Abergeldie – site of former Canadian Forestry Corps Camp
Alistair Cassie kindly accompanied and showed the location of the camp in among the trees below the south Deeside Road.
Abergeldie Camp was manned by Nos 22 and 24 Companies of the Canadian Forestry Corps, No 22 Company arriving in Ballater 20 Jan 1942. Men from Companies 2, 3, 4, 13 and 16 assisted with construction of the camp from late 1941. No 24 Company arrived at Abergeldie on 30 March 1942. By mid 1944 the two Companies had moved on either overseas or back home.
The site in view is down on a much lower level below that of the camp site above. This was obviously the location for dumping the sawdust and the wood off cuts that would not convert into slabs or be used as firewood. Alistair recalls that over the years the bings have reduced in size considerably and now just a fraction of their original dimensions.
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Groups: Canadian and Newfoundland sawmillers in Scotland, Northeast Scotland , Sawmills, pulp mills, chipboard mills, War time constructions and defence structures in woods and forests
2 Comments
The only thing that was different was the method of driving the highly mechanised saw mill.
Most were driven by an International diesel engine but at Mar Lodge a steam engine worked there.
Now, the steam engines were fed by sawdust and wood cuttings which consumed the waste, but this meant that a diesel driven mill was always left with a large sawdust dump.
This leads me on to another photo shown of iron cylinders. At Abergeldie, there are two different shaped cylinders. Ones as shown in your photo which may have been hut stoves and others that were smaller and were the actual gondolas that ran on an endless cable carrying the sawdust from the saw mill out to the dump area over high A frames. The soldiers fixed triggers on these frames to tip the sawdust out as the tip covered more and more of the ground. When I visited this camp in 2009, these A frames were still standing and I have a set of photos from that time. Comment left on 26 January 2020 at 16:57 by Ian Stuart Douglas Cameron
On Deeside in the early 1940's there were 6 Canadian Forestry Corps logging camps.
One at Blackhall, Banchory. Two camps on Ballogie Estate, One on an island of the River Dee at Glentanar. The one at Abergeldie in photo, and another extensive camp at Mar Lodge.
Because this was a Canadian Army operation, most of the saw mills and equipment were standardised. If you visited one camp, it was easy to find your way around the rest.
The only thing that was Comment left on 26 January 2020 at 16:23 by Ian Stuart Douglas Cameron