Aerial photograph of Tree Crusher ‘mowing’ trees within the Williston Reservoir inundation zone. Photo taken from BC Forest Service Clearing the Peace slideshow presentation in 1966. Image courtesy of Jim Wiens / Mackenzie and District Museum
uninhabited country’ in urgent need of modernisation. Projects such as the W A C Bennett Dam were celebrated for ‘rolling the frontier back 500 miles to the north’ and for bringing new lands and peoples into the purview of the Canadian state. 5 The Tree Crusher played a central role in this nation-building agenda, and was emblematic of a high-modernist impulse to subdue and ‘improve’ unruly frontier landscapes. 6 This sentiment was often expressed by workers engaged in land- clearing activities, who commented on the machine’s fearsome presence with a sense of admiration: [The Tree Crusher] was a massive vehicle that moved on two rollers, each seven feet in diameter. The rollers had heavy spikes that crushed and splintered the trees as the machine rolled over them. The theory behind it was that new growth would hold the pieces in place long enough to get so water logged they wouldn’t float to the surface as the area became flooded. Successful or not, the idea was great. 7 While the Mackenzie Tree Crusher may have seemed great in theory, its operational tenure was relatively short-lived. After two years and countless breakdowns, the Tree Crusher had only cleared about 2500 acres, or 1000 hectares, of land. As a bespoke piece of industrial equipment, its operators had to learn how to troubleshoot frequent mechanical failures in the field with limited access to equipment for repairs. The landscape surrounding Mackenzie also provided many unforeseen challenges. For instance, the 175-ton machine would often get bogged down in the soft fluvial soils along the Parsnip River. Workers improvised by crushing trees that grew on firm bedrock until a second, more nimble 80-ton Tree Crusher could be shipped to site. By 1970, the rising water levels of the Williston Reservoir put an end to the land-clearing works and the two Tree Crushers were abandoned in the forest. It was not until 1984 that the Municipal Council of Mackenzie voted to retrieve and refurbish the rusted remains of the original Tree Crusher as a monument to the town’s industrial heritage. Today, the bright yellow machine sits as a roadside attraction in Mackenzie along Highway 39. 5 Wenner-Gren British Columbia Development Co. Ltd. Assessment of Water Power Potential, Vol. I. Victoria: Royal British Columbia Archives, J.F. Pine Fonds MS-1172, Box 1, 1958 6 Scott, James C. Seeing like a State . New Haven: Yale University Press, 2008. 7 Kvarv, 1987. p 5
By the late 1960s when construction of the dam was nearing completion, approximately 177,330 hectares of boreal subalpine spruce forest needed to be cleared — and fast. The water of the Williston Reservoir: a vast artificial lake impounded by the W A C Bennett Dam, was rising. Failure to clear the trees that grew within the reservoir’s inundation zone would result in large quantities of floating debris that could threaten the dam’s structure and pose a risk to future recreation such as boating and fishing. Site preparation for the reservoir initially relied on manual techniques like hand felling and slash-and-burn, but these methods were deemed too slow to clear such a large area. A new tool was needed; something that could rapidly clear-cut vast tracts of forest ahead of the rising flood waters. In 1964, the B.C. Forest Service organised the delivery of two Tree Crushers to the newly-established resource town of Mackenzie on the Parsnip River in northeastern British Columbia. 3 These were the machines to clear the site. While the B.C. Forest Service grappled with the razing of thousands of hectares of woodland, a parallel project of large-scale land clearance was underway across the Pacific. In 1965, the United States Armed Forces began experimenting with new ways to clear the dense jungles of Vietnam which provided cover and a tactical advantage to Viet Cong forces. The U S military had conducted various tests using airborne herbicides, defoliants and fire-bombing techniques, all with varying degrees of success. In a bid to expedite its land-clearance program, military officials commissioned the LeTourneau Corporation to manufacture a fleet of Tree Crushers to aid in the war effort. With financial support from the U S military, these machines — initially designed for commercial logging operations — quickly grew in size, speed and ferocity. 4 Most of these ‘enhanced’ Tree Crushers were shipped across the Pacific to the jungles of Vietnam, but two made their way north to Mackenzie. The first Tree Crusher arrived in Mackenzie on six flat rail cars and took nearly four days to unload and reassemble. Enthusiastic reports of the Tree Crusher’s arrival reflect the fervour of mid- century infrastructure development in British Columbia. In the late 1960s, northern B C was seen as a ‘vast tract of unexplored and
3 Kvarv, Einar. A Branch History Paper for the 75th Anniversary of the B.C. Forest Service . Victoria: Ministry of Forests 4 LeTourneau, 1960
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