The Vancouver Sun reports that 61 years ago today, shareholders met at the Hotel Vancouver to approve the merger of H.R. MacMillan Export Company with Bloedel, Stewart and Welch Ltd., creating MacMillan Bloedel Ltd., the world’s second-largest forestry company at that time. “Merging the companies made MacBlo the dominant force in B.C. forests for decades. The company would eventually boast of $4 billion in assets, and operate around the world… in 1999, it was swallowed up by an even larger company, Weyerhaeuser” (Full Story).

The UBC Library is home to the MacMillan Bloedel fonds. An exhaustive inventory of the archives here indicates 90 m of textual records, 15,000 photographs, and 1,000 maps – from the early 1900’s onward. I consulted my uncle, an amateur historian, as to what “90 m of textual records” means. He advised this literally means that if the documents were lined up side-by-side, 90 meters of written corporate records have been retained.

Logs cut by MacMillan Bloedel’s Copper Canyon Division en route to Osaka, Japan as part of BC Pavilion, Expo 1970.