In 1918, the activities of World War I included the harvest of Sitka Spruce in Oregon and Washington by the "Spruce Production Division of the U.S. Army." The objectives of this group of army and civilian personnel were railroad construction, timber cutting and shipping, road construction, and production of finished spruce in large quantities for the building of airplanes for the United States and her allies.

In remote areas logs were driven by wedges and jacks to make transportation possible. The cants seldom weighed less than 2–3 tons each. This scene shows a couple of these cants plus a large butt-cut log on a "motor truck with trailer." These trucks played an important role in getting distant cants and logs to the railroads. Miles of planked roads were built to reach isolated sections of the Pacific Northwest coastal forests.