1940’s Lumber Industry Kills the California Redwood Forest

Redwood Saga examines the history of the logging industry as it pertains to the beautiful California redwood forest. The film includes breathtaking footage of these lush landscapes in the 1940s, where trees spanned upwards 350 feet in the air. But this is not a nature appreciation film, because the next thing seen after the beautiful redwood forest footage is the measuring and preproduction process used to transform the beautiful trees into wood products! Axe wielding workers take pride in scaffolding the giant trees and cutting them down. The many steps of the lumber production process are documented, from chopping to moving to manufacturing the end product: specialty wood products like furniture for American homes. Included is tons of interesting information about the logging industry: images of forestry equipment and forestry supplies, such as booms, donkey engines, and flatcars are filmed, and the millponds where the lumber is stored is shown in great detail. As the narrator says, “The Redwood trees of California are probably the oldest living trees,” making this film a valuable historical documentation of logging in the redwood forest, an industry now clouded with environmental concern.