Fort St. John Pilot Project - Canfor

Canfor is a story of people; about how two entrepreneurs created an enterprise that grew from a modest beginning to become one of Canada's major forest products companies. The company traces its roots to the late 1930s, when brothers-in-law John G. Prentice and L.L.G. "Poldi" Bentley and their families left their native Austria as the clouds of war gathered over Europe. Only months after settling in Vancouver, John Prentice and Poldi Bentley form a furniture and paneling veneer company calling it Pacific Veneer. They build a small mill, which employs 28 people, on the banks of the Fraser River in New Westminster, B.C. In 1939, Pacific Veneer becomes a supplier of plywood for aviation and marine applications, as well as Douglas fir plywood and the mill soon employs 1,000 men and women. The two men lay the foundation for a business that could grow. And they have already begun to integrate their operations, creating a company that could rely on its own internal strengths.