Over its 40-year history, Junction Lumber Products has continued to expand its mill facilities, including its lumber breakdown systems and its lumber product lines.

Situated at Gloucester Junction, west of Bathurst, New Brunswick, Junction Lumber maintains year-round employment for 20 employees and boosts that number to more than 30 in the busy summer and autumn seasons.

Its origins date back to 1986, when Dale Boucher and his brother, Blair, purchased an old turndown carriage mill and set it up on their grandfather’s property at Gloucester Junction.

Dale worked as a millwright, and Blair worked as an operator in the northern New Brunswick mine camps. Initially, the brothers mixed their mining careers with operating the sawmill on a part-time basis. Together, they operated the sawmill with a few employees in the formative years, and added workers as the business grew. In 1992, Dale quit mining to manage the sawmill full time.

“We had young families and not a lot of money to invest in the sawmill,” he recalls. “My millwright skills were very important for rebuilding used mill equipment and keeping it operational. We purchased very little in the way of new equipment—we mostly picked up used pieces and fixed them up and made it work.”

Because there were established mills in their region sawing spruce and fir, the Bouchers decided to focus on sawing eastern white cedar. Their product focus was profiled 6 by 6 interlocking cabin logs, and marketing log cabin kits.

Junction Lumber stopped making complete log cabin kits in 2018, but still has the capacity to produce cabin logs as custom orders.

Dale explained that the 6 by 6 timbers were air dried for a year, and then profiled with a modified four-sided planer, which he had purchased for $2,500.

Sawing timbers also generated other lumber, which was marketed locally as decking, cladding and other products.

Initially, the cedar log supply was entirely from private woodlot operations. In 2010, Junction Lumber purchased a failing cedar mill, along with its Crown allocation. Currently, Junction Lumber holds the largest Crown lands cedar allocation in New Brunswick.

Eastern White Cedar (EWC) grows throughout the Acadian Forest, most often in single species stands, commonly in wet sites. EWC is less often identified in more dry upland sites, mixed with other tree species. A determining element for the establishment and growth of EWC is a supply of calcareous (limestone in solution) water supply.

Eastern White Cedar is noted for its rot and degrading pest resistance. The lumber machines well, typically has tight knots, minimal splintering and it stains and paints effectively. Left without stain or paint, EWC naturally fades to a warm grey shade, and is noted to last for many decades as shingles and other exterior applications.

In eastern Canada, Eastern White Cedar is a preferred species for decking and landscaping applications due to its rot-resistance qualities. Cedar qualities also make it a preferred species for privacy fencing and outdoor furniture and decorative applications such as lattice work.

In 1999, Junction Lumber acquired a newer used carriage and installed it in a new building with an expanded millyard on the same property, and continued to produce cabin logs. In 2010, Junction acquired and installed a used twin saw to replace the carriage breakdown equipment.

Dale Boucher’s son, Kris Boucher, was born in 1988 and grew up involved in the production and management sides of Junction Lumber, and he currently serves as general manager.

Kris provided a comprehensive tour of the milling and pallet manufacturing operation. The mill operation was clean and neat, with appropriate guarding around mechanical components. The pallet assembly areas were somewhat crowded.

On delivery, cedar logs are stick-scaled by Kris, Monday through Friday, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Late arrivals with self loaders are invited to pile their loads down in the wood yard, and logs are scaled the following day.

Junction’s log handling equipment includes a Cat M322C material handler, with a tandem trailer to recover logs from storage, and deliver to the mill infeed deck. A Prentice ATL625 supports the Cat to handle truck unloading in the wood yard.

“The trailer with the Cat loader was constructed in-house from a pup of a B-Train,” explains Kris. “We build and modify a lot of the equipment we use in the yard as well as in the mill. My father’s millwright talents are continually put to work on projects.”

All cedar is delivered as eight-foot logs. The woodyard has capacity for around 3,000 cords. Since 2023, Junction Lumber has also been sawing poplar for components for pallet manufacturing.

The winter of 2025-2026 saw strong deliveries of cedar logs. Kris surmised that softwood lumber tariffs and market instability for softwood lumber has resulted in less production from spruce plantations, and more operations in natural stands, which includes areas of cedar.

From the infeed deck, logs deliver to a Morbark C16 debarker, and debarked logs travel into the upper floor of the sawmill building. The initial breakdown is by the twin saw, which Kris speculates was manufactured by Coté in Quebec. The saw has 36-inch main saws and 28-inch top saws. The sawyer evaluates individual logs and sets the saws for either three-inch, four-inch or five-inch cants, to recover the best quality lumber and the optimum volume recovery.

Slabs for the twin saw are either directed to a drop chute to the basement if they are less than ten inches wide, with slabs greater than ten-inch directed to the bull edger to reduce to six-inch width, and then dropped to basement.

A Wood-Mizer HR1000 saws out the slabs to recover quality lumber, with the residue fed to the chipper.

The cants from the twin saw are transferred to the fourteen-saw bull edger and the operator (with laser light guidance), sets the saw for highest recovery and highest quality.

Lumber from the bull edger lands on a tilt table which feeds to the trim saw.

Junction Lumber’s cedar and poplar bark and chips are supplied to Envirem Organics in Miramichi, New Brunswick, for mulch products. Sawdust is shipped to Shaw Resources in Belledune for incorporation in wood pellet manufacturing. The residue products are loaded into trailers, with a Case 621D wheel loader. The Case loader also dresses for snow plowing in season, and can also be fit with forks for handling products.

Junction Lumber’s forklift chores are handled with a pair of Kubota R420S, articulated loaders. A Thomas skid steer with pallet forks fits in as a handy handler in the operation.

The manual green chain is in the basement, and lumber is sorted according to size. All cedar lumber produced by Junction is contracted to Marwood Industries reman facilities in Tracy, in central New Brunswick.

Marwood operates a comprehensive manufacturing facility, which includes cedar lumber components for lumber, residential privacy fencing and landscaping products.

Marwood cedar lumber product lists include posts and post caps, boards, rails, molded pickets, a variety of board (fence) panels and a variety of lattice panel products.

Reciprocally, the Marwood operation remans softwood lumber products supplied from regional softwood sawmills, and supplies a number of softwood pallet components to Junction’s pallet manufacturing operation.

Junction Lumber began manufacturing pallets in 2023, with a Pallet Chief pallet machine. Junction began (primarily) supplying the regional peat moss production industry. In 2023, they supplied 23,000 pallets to the peat moss industry, which ships globally.

In 2025, Junction added two more Pallet Chief machines and added the fourth in 2025. The 2025 pallet production was 105,000 pallets. Pallet manufacturing has grown to the point that Junction has made the decision to move the pallet manufacturing off the sawmill site to a separate operation, and repurpose its buildings.

“We can gain a lot of efficiencies in our pallet manufacturing in a facility which focuses exclusively on pallets,” explained Kris. “It will allow us to efficiently stage the components, streamline assembly and better organize product storage and shipping.”

Junction’s equipment inventory includes a dual one-ton truck and fifth-wheel trailer which is used to make pallet deliveries to peat moss producers.

When Junction began pallet manufacturing, they also started sawing poplar logs for pallet components. In 2025, they sawed nearly one thousand cords of poplar, which was supplied from private woodlots and Crown land supply.

“We can change our saw line in just a half-hour to switch from cedar to poplar,” says Kris. “This past autumn (2025) we also had the opportunity to get some fire-damaged softwood logs. The Old Field Road wildfire burned out of control several weeks in the past summer. We were able to process the logs for pallet stock, since we do not supply pulp chips to mills. Some soot and charcoal residue is allowable for mulch products, but definitely not for pulp.

“Currently, we have pallet machines set up in separate buildings, and the manufacturing system is crowded, and not very efficient. But this year, we plan to move our entire pallet manufacturing and component storage to an off-site facility. The move will increase our production efficiency for pallets, and it will allow us to repurpose the space for sawmill and equipment uses.”