Western Red Cedar (Thuja plicata) is among the largest and finest of cedars grown anywhere in the world, its heartwood being famous for resistance to decay. In its many uses from shingles, lumber, posts to boats it remains highly attractive in natural coloring and pleasant to smell. Red Cedar trees with their swollen bases have reached 20-ft. diameters - broadest of northwest trees.

Around 1900, Captain J.C. Voss purchased an ordinary 38-ft. Red Cedar dugout canoe from Vancouver Island Indians. Adding a cabin and three small masts, he sailed it 40,000 miles to circumnavigate the globe. The Northwest Indians were master craftsmen at constructing Red Cedar canoes, which they made by the thousands.

Over a century later we are still utilizing the Western Red Cedar, our renewable natural resource, and gaining many benefits from its use.