June - July 2001 - Logging and Sawmilling Journal -

Manitoba's Grass River Logging has expanded its logging equipment line-up and has gone into hauling to meet the growing needs of Tolko.

Manitoba's largest independent logging contractor Gary Mosiondz just keeps getting more and bigger contracts. But he started small-just 10 years ago he was known as a skidder operator. Mosiondz is sole proprietor of Grass River Logging Ltd of Wabowden, Manitoba and a subsidiary company, Mistik Hauling Ltd. Located 400 miles north of Winnipeg, Wabowden is near Thompson in northern Manitoba. At 130,000 cubic metres, he has the largest single cutting allocation in Manitoba in 2001. He is also responsible for hauling more than 360,000 cubic metres, from three contractors, to rail sidings. "Our growth really started in 1995," Mosiondz says. "When we're in full operation now, we have a total crew of 40 guys."

Gary Mosiondz (below, left) with loader operator Dave Monias. Mosiondz started out in the business in the late 1970s driving logging trucks and now his company, Grass River Logging, does 130,000 cubic metres of harvesting a year in Manitoba.

The growth, from three to 40, happened in three big steps. The crew is made up of 12 men harvesting trees in the northern bush, eight men operating log loaders at railway sidings, six mechanics, six truck drivers, three foremen, two operators for moving rail cars, plus Gary, his wife Pauline and his sister Cindy Jonasson in the office. In five years, Mosiondz has become the biggest employer in Wabowden. The town has a population of about 600 and all but two of the Grass River Logging/Mistik Hauling workers are local residents. Mosiondz's career in logging began in 1978. He drove logging trucks for a local company for five years before doing piecework for ManFor Industries in 1983 with cut-and-skid crews. He purchased his first skidder in 1988, but soon discovered that skidders "were being phased out." In 1989-90, he parked the skidder.

He bought a Tanguay CC100C slasher, incorporated Grass River Logging, and took a new ManFor contract for slashing at Moose Lake, Manitoba. "My only future in logging at that time was to move to Moose Lake as a slasher contractor, but I was always looking for opportunities to come back home," he recalls. Going home involved about a fivehour drive. The opportunity came in 1995. Repap had taken over the big pulp mill at The Pas from ManFor Industries and it wanted contractors to change to cut-to-length processors, to generate a supply of chipper wood and saw logs. "They asked me if I'd be interested, so I said yes. I sold my two slashers and purchased my first processor in 1995. That's how I got back to Wabowden," Mosiondz says.

Gary Mosiondz's operations include hauling and loading at sidings for the logs that Tolko Manitoba moves by rail. Forty-three rail cars are dedicated specifically to the log haul.

Other people had already backed away from the idea. Eyes wide open, he walked into it. "I was never afraid of the financial commitment," he recalls. "It was a big gamble because I wasn't sure what I was getting into, but I knew that I could make it work if I worked at it." He could see that cut-to-length made economic sense for Repap. "This gave them an opportunity to reduce their wood costs," he says. One machine with an operator and a processing head could replace a buncher, skidder and slasher and three operators. It also opened the way to selecting wood by quality at the cutting site. And it met environmental needs to delimb at the stump, rather than at roadside.

Mosiondz was, and is, "always willing to take a calculated risk." He weighed the situation and decided it also could make economic sense for a contractor, even though it was all new for him. "With one machine, I could put 125 cubic metres at roadside every shift. The rates they were paying would pay for the one machine and let me make a decent living at it," he says. "I looked at what was going on in the industry with cut-to-length, and to me, it was the way to go," he adds. "Everything was pointing toward it." Mosiondz's first processor was a Hitachi EX200-3 with a DH550 Denharco processing head. His two operators worked five days a week with two 10-hour shifts, for about 18 months.

Gary maintained the equipment and managed the office. It proved to be a testing time. Repap put the Grass River machine behind a buncher that was cutting and piling. Grass River's role was to process the small trees, a bundle at a time. The first allocation was only 60,000 cubic metres. For the 1997-98 season, Mosiondz was offered a new contract situation under new mill management, Tolko Manitoba. Grass River was invited to do the initial harvesting as well as processing and hauling; the contract was bumped up to 100,000 cubic metres. "When they asked us to take the whole contract, we kept the processor but we added a Timberjack 608 buncher and a forwarder.

We liked the system of processing behind the buncher, and that's the way we're still doing it today." Adding a buncher and forwarder, plus hiring four more crew, was his second big step in size in two years. Since then, Tolko has built a sorting deck at the mill, where all sorting is done. Company guidelines accept wood in lengths from 3.2 metres to 5.08 metres, and diameters from 7.6 cm to 33.6 cm. "Tolko is very happy with our cutting operation. We've never come short of our contracts," Mosiondz says. "That's why the contract got up to 130,000 cubic metres for 2000."

His equipment line-up today has expanded dramatically from just five years ago. In January 2000, he took delivery of a Madill 2200 feller buncher as his front line harvesting machine. He also has a Hyundai 210 with a Waratah head. Processing is done with two Timberjack 635s with Waratah processing heads. Grass River forwarders include a Timberjack 1010 and a Fabtek 546B. His Madill is one of the first Nanaimo, BC machines east of British Columbia.

"The buncher itself is very well built, but we've had our problems with the Cummins engine, hydraulics and electrical components," he says. It has lots of positive points, though. Mosiondz says the Madill "is a compact machine with lots of track power. The boom is very, very strong. You can service it easily. The guys like the cab, and the visibility is good." The manufacturer has also stood behind the product. "When I've had trouble, they've loaned me another one. They've gone to a Detroit engine. They've been committed to having the problem solved." Mosiondz's third big step came in October 1998, a year after he'd expanded to a full line for harvesting and processing. "Tolko rented a hall, called the contractors in, and had us discuss how we could haul all the wood cut in the area to rail sidings. They wanted one general contractor for the haul. I expressed some interest in it and they offered me the contract," he says.

Tolko had discovered that trucking logs up to 250 miles to The Pas was "not competitive" compared with moving them by rail, he explains. The system has developed rapidly. Two years later, Mistik Hauling Ltd has as many employees as Grass River Logging. It includes a Tanguay WL430 wheel loader and three Hyundai 290LC track loaders purpose-built for forestry. Mistik has six logging trucks and sub-contracts with another five owner-operators. Forty-three rail cars are dedicated specifically to the log haul, which averages 80 carloads a week all year round. Tolko has three fully operational rail sidings in the area between Wabowden and Thompson.

Each spur has room to stockpile 60,000 to 85,000 cubic metres of wood. Year-round, the Mistik Hauling team moves as a group every few weeks, serving Grass River Logging, Mud Lake Logging and Uhrina Logging. Loads are shuttled between bush landing sites and the three spurs. Mosiondz's goal is to have "zero inventory" in the bush at the end of March. "Remote sidings really are the only way to get the wood out of the bush, year-round," he says. Mosiondz chose his loaders to fit the spur. Some areas of the spurs are not fully developed. Mud can give the big wheel loader trouble, but the track machines move through it easily.

The wheel loader grapple lifts 2.5 cords with each bite and loads it onto a trailer. It then pulls the trailer to the rail car and unloads. A loader operator experienced with these machines will load, or off-load, a logging truck in six to eight minutes-they're putting 54 cubic metres on a normal load. One rail car holds an average of 115 cubic metres and it takes 10 to 12 hours to load all 43 rail cars.

When he was asked to organize and operate the coordinated haul, Mosiondz negotiated favourable terms for the operators he would need to hire. The negotiations took a couple days. "After the contract was signed, I was able to offer local Wabowden people the first opportunity to work for Mistik Hauling," he says. "I believe local people should get the first chance to work at home. Then, it's up to them to make the most of their opportunity.

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