"Sawmill from past at Poplar Dale", Sault Star Clipping, 1975

Asam Brothers Lumber, nestled among grassy hills beside a clear-running stream through Poplar Dale, hustles through morning. Noon approaches but this hasn't registered yet.

Daisy Mae and Freddy, two Belgian horses. 11 and six years old stand placidly beneath the ancient buildings They are waiting for the wagons and old "Mac" MacTavish who guides them with a firm hand and a high nasal voice.

Asam owners of the sawmill, one of the last steam-powered operations in the country, keep the mill "live, processing 150,00 to 200,000 board feet of maple and yellow birch annually. cut from nearby forest and handled with horses and a log Jammer, an A-shaped contrivance which runs only on flesh-and-blood power.

The Sawmill, started in the 1930's, was built during the depression with whatever parts could be scrounged. The Asams (purchased it in the early 50's and have lived from it since then.

Presently it's a five-man operation and could use two more. says Paul Asam. Once the logs are lined up behind the mill two of the men feed them to the sawer, another handles the edger and cuts the slabs. The fifth man piles new boards according to grade on each of the three wagons parked outside the building.

Most of their lumber goes to bowling alleys in the United States. They used to sell some lumber for veneer but find now it isn't worth the trouble so all of their cut goes through their own mill.

A plant like Weyerhaeuser does 25 or 30 million board feet a year. The Asams keep their steam operation running only about three months of the year, mostly during May. June and July, and in the fall They laugh at the comparison and point out that an automated mill elsewhere in the same Poplar Dale neighborhood now considered a big operation would chew up their annual production in a matter of days and with only one man to run it.

The mill is fueled by its own sawdust. The horses which they use on their timber limits about 20 miles away burn about a ton of oats a month in winter. The Asams live in a house overlooking the mill site. They built the house themselves, and the furniture.

At noon the plant shuts down. It has run since about 7:30. It's five-foot wide, wood-laminated drive wheel stops. A little bird like thing, an up-sidedown "V" over the piston spins quietly, the only movement in the building.

Around one, Paul Asam will come and oil the machinery and at about 1:30 they'll start up again and work until suppertime.