How the West Fraser Story Began

In the summer of 1955, Bill Ketcham, the second of the three sons of Seattle, Washington, lumber broker Henry Holman Ketcham, was about to leave on one of his regular buying trips to the British Columbia Interior for his father’s firm, when, as an afterthought, he asked his younger brother Sam if he wanted to come along.

Of the three brothers, Sam was the youngest. As a student, he had the freedom to take off on a trip. Pete, the eldest, was already a father of two and couldn’t join them.

The forest industry in British Columbia’s Interior was still in its early days, composed mainly of small sawmills deep in the bush and planer mills close to towns and rail lines. On his buying trips, Bill bought lumber by the railcar load to send back to Seattle.

On this particular trip, one of their first stops was a little mill in 100 Mile House, where he wanted to buy three or four railcar loads of lumber. The owner’s reply surprised them: “You guys are trying to buy all my lumber, why not just buy my mill?” he asked.

“And Sam’s eyes just sparkled,” Bill recalled. “Very much to our surprise, this logger who ran the mill was dead serious.” With its rail-side access, the mill fit right in with their brokerage business model. Unfortunately, the deal fell through when another competitor exercised their right of first refusal.

After that initial bid, there was no turning back for the Ketcham brothers. Sam stayed in the Cariboo while Bill returned to Seattle. By September, Sam had his sights on a small business called Two Mile Planing Mills when he learned the owner was ready to sell. It was located on the rail line and was a 12-person operation that could produce 25,000 board feet a day if the bush mills delivered enough rough lumber. The price was $60,000. Sam called his brothers. Bill needed no convincing. Neither did Pete.

However, Bill and Pete were in for a surprise when they travelled up to Quesnel to inspect their new investment. “When we walked into Two Mile, Pete and I said to Sam, ‘What the heck is this?’ It looked like everything was being held together with baling wire, which it probably was. But it was one of the few deals we could finance. We didn’t have tremendously high expectations,” said Bill.

Sam quickly discovered that the crew worked as a family, committed to each other and to getting the job done under the guidance of a 23-year-old employee named Doug Floyd. At Two Mile, he ran the day-to-day operations. He put the financial systems together, managed sales and production, understood the machinery and was a natural leader. For the Ketcham brothers, he became a key adviser — and would go on to be one of the most influential people in the success of West Fraser.

It didn’t take long, however, for the brothers to hear rumours around town that the mill they paid $60,000 for had been bought only a few years earlier for $4,000. The rumours stung, but the Ketchams had an advantage that the previous owners didn’t have. “We sold the lumber out of Seattle right to the trade, so we were getting a premium compared to our competition,” says Bill. Besides, Pete had a quick retort to anyone who questioned the price they paid. “We paid $4,000 for the mill. The rest we paid for Doug Floyd.”

That first year, they made $75,000 on sales of $410,000 — more than enough to pay off the entire purchase price of the mill. During those early years, Sam managed the business, Pete’s vision grew it and Bill sold lumber through their father’s company, sharing what he learned about the lumber business with his brothers.

Seventy years later, the spirit of that first crew — resourceful, ambitious and close-knit — still runs through West Fraser and is reflected in our values and culture. Thanks to generations of employees, the company has grown from a humble planer mill in Quesnel into one of the world’s leading forest products
businesses — a legacy no one could have imagined in 1955.

NOTE This article was written based on an interview with Bill Ketcham in May 2023. Bill passed away in April 2024.