Finding Work In the Forest while Living Aboard in Alaska

We live aboard our 80-foot sailboat year-round in Alaska, and one of the things we love about this life is the people and places we stumble into along the way. After helping Sterling and Aaron of Second Growth Homes raise an A-frame in Southeast Alaska, we were invited out to the logging and milling operation Sterling runs alongside his dad, Gordon, near Tenakee Springs. And Gordon has a story. He spent nearly 50 years as a builder before moving to Tenakee 26 years ago. After years of bringing lumber north from Washington and Oregon, he started questioning why they were importing wood while living in the middle of one of the greatest timber-producing regions in the world. He bought an old sawmill, eventually moved into logging and milling, and today he and Sterling work together harvesting and milling local Southeast Alaska timber. Their operation takes the process nearly from beginning to end. They selectively harvest timber through Forest Service timber sales, mill Sitka spruce and Alaska yellow cedar themselves, fill custom orders, and even built a barge and have a towboat to get lumber out to customers around Southeast Alaska. On the day we visited, they were in the middle of a large order of Alaska yellow cedar. With plenty of lumber left to mill, Scott got put to work learning Gordon's hydraulic Wood-Mizer while Sterling and the crew kept the Mobile Dimension mill running on the other side of the shed. For Scott, who has his own history with logging and sawmilling back on the Kenai Peninsula, it felt a little like finding a piece of home in another corner of Alaska. Living aboard isn't always about sailing. Sometimes it's about where the boat takes us, the people we meet when we get there, and the lives and stories we're lucky enough to step into for a little while. This is our second collaboration with Second Growth Homes, and really just an introduction to Sterling, Gordon and what they're building here in Southeast Alaska. We have a feeling there is a lot more to this story. Thanks for coming along. ⚓ The Alaskan Gypsy Life Living aboard and exploring Alaska, four seasons a year. Chapters: 00:00 Life Aboard Takes Us Into the Forest 01:48 Inside a Southeast Alaska Sawmill 05:23 Meet Gordon 06:07 Logging & Milling in Southeast Alaska 08:26 Gordon’s Story: From Builder to Logger 10:22 A Big Alaska Yellow Cedar Order 12:09 Why Yellow Cedar? 14:28 How They Harvest Local Timber 16:33 Can We Finish the Order Today? 18:09 What’s Next for the Sawmill 19:59 Scott Gets to Work 23:08 Milling Alaska Yellow Cedar 24:18 Finding a Rhythm 24:59 Two Sawmills Running 26:04 What Makes Yellow Cedar So Special 28:53 The Final Stack 29:59 We’re Done!