Fishing for Trees in the Ottawa River

During one of my visits to Custom Home Interiors, I learned something rather interesting from one of the products they carry: wood floors planks from Logs End. This Ottawa-based company "fishes" logs from the Ottawa river, processes and distributes them in the form of wood floors and wood paneling amongst other things. Ottawa used to be "one of the mightiest logging rivers in the world" and an estimated 14 billion logs floated down the rivers to be distributed in Ottawa, Quebec and even Europe. 2 to 5% of these logs were "lost" in the river at the time. Now these "lost" logs, preserved over the years by the cold water, the lack of natural light and lack of oxygen at the bottom of the river, they are being recovered to be sold.

This is a very eco friendly way to obtain wood from very old trees. They simply fish them out of the river. There are many available wood species based on what was found. It's really like a treasure hunt. Check out the following video for more.