GRAND RAPIDS — Immigrants from Finland, Sweden and Norway, the Rajala family has been in Itasca County — and the timber business — since 1902.
John Rajala joined The Morning Show to discuss how the timber industry has changed since his great-grandfather started the Rajala Brothers Logging and Sawmilling company. This episode focuses on the early-1900s transition between the white-pine focused sawmill era to the pulp and paper-manufacturing era.
Thanks to Mark Jacobs, our producer for the Forest History Series. Read more here and check out our summer pollinator series as well!
From horsepower to steam power
The Rajala family entered the timber industry when they cleared their land for farming in the early 1900s. Shortly thereafter, they became contractors for M&O Paper in International Falls, then opened their own sawmill. After immigrating, the family began as farmers, then became contracted loggers for M&O Paper in International Falls. Finally, John Rajala’s great-grandfather created the Rajala Brothers Logging and Sawmilling company, now called Rajala Forestry.
During this time, oxen- and horse-drawn sleighs gave way to steam-powered highlines and river lumber drives transitioned to railcars stacked with downed timber. The trees being sold changed as well, from sawed white pine lumber to a wide variety of tree timber used as pulp for paper mills.
“We grew up in the land where the rivers flow north, namely the Big Fork and the Little Fork (River),” Rajala said. “So, we were a part of the watershed that was one of the three main watersheds that drove the logistics of forest products in Northern Minnesota. Ours was … the Hudson Bay Watershed.”
From sawmills to paper production
In the 1800s, the Hudson Bay watershed transported sawed timber mainly by river to Rat Portage, known now as Kenora, Ontario, Canada. Some of this timber was taken and transported legally, but much was harvested illegally.
The Rajala family arrived at the end of the “big timber” era, which focused on getting sawed timber — overwhelmingly sourced from old-growth white pine — to sawmills. The old-growth white pines were decimated by the early 1900s, and the focus of the timber industry turned to pulp and supplying the paper industry.
The Northwest Paper Co., Itasca Paper (the predecessor of the Blandin Paper Co.), and the M&O paper company came into prominence during this time.
“All of these were made possible and were the result of an industry that needed something to do after a lot of the big pine and sawmill era had ended,” Rajala said.
From rivers to railways
During this time, the river drives of lumber ebbed and railways picked up steam. One major railway artery ran from Duluth through Virginia and International Falls to Kenora, carrying timber and pulp both ways.
The volume of lumber changed as well.
“It blows my mind, too, because you know, the juxtaposition of those huge sleigh loads of massive pine logs — there must have been 30,000 to 40,000 board feet, 80 cords on those loads pulled by a team of horses — compared to these putzy little gas-powered trucks with two to three cords and a couple of drunks. I just don’t know how you went from one to the other,” Rajala said.
"White pine is amazing in terms of its capabilities, its characteristics. Even to this day, it’s the finest pine species known in the world."John Rajala
The photos of these massive sleigh loads of timber were exceptions, not the rule. They were meant as recruitment incentives to bring Norwegians and other immigrants to the area to work in the forest trade.
“That’s really important civilly, culturally, and ecologically actually to this story,” Rajala said.
The rise and fall of white pine forests
The tall, straight growth pattern of white pine made it the key species in the early sawmill era. While stumps of monstrous trees 4 feet in diameter can still be found in the woods, average trees in that era were more commonly about 11 inches in diameter at breast height, according to Rajala. Stands of white pine occupied the Northern Minnesota landscape for about 4,000 years, as the receding glaciers created opportunities for Appalachian white pine populations to spread northwest.
While 4,000 years seems like a long time to us short-lived humans, a white pine can live 500-600 years. Thus, only eight to nine generations of pine grew in Minnesota between the glacial and the timber period.
"It was a relative newcomer to the area at the time that we started exploiting it,” Rajala said.
These trees were initially felled using a wedge and back-cut, with axes and two-man saws as the primary tools. These were then hauled to rivers and transported to sawmills to become lumber or other products like shingles or buckets.
The appetite for this timber was vaster than the forests themselves. As white pine trees ran out, the sawmills ran out of timber and began to shut down.
“White pine is amazing in terms of its capabilities, its characteristics. Even to this day, it’s the finest pine species known in the world — maybe along with the other well-known five-needle soft pines,” Rajala said.
The huge timber industry pivoted to harvesting a wider variety of trees for use as pulp for paper mills. When the Virginia and Rainy Lake Lumber Co. closed its sawmill in Virginia in 1929, it marked the end of an era. While it only operated for 22 years, it was once the largest white pine sawmill in the world.
Many of the big names in the timber industry left at this time.
“Weyerhaueser went west, Joyce went South, and Pillsbury went into flour, or, you know, got out of timber and focused on other things,” Rajala said. “And there are a lot of big names that then changed their business models at that time. And that’s when the Rajalas started to kick into gear — a little late to the big game.”
Whose land was it?
Initially, the land covered by present-day Minnesota was populated by the ancestors of the Lakota and Ojibwe peoples. The Anishinaabe, the Lakes people, were eventually displaced as European settlers came west.
"All of this is layered on top of the treaties by which the federal government moved the Native peoples, and especially the Anishinaabe off of these lands,” Rajala said. “The timber companies ended up with the timber rights and most of it was originally at about a dollar and a quarter per acre.”
More to come
Listen to the full conversation with Rajala above and stay tuned to the KAXE Morning Show for follow-up conversations on forest history.