Loch Ness Monsters
Big Douglas
On the north west of the Great glen, sitting like dark shoulders above Loch Ness, are some of the earliest Forestry Commission acquisitions and plantations, with Inchnacardoch and Port Clair dating back to the 1920s and the very inception of the FC.

In particular, the well-drained south-facing forest area of Allt na Criche is home to some stands of high quality and sizeable (monster) Douglas fir stems. A registered seed stand, and with the well-walked Great Glen Way running through the middle of it, the district only
allows harvesting when very special orders come in!

Over the last two summers, several such orders landed on the desk of the FC district office in nearby Fort Augustus. Log cabins The first came from Brian Grant (Grizz) of Highland Log Homes, for some high specification and long length poles for the construction of a log cabin ‘function room’ to be situated in the grounds of a Leicestershire hotel. Nothing unusual there you might think, but some of the poles were to be 19.5m in length, with both tight mid- and top-diameter tolerances.

The FC staff clambered the steep slopes, measured and carefully marked the required number
of stems; Brian inspected them, checking for knot accumulation and of course straightness, brokered a deal to purchase them standing and appointed Scottish Woodlands as his main contractor. The poles had to be harvested to roadside and then transported to Carrbridge
initially for hand peeling (ouch) and further inspection. After this the entire cabin would be carefully constructed using traditional overscribing techniques, and then, like a giant jigsaw puzzle, (with each log numbered) subsequently dismantled and transported south for the
final build in the hotel grounds.

With due diligence with regard to risk assessments and method statements completed, local big tree specialist David Grant from Beauly was sub-contracted in to undertake felling and extraction works. An equally big weekend wedding on Skye just before the start date had
left Davie with an injured ankle after a late night fight with a hotel step, but with some help he could just about still get into and handle the Timberjack skidder.

Everyone was thankful that there are still good cutters up in the highlands who can directionally fell 8-cubic metre trees – absolutely essential to avoid stem damage on rocks and old stumps. Whilst difficult on the steeper ground, the operations in the wood went to
plan, although one cabin’s log specification was slightly out – the trees had to be felled in a new moon! A delay by a further month was out of the question, and it was agreed a few days’ ‘moon time’ wouldn’t be noticed by anyone.

Once at roadside the 19.5m poles were a sight to behold, but offered another set of challenges for loading and transport. Ferguson Transport of Spean Bridge handled this task with an independent crane and loaded both their own flats, and a pole trailer (the last in Scotland?) from McKerrel’s of Argyll. The work was poignant to family firm Fergusons, as company founder, haulage and timber legend Archie Ferguson had been tragically killed in a logging accident 10 years earlier in exactly the same location within Allt na Criche. This wasn’t lost on Brian, and it was fitting that a cabin log was scribed in Archie’s memory.

A police escort ensured that long log loads arrived safely in Carrbridge and building work could start in earnest! However, a hidden trait within some of the logs surfaced – spiral grain! Not easy to detect in the forest or realise the problem it may cause, it is not unknown for a DF
log with a bad case of spiral grain to slowly ‘unwind’ and lift a log cabin wall out of shape!
A rush of emails and phone calls ensued, and the FC marked enough extra trees, both at the same forest and another nearby, to allow the order to be completed.

Square edged
The next order offered no issues with girths, tapers or time zones to worry about – just logs capable of rendering 300mm x 125mm x 13m beams. However, all timber had to be from FSC-accredited sources, grown in Scotland, and to be heartwood, free of bark sapwood and if
possible juvenile wood – oh, and graded to strength class C18. This was for a modern government co-office in Golspie, Sutherland, and the FC was contacted about supplying the timbers ‘sawn’. Again the Douglas firs at Allt na Criche fitted the bill in terms of tree quality and size and the partnership approach and involvement of Scottish Woodlands saw Davie Grant and his team back on site serving up more of the same skilled harvesting works.

With careful log handling and haulage again taken care of by Ferguson Transport, it was the sawing of large diameter logs that was to test the supply chain. The shorter logs were taken care of by James Jones Ltd at their Kirriemuir mill, who also utilised many of the heavier butt cuts for their own orders, but it took a bit of research to find a mill within a sensible distance that could actually mill out logs to a length of 13m.

In the end the timbers didn’t have to travel too far. A couple of hours’ journey south on the A82 and a trip down another famous Loch side (Lomond this time) saw the logs go to the Jamestown, Dunbartonshire, sawmill and timber yard of Gilmour and Aitken Ltd. More often associated with interesting species of hardwoods from all around the globe, Roderick Aitken confirmed that they had a horizontal bandmill and log carriage that would accurately cut the longer beams.

Once the cutting pattern had been completed at both the Kirriemuir and Jamestown sawmills
Shaun Mochan from Forest Research was keen to get involved to test the latest ‘acoustic’ strength grading equipment on the dimensioned beams. The Allt na Criche Douglas didn’t disappoint and after some digital sensory wizardry and associated hammer tapping the timbers met the SC 18 grade requirements easily. The great looking ‘salmon pink’ coloured timbers were dispatched to the construction site in Golspie for further visual grading and then utilisation.

Over this winter, a stretch of the adjacent Port Clair woodland above the A82 was clearfelled, and some fine sticks were sent far and wide throughout Scotland. I get the feeling that it won’t be long before the forest is called on again to produce some more specialist cuts. Both the pioneering commissioners and the early forest craftsmen would certainly be proud.
Neil Stoddart