“Digging into History: IWA Ladies Auxiliary” by John Mountain, Vol. 2 No. 7 (July, 2020)

Deep Dig for July 2020IWA Ladies Auxiliary: Women Hone Valuable Leadership Skills – What a super find this month. It’s a couple of items that speak volumes about the important part that loggers and sawmillers wives, their mothers and/or their daughters played in union building and I want to share them with you. First up

Woodworkers in Rain City: The Records of I.W.A. Local Union 1-217, by Henry John

The records of the I.W.A. Local Union 1-217 (Vancouver) have now been arranged and intellectual control has been asserted over them through the creation of a Finding Aid. Although the Kaatza Station Museum and Archives do not currently have provisions in place to host researchers, if you would like to view the Finding Aid and

“Digging Into History: The Loggers Navy” by John Mountain, Vol. 2 No. 6

The Logger’s Navy: An Essential Tool for Servicing Members – This month, I want to share with you something that I dug out of the bottom of an archive box – operating log books from the Logger’s Navy from the years 1955 to 1957. The Logger’s Navy was a boat that was used by Local

“Digging into History: An Interview with Early Union Activist Ernie Dalskog Part 3” by John Mountain, Vol. 2 No. 5 (May 2020)

Deep Dig for May 2020 Ernie Dalskog: An Interview with an Early Union Activist – This month, I offer the third part of an Ernie Dalskog interview by IWA Historian Clay Perry. In 1979, IWA Legislative Director Clay Perry sat down with Ernie Dalskog to talk for a few hours about his early days as

The Loggers Strike Back! Three Times Forestry Workers Blockaded Environmentalists, by Henry John

I’ve stayed home for all of April, and therefore haven’t had access to the IWA archive. This blog post is created out of media accounts of events, which I can access online. Since the IWA was directly involved in the planning and execution of two of the three blockades narrated here, it’s possible that the

“Digging into History: An Interview with Early Union Activist Ernie Dalskog Part 2” by John Mountain, Vol. 2 No. 4 (April 2020)

Ernie Dalskog: An Interview with an Early Union Activist Part 2 – Last month I brought you the first part of an Ernie Dalskog interview by IWA Historian Clay Perry. In 1979, IWA Legislative Director Clay Perry sat down with Ernie Dalskog to talk for a few hours about his early days as an union

When a Woodworkers’ Union was at the Cutting Edge of Environmentalism, by Henry John

This blog post is based on findings discovered in the records of the International Woodworkers of America Local 1-217’s Vancouver office, currently housed in the Kaatza Station Museum’s IWA Archive in Lake Cowichan. For more information on this archive, follow this link or email hrljohn89@gmail.com. There was a day when forestry workers and environmentalists walked

“Digging into History: An Interview with Early Union Activist Ernie Dalskog Part 1” by John Mountain, Vol. 2 No. 3 (March 2020)

Ernie Dalskog: An Interview with an Early Union Activist Part 1 – In 1979, IWA Legislative Director Clay Perry sat down with Ernie Dalskog to talk for a few hours about his early days as an union activist. Clay Perry was considered an IWA Historian and in addition to holding the Office of Legislative Director

“Digging into History: Health and Safety is a Basic Right!”, by John Mountain, Vol. 2 No. 2 (February, 2020)

Health and Safety is a Basic Right – Between 1983 and 1994, there were 290 fatalities in the forest industry. In 2005, former IWA President Jack Munro called the 41 fatalities recorded that year as “carnage in the woods”. There were more than 2.5 times more fatalities in 2005 than the previous year*. It’s no

“Arrival: My Introduction to the IWA Collection” by Henry John, February 2020

This is my first post of what we hope will become a collaborative public history blog, issued every month by myself, Henry John, and my partner in dusty archival happenings, former IWA Job Evaluator & Technical Advisor John Mountain. We are both currently wrestling with the sorting, arranging, and eventually describing of a vast 150-plus