The Lumberjack Trail
Remembering the contribution to the war effort of Newfoundland loggers Royal Deeside is blessed with many fine forests that add so much to the stunning scenery of this wonderful part of Scotland. Some of these forests date back to the historic and ancient woods of Caledonia. Pannanich Wood on the south side of the river Dee, which clings to the hillside high above the town of Ballater, is one such wood. This wood, which is under Forestry Commission control, is the setting for a project which is attempting to recreate history as well as offering recreational usage of the forest to the public at large.

During the dark days of the Second World War this wood was one of many throughout the country, and indeed the rest of Britain, that was logged by members of the Newfoundland Overseas Forestry Unit. The unit had been formed in 1939 after a dramatic appeal from the British government to many places throughout the world, including Newfoundland, for experienced forestry workers. These seasoned lumberjacks were desperately needed as most of the native loggers had been called up to join the armed forces to fight against the Nazis.

Timber was vitally needed to help the war effort and in these early days of the war, Germany had successfully cut off most of the regular imports from the Baltic countries. There was, therefore, a great need to use the timber from the many forests throughout the UK. The coal
industry, the key to British success in the war, required pit props; telegraph poles were also needed to replace those destroyed in bombing raids; and of course wood in the early days of the war was needed to make obstruction poles to prevent enemy landings on the beaches if
there was to be an invasion.

The Newfoundlanders came across the Atlantic in great numbers, bringing with them some different working methods from those used by the local loggers and estate workers. Mechanised tractors were used to support the more traditional ponies to bring down the felled timbers off the high ground. Perhaps because they were used to snowy conditions in their homelands they also used snow to aid transportation of the timber when winter set in,
much to everyone’s surprise. In 2005 a group of local individuals from Ballater came together to form the Ballater Historic Forestry Project to ensure that the little known, but dramatic, story of these brave men came to the attention of the wider population.

Their aim was threefold – to attempt to rebuild two log cabins on the original site of the camp; to make a film about the unit; and to produce a leaflet on the ‘Lumberjack Trail’. This trail, which has been created jointly by the Forestry Commission and the Cairngorms National Park, offers a circular route of just over a mile, from the town up into Pannanich Wood to the site of the camp. It is a walk that allows people to experience the natural beauty of the forest, its wildlife and also to walk in the footsteps of the wartime loggers.

The group have managed to uncover some of the original foundations of the camp and have placed information boards at the site of the camp that the Newfoundlanders built. The camp itself at Dalmochie, called Glenmuick, was home to 200 men and was built by their own hands. They sensibly chose a site close to an old drovers’ road with a nearby supply of water, in the heart of the forests that they planned to log, on Pannanich Hill and Craig Coilleach. They were adept at building log cabins and made extensive use of the raw materials that grew all around them. They felled logs and built huts which they insulated by using moss from the forest floor. A visiting reporter in 1941 described these huts as being ‘warmer and more comfortable than many of the houses constructed in suburban Britain’. These cabins provided sleeping accommodation for up to twenty men; the camp itself had
bunkhouses, wash and staff rooms, as well as a camp office.

The Newfoundlanders also managed to set up a simple irrigation system from a burn high above the camp to allow them to have fresh running water. The camp also had its own blacksmith’s shop and stables. Having sorted out their accommodation, the Newfoundlanders
set about their logging operations in the forest. Soon they were felling the predominately Scots pine trees at a rate of three thousand a week. The trees had been planted in the early 1900s and were still relatively young, but it was their tall straight lines that made them well
suited for conversion into pit props.

Sensibly, the Newfoundland lumberjacks started cutting down the trees immediately above the road, thus ensuring that the trees around their camp remained, offering protection against the elements. At the start of their logging operations, because of the proximity to
their camp, the method of transporting the logs off the hill was relatively straightforward. As the loggers worked their way further up the hill they started to use both ponies and then the giant caterpillar tractors that they had brought with them to drag the logs off the steep slopes and down to the waiting trucks, which then transported them on to the sawmill at Ballater.

The local people of Ballater and visiting timber merchants became fascinated with this different method of transporting logs off the hill but they were perplexed and confused when, as winter drew near, the Newfoundlanders stopped bringing the cut timber off the hill. The autumn rains had turned their trails and tracks into muddy quagmires, unable to provide safe and sustainable routes for getting the logs down to Ballater. The loggers seemed to be unconcerned with this problem and continued to cut down the trees with great gusto. They stacked them high up on the hills close to where they grew. As the log piles became steadily bigger those looking on had no idea what the Newfoundlanders had in mind. The first onset of heavy winter snows soon allowed them to show all and sundry just what they had been planning. The deep snow was used to literally slide the logs off the hillside on wooden sledges dragged by Garron ponies.

The work of the loggers was hard, with ten-hour shifts, six days a week, for a reward of only $2 per day, $1 of which they had to send back home to Newfoundland. From this money they also had to pay for their tools and clothing! They had most of their food prepared on site and they supplemented their normal diet of pickled beef and pork with bread, pies and cakes. They were suspicious of many things that came from outside the camp, but they did enjoy attending the local Saturday night dances that took place in Ballater and other surrounding villages. These allowed them a chance to unwind from their daily toils and hard work on the hill.

Such was the importance of the work, that when many of the loggers decided at the end of their initial six-month contracts to enlist or to return home, the then Deputy Prime Minister, Clement Atlee, journeyed north to persuade them how vital their work was to the overall war effort. He was mostly successful in his pleas and after this crisis more men were recruited to the cause, this time on longer contracts that were for the duration of the war, and a potentially disastrous situation was averted. Many, though, still wanted a chance to fight against the Nazi tyranny.

Later the loggers did get their chance to serve by forming their very own Home Guard unit; this unit at its height had over 700 Newfoundlanders in its ranks. The men showed their commitment by spending most of their spare time training to defend the Highlands against a German invasion. They trained on purpose-built assault courses and took part on many field
exercises, but never had to face the enemy for real. Their commitment to Britain’s war effort could not be questioned; thirty-four graves in various lonely cemeteries throughout the country are testimony to this. The inclement weather and some fatal accidents while carrying
out their vital and dangerous work are the reasons noted on many of the headstones that stand alone in these quiet country graveyards.

Two years was all it took to strip Pannanich wood and then the loggers moved on to other camps. By the war’s end a massive reforestation was required to make sure that these Scottish hillsides would return to their former glory. A mixture of native Scots pine and imported Douglas fir were used, perhaps fittingly, allowing a North American presence to remain in the area years after the loggers had left. Edgar Baird, the manager of the unit, was quoted at that time as saying that, following the replanting at Pannanich Wood, in 30 years’
time the hill would be unrecognisable as the barren, desolate place it was when the Newfoundlanders departed.

For a period after this, Italian and German POWs took over the recently vacated cabins, thus
offering yet another historical perspective to this Scottish woodland. 1200 loggers remained to help this reforestation process and continued to assist the forestry industry to get back to its pre-war production levels. In 1946 the unit was officially disbanded. By then many local workers had returned and taken over the forestry labours. The majority of the Newfoundlanders returned home, some with local girls, but a few were so taken by the Highlands that they actually married and settled in the area.

A visit to Ballater nowadays, starting at the Old Royal Station, allows visitors the opportunity to watch the DVD A Bygone Forest. This short film, made by the Ballater group with the help of a grant from the Lottery and support from the Forestry Commission, retells the loggers’ story. It also provides a very interesting forerunner to the walk up to the actual campsite. The station, famous for its royal connections, was the start of the exit route that the prepared timber took as it was transported away from the area southwards. It also had a popular bar which was frequented by the loggers and locals during the Second World War.

Following the Lumberjack Trail up from Ballater, you literally stumble across the former camp site as you walk around a corner on this beautiful woodland walk. As you stand there in the forest it is possible to imagine the far-gone cries of ‘timber’ that the Newfoundlanders must have made as they felled tree after tree. Walking though the forest, if you look carefully, there are still remnants of the loggers’ camp to be seen lying all around. In fact, the site of the camp midden would no doubt offer much archaeological data on the camp itself, if it were ever excavated, Time Team style.

The film, the trail, information leaflets and boards, as well as the plans for a full-blown interpretive heritage centre to be housed in the two reconstructed huts at Dalmochie are all going to ensure that these brave men are remembered for many years to come in the Deeside area. This centre, when completed, will be a fitting tribute to them and it will also allow visitors, in particular schoolchildren, to understand the rich history of forestry on Deeside.
James Hendrie


(Above) Notices similar to this one in the Daily Express were common during 1939, as the call went out for loggers to help with the war effort. (Centre) The loggers built their own camps as seen here at Camp 53, at Taymount in Perthshire. Once complete they were quick to set about logging operations. (Right) Clement Atlee visiting the Newfoundlanders at Glenmuick Camp to persuade them of the important role that they were carrying out during the war.



(Above) Camp 51 at Kildrummy, west of Aberdeen, where the loggers operated between 1940/41. (Centre) Glenmuick Camp, at Ballater was numbered Camp 49 and this picture shows the cookhouse and other logger huts. (Right) While ponies and caterpillar tractors played their part in the logging operations, the use of traditional steam power was also important.