Robert Buteau St. Jacques Rivičre Ŕ La Truite, NB 200 acres Mixedwood, hardwood and softwood Ecoregion - Southern Uplands Ecodistrict - Madawaska
Robert Buteau retired from the Canadian Military in 1990 and returned to live in St. Jacques, where he was born and raised, to pursue one of his lifelong dreams, managing his woodland. Robert owns two hundred acres of woodland on Rivičre Ŕ La Truite northwest of Edmundston. The woodland is 11 km away from his home in St. Jacques and had been owned by his father since the 1930's. Robert bought the properties from his father in 1961 and 1969. "I saw many beautiful things in my travels around the world with the Armed Forces, and as far as I am concerned, my woodlot is the most beautiful, so we have come here to enjoy our retirement." The woodlot is within the Madawaska Ecodistrict which is part of the Southern Uplands Ecoregion. This is hilly land with many steep valleys separated by broad ridges that commonly reach 460 metres. These broad ridges are capped by stands of sugar maple, yellow birch, and beech, with scattered balsam fir, red spruce and white spruce. These softwoods increased mid-slope giving rise to a more mixedwood forest. Softwood forests of fir, and white and red spruce are common on the lower slopes and valley bottoms, with black spruce and cedar forests commonly found in wet areas. If the softwood forests are cleared, they tend to be replaced by young forests of poplar, white birch and red maple, under which fir and spruce regrow. Buteau's woodlot contains all of these forest types as it contains portions of a broad ridge and valley bottom. In addition to sugar maple, yellow birch and beech, he has some ash. In the lowland areas of his woodlot, he has areas with poplar, white birch and red maple and areas with spruce, pine and fir. In the wetter areas he has mixtures of cedar, tamarack, spruce and balsam fir. Buteau spent much of his military career in Europe and came to admire the manner in which forest management was carried out there. He said that he spent a lot of time enjoying the majesty of the European forests and spent many hours conversing with foresters about the science that they used to manage their forests. He explains that he has inevitably brought some of the European influence to his own woodlot management. His overall goal is to develop his forest stands stands into a multi-aged condition. Over-mature trees as well as low quality trees are harvested by single tree selection, while the woodlot continues to restock by natural regeneration. The forest is being clearcut up to Robert Buteau's woodlot Management Plan On his return home to St. Jacques he began to manage his woodland in earnest. One of his first moves was to visit the Madawaska Forest Marketing Board to enlist their silviculture and marketing expertise. "When I first went to see Claude Pelletier at the Madawaska Marketing Board, and told him what I had in mind to do with my woodlot, he was concerned that I would kill myself with the workload. But they came to my woodlot and gave me excellent advice and completed a management plan in 1991." The plan provides a point in time description of the woodlot, and a general direction for the silviculture to develop the stands over the following ten years. Buteau says, "It is a good plan, a good place to start from, and the Madawaska staff have always been available to answer any question and give advice. However we have not agreed exactly, on all aspects.  For example, when we were doing pre-commercial thinning, I wanted to leave the trees denser than was recommended. Ten years later they are studying my thinnings with a deeper insight, appreciating the quality advantages that the tighter thinnings are showing." "In my mind when I started my plan, I had a ten year window to get the woodlot in shape. I wanted to build my camp, garage, the roads and all the trails and conduct the initial treatments on the stands, to the point that I would only have to continue to harvest single trees to maintain the growth rate in the stands." Wildlife habitat is also an important part of the woodlot’s management. Robert Buteau points out that the woodlot has been home to both Red-tailed Hawks and owls. Buteau makes a point to create brush piles that create habitat for small rodents. Moose at different times of the year live in and pass through the woodlot.   Trail Network is the Secret Robert Buteau's first steps in bringing the woodlot under management, was to establish and mark the boundary lines and then to improve access to the woodlot by a having a main truck road running through the middle of the property toward the back. Not only do the boundary lines provide a good walking access to the perimeter of the woodlot, but Robert has also established distance benchmarks along the lines. These benchmarks provide a reference for locating trails and any other reference that he wants to transfer to his management plan maps. The secret of the operation is the attention and thought that was put into developing the trails that are used for extracting harvested trees. The main road serves as the backbone for a network of access trails that run perpendicular toward the sidelines. "I layout my trails as a straight line on the map. Where the trees are large and there is little regeneration the trails are 100 metres apart, where there is a lot of small trees and I cannot see most of the way to the next trail, I leave only about 50 metres between, then I can see all the trees that I have to work with. I then take the map to the woods and I come to the point where I want to start the trail and I look for a natural trail - a passage through the trees where I may have to cut only a few trees, or none at all." A contractor with a 450 John Deere bulldozer levels off the trail, so Robert can pass easily with his tractor and forestry trailer. Robert points out that the trails are the key component for his management style. "I work from the trail to harvest individual trees. I use a skidding winch on my tractor, along with snatch blocks and pulleys anchored to trees to bring harvested trees to the side of the trail. After I have accumulated the wood at trail side I load the wood on the trailer and haul it to the main road." "The trails are very important to allow me to walk easily throughout my woodlot and see all the areas and how the trees are doing. Maintenance of trails is also an on going important activity. With the use of a bush-hog the surfaces of the road and trails and around the yard can be trimmed. A road grader blade bolted to the bottom of the logging winch is used by dropping the winch on return runs to the harvest area. The blade has a moderate cutting effect, enough to "smooth out small bumps and the tracks caused by the tractor tires and the logs."  Robert has also constructed a drag-out made of pieces of railroad tracks that are towed behind the tractor. He thinks that pulling the drag, behind the 3pt hitch grader blade may be useful on some road and trail surfaces. Selection Harvesting "My Sunday job is to walk and look and plan what trees should be cut." Once Robert is familiar with the trees growing in an area that he wants to cut, he marks the trees that are to be cut with paint.   The best time to mark trees is in the winter or early spring. At this time there is no problem to see all the limbs and to determine if the tree is sick. I mark all the trees that I feel should come out. However I will not necessarily cut all those trees the first time through. I will consider how much sunlight that the harvesting will allow to the forest floor. I will cut the sickest trees and then come back in a couple of years after the crowns have closed in and get a few more.  With good trails this is no problem. The more familiar with the trees I get the better the job I can do." Buteau adds that the ability to easily walk through areas that he will harvest in also allows him to size up and plan how and where to fell trees and where to position his winch so that a minimum of damage occurs to standing trees. Stand management at the early stages included pre-commercial thinning some young stands and planting some small areas with poor regeneration. These included an old field and an area where the stand had collapsed and had not regenerated. One of the most spectacular stands on the woodlot is a hardwood stand at the front of the woodlot that has been commercially thinned, leaving very tall, evenly spaced tolerant hardwoods. Buteau recognizes his own limits for completing larger scale harvests and has opted to bring in the "Timberjack Guys" when that is required. This crew consists of a skidder operator and his chainsaw operator, both of who live in the area. One area they worked in was in the riparian zone along the brook where 10% of the volume was removed while adhering to no travel restrictions closest to the watercourse. The trees that were to be harvested were paint marked and the skidder was required to stick to a predetermined trail. A second area was a mixedwood stand on a side hill at the back of the property, in which the softwood was in decline. The directions for the harvest were set by Mr. Buteau and it was simple and straight forward. "Cut all the mature softwood and the firewood quality hardwood. I know they did a good job because I was processing the softwood, and there was not one tree that would have made a sawlog. So I was very happy with the result. As for the stand, I am left with good quality hardwoods, well spaced. I had a forester from the University look over the result and he said not bad." Technical Assistance and Intuition Although Robert Buteau praises the technical assistance he has received, he admits that he does not always agree with or follow completely, the advice that is provided. He explains that he is not adverse to modifying recommendations somewhat to follow his own intuitions. For examples he pointed out that when he planted some small areas, he planted at a higher than recommended density. "I plant more seedlings than are recommended, then if by chance a few trees die, there are still lots of trees, and I can cut out a few as necessary as they get large and begin to crowd one another." In addition to the management plan prepared by the Marketing Board, another more detailed management plan was developed for the woodlot by Alain Leclerc, while he was a student at the University of Moncton Forestry program at the Edmundston Campus. The plan was completed over two years, and outlines management activities over 25 years. The plan is very intensive and very accurate. To give an example, Mr. Buteau recommended a partial harvest to remove 1/3 of the volume from a riparian zone along the brook. The plan gave an estimate of the volume that would be produced through the partial harvest, after the job was completed the volume was right on the estimate.   Farm Tractor and Patu Forestry Trailer Buteau’s principal pieces of equipment are his chainsaw, brushsaw, 25 horsepower Massey- Ferguson farm tractor with a logging winch, and a Patu forestry trailer. He also has a 3 pt. hitch grader blade and bush-hog brush cutter for trail maintenance. For processing, Buteau has a wood splitter, a Boardmaster Portable Sawmill, and an arch and pan for Maple Syrup production. Robert says his woodlot business still shows a debt against the equipment that he has purchased, but he is satisfied that he has quality equipment to assist with his work A load of logs ready to ship to market Adding Value Robert uses his Boardmaster portable sawmill to saw lumber from logs he cuts. In addition to some spruce and balsam fir, he produces cedar lumber. He explained that he first bucks off hollow butts for shingles and the tops for fence posts. Then he bucks the remaining stem into logs, minimizing any sweep. He says that the mill is marginally profitable for producing softwood dimensional lumber (2x4's and 2x6's), but really earns its keep in producing high quality cedar lumber. . The future may see some choice hardwood logs being milled as well. A lot of the product coming from the thinnings is fuelwood so Mr. Buteau has developed a market among the residents of St. Jacques and area. He has also begun marketing cedar kindling wood from his milling waste. He packages the kindling in plastic bags, and supplies it to convenience stores, gas stations and to a campground. The campground is a market for white birch fuelwood coming from trees that are well along on the way to dying and falling down. "That birch is not much good for heating your house. But for a camper, it is perfect. It burns slow and there is lots of smoke. If a camper has dry wood it burns too fast, the fire is gone too quickly." Mr. Buteau likes to expose others to his woodlot and his work there. He routinely hosts elementary students from area-schools. As well, students from the Faculty of Forestry (Edmundston Campus) visit at least once a year. Mr. Buteau has hosted students from Forest Extension woodlot management courses and delegations from Natural Resources and Energy.