Lavern Heideman & Sons Limited

Lavern Heideman started working the land in farming and logging with his 4 sons in Eganville, Ontario, Canada over 50 years ago. What started out a family business remains a family business as Lavern Heideman & Sons Limited continues with their third generation of running logging operations.

Fifty years ago, the process of logging was quite a bit different than it is today. Lavern and his sons, Dale, Ray, Eddie and Earl would walk through the bush, no matter the amount of snow, because that was the only way to access the trees. The family would cut, limb and top off the trees manually. Often times, 4 foot pulpwood would need to be manually stacked onto trucks and rail cars by hand. Even then, sustainability was in the forefront of Lavern’s mind. He would assess the wood on the land by realizing that if they could clean up the bush and leave certain trees, that they would shortly be a good saw log someday. He passed this knowledge and values onto his four sons, which continues today. Slowly, the Heideman’s bought a skidder to help with the process of removing the trees from the bush. Then they hired a few local men and bumped up production, which turned into the purchase of a second skidder.

Lavern recognized the potential within the forests of the Ottawa Valley and created Lavern Heideman & Sons Limited in 1974.  Over the next two years, harvesting production increased and the first mill was operational in 1976