- [Mike] It takes a lot of loggers
to keep Americans supplied with their lumber.
About 3,000 companies employing more
than 7,000 people in all.
But in costal Alaska one of them, truck driver Nick Whitney,
has a bit of a hill to climb.
(crunching)
- Awesome.
- [Mike] Literally.
- Is there anybody out there
that can help me get up this hill?
I can't quite make it on my own.
(idling engine)
I'm definitely losing some time here waiting
on a piece of equipment to get down here
to pull me up the hill.
But just have to make up some time
somewhere throughout today.
- [Mike] And with the barge arriving this evening
to collect the last minute order
of construction lumber, Nick will need
to start making up that time right now.
Happily for Nick, this grater
should have more than enough horsepower
to help him out of his predicament.
- All right, I'm ready when you are.
When we're doing this.
You know, he's pulling on me but I'm still driving.
He's just helping the truck along
because I can't get enough traction
to get up this hill right here.
- [Mike] With the hill cleared,
Nick can finally get back to delivering
his first load of logs.
- [Nick] It's all downhill from here.
- [Mike] The 16 mile commute may not
sound like much, but when driving on roads this rough
it takes about half an hour to reach the lumberyard.
There, after removing his cargo,
a wheel loader gives Nick another helping hand.
- He's gonna pick this trailer up.
I'm gonna back under him.
He's gonna set it down so that way
we're not this long and it adds
a lot more traction having all that weight
over the tires to get around out here.
Heading back empty.
Everybody's working as hard as they can
to make sure we get this wood hauled
before we run out of time.
(upbeat rock music)
- [Mike] Back at the yard, as the trucks keep coming,
each load is bringing Papac Alaska Logging
a few tons closer to filling their last minute order.
And once it's measured, and marked,
and tied into 30 ton bundles,
each of them is hauled down to the water.
The domain of boom boat operator, Ram Quintana,
he's the guy responsible for getting
it all out to the barge.
- We're on an island, so you can't really
get the logs out of the island
without putting them through the water.
So where I come in is I put all the sorts
in the same raft and I tow it out to storage
and once the barge comes out
I'll tow it out to the barge.
- [Mike] With the barge due to arrive
in just six hours, and 1,000 tons
of additional lumber to prep before then,
Ram's already running behind schedule.
- We have to finish our original order first
but it's gonna be a long day
because we got a few more that we gotta push through.
- [Mike] Ram starts building out a retaining area
for the original order of timber
where he'll create a platform of bundles known,
perhaps not surprisingly, as a raft.
- So what I'm doing is connecting four sticks
that are 66 feet long to make the rafts.
And we use a chain to connect them all.
I have to leave the raft open in order
to put the bundles in and then once all
the bundles are in place I'm able to close it off.
- [Mike] Each raft can hold up to 20 bundles of logs
that Ram has to bring over
from the shoreline by, well, ramming them.
- [Ram] So this boat pushes all the logs together.
There's actually a 360 drive
and the propeller's right under the wheel
but it can turn on a dime.
So as you can see, these logs
float wherever they want to go.
What you absolutely need is precision
on where you hit the log
and how hard you hit the log.
So just like corralling livestock,
I'm trying to contain them all into one pen.
- [Mike] And just like livestock,
corralling logs requires a good bit of rope work.
- This is a dog.
And basically it secures all of our bundles
to the stiff leg, which is the anchor.
Without these, we'd have a very messy raft.
So what I'm doing is I put the anchor point
on the stiff leg, which is the first dog.
And then I'll tighten it as straight
and as tight as possible
in order to keep all my ducks in a row, if you will.
- [Mike] With all the raft building excitement,
Ram's failed to notice that one
of his wooden flock has gone astray.
- Oh.
Geez, there's a.
It looks like there's a log loose.
I've gotta get that.
Time is definitely of the essence
and this not what we need right now.
- [Mike] While Ram goes after the loose log,
back on dry land cutter Trevor Killian
is hard at work felling enough trees
to fill his end of the last minute order.
About 500 tons.
- [Trevor] Right in the bucket!
- [Mike] But the near constant sawing
is taking a toll on his equipment.
A fact evidenced by the saw dust it's started to throw.
- What I noticed in my last cut,
my chain was getting dull.
Instead of chips it was throwing quite a bit of dust
and that's a good way to tell.
You want big chips, no dust.
I want my chain as sharp and as fast pulling
as I can get it.
- [Mike] Luckily, Trevor comes prepared
for inevitabilities like these.
- I generally always have four chains with me.
Having a dull chain is not an option.
You've gotta be productive and safe.
And both those come with a sharp chain.
- [Mike] Switching chains might not be
that time intensive, but with this last minute order,
every moment counts.
- Two, three minutes out of your day is quite a bit.
That's another tree
and several logs that you could've made.
But it's gonna cut faster,
and we'll make up for it.
Done, done.
Let's get it.