Musical revue on logging coming this way

A $50,000 provincial grant will enable a multimedia musical revue celebrating B.C.’s logging history to tour the province again this fall.

Good Timber: Songs and Stories of the Western Logger, a stage musical, will be performed in Kamloops Oct. 23-24.

Inspired by the logger poetry of Robert E. Swanson, B.C.’s Bard of the Woods, the show is a spirited depiction of life in the logging camps and communities central to the cultural legacy of forestry in the province.

The show, which premiered two years ago at the Royal B.C. Museum, is produced by Victoria-based Other Guys Theatre Co. Singers, musicians and actors perform against a backdrop featuring rarely seen images from the provincial archives.

Last spring, the show had a short tour. This summer it runs at Vancouver’s Firehall Arts Centre, Aug. 7-19, before continuing on to Kelowna, Kamloops and Prince George.

This latest tour helps to mark the centennial year of the B.C. Forest Service. In each community it visits, the company plans to work local museums to celebrate regional history as it relates to logging.

“This is a creative way of telling the fascinating story of B.C.’s forest history,” said Steve Thomson, minister of forests, lands and natural resource operations. “It is a fitting tribute as we celebrate 100 years of forestry excellence in British Columbia.”