Paula White
Northern News Services

NNSL (Dec 23/98) - Serge Mercier is one popular guy these days.

Maybe it's because he supplies firewood to people with wood stoves. And as the temperature drops, the more popular he becomes.

"I try to keep a stockpile here so that when they need it, they got it," Mercier said. "I had about 15 cords, but they disappeared really quick."

Mercier, owner of Knotty Pine, has been cutting firewood part-time on weekends for about the past two years. He worked full-time at Miramar Con Mine. Since the mine workers have been on strike, however, he began selling firewood full-time.

Getting the wood is not an easy process. Mercier has to travel about 38 kilometres into the bush, on a road that he basically had to make fit to travel himself. He fit a steel beam on the back of a tractor and then drove over the road again and again, smoothing it down so he could drive his truck on it.

But even the trip to get to the road isn't easy.

"It's a good five or six hours from here to drive," he said. "So it takes most of the day just to get there."

Once Mercier gets to the bush, it takes him about two days to cut enough pine trees to make four cords. He said one cord is about 22 trees. Mercier added that a tree is dry enough to be cut when the needles are brown as opposed to green. The trees are located near his campsite.

"I made my own roads in there to bring my trailer in so I don't have to carry the trees out," he said.

Mercier then hauls the wood back to town and spends about two more days cutting it up into 14-inch lengths for firewood. All in all, he makes about two trips into the bush a week.

Since the temperatures began getting colder, Mercier has no shortage of orders to fill. He charges $180 for a cord of "bucked up" or stove-length wood.