took a few hours.

After the chips were cooked, the worker had to open a valve on the bottom of the digester. Steam pressure was used to blow the mixture through an eight-inch pipe into a diffuser chest.

In the diffuser chest, water was poured in to wash the liquor and chemicals from the stock. Any chemicals mixed with the stock would be washed away and drained from the stock. The end result here is the creation of pulp.

An analogy to this process is placing a cooked batch of spaghetti into a strainer and adding water to the strainer to rinse out any starch that has adhered to the spaghetti.

After the diffuser the pulp was pumped to a holding tank or sent to the bleach plant to be coloured white.

After the pulp was bleached white, it was pumped into large tanks called beaters. Here water and any necessary additives were added to the stock to obtain the correct mixture for the type of pulp or paper being created. At the bottom of these tanks were large paddles that would mix and literally beat the stock to the necessary consistency. Again a cooking analogy could be made. This process is similar to adding sugar, spices, and milk to a mixture and then using a beater to mix the batch. This excellent analogy was explained by a long time mill employee Murray Ferguson.