People uprooted from Bloedel / Menzies Bay (7)

Bloedel, on the southwest side of Menzies Bay, was established by Bloedel, Stewart & Welch (BS&W) as a logging camp in 1925. The company bought large blocks of forest on Vancouver Island and ran timber and pulp mills. There were multiple camps in the Bloedel area where over 300 men lived and worked. These camps included cookhouses, bunkhouses for workers, repair shops, and offices. Camp One, where the Adachi family lived, was north of Campbell River.

There were also houses for families near the camps. Children from Bloedel and other logging camps in the area attended the Bloedel School. In the spring of 1938, Vancouver Island’s largest recorded fire, The Great Fire or Bloedel Fire, burned out of control for more than thirty days. The BC Government shut down all logging operations in the area, and the evacuated, now unemployed workers were conscripted as fire fighters.