THE RESOURCES ARE ALREADY WITHIN REACH.
Investing in Northwestern Ontario’s forest sector starts with access — and not only to fibre. It’s access to sustainably available wood, an established mill and industry base, trades and research already organized around forestry, and transportation routes that move finished product to market.
The six categories below are what an investor gains access to on day one — not what they’d have to build first.
38M m3
of new growth a year across Northern Ontario’s forests
1.36M m3/yr
sustainable hardwood available, Thunder Bay region
77%
of Crown forest independently certified (SFI / FSC)
forest policy
Fibre here is held under Sustainable Forest Licences issued through the Crown Forest Sustainability Act — long-term, renewable tenure over a defined management unit, not an allocation that gets re-tendered out from under a mill partner. The province has modernized the tenure system and streamlining approvals rather than tightening them. This means that companies have certainty of where they will harvest today, tomorrow and ten years from now.
77%
of Crown forest independently certified (SFI / FSC)
fibre supply
Northern Ontario’s forests add roughly 38 million cubic metres of new growth every year against a harvest of about 15 million — a standing surplus, not a shortfall to manage around. Within that surplus the hardwood opportunity is sharpest: in the Thunder Bay area alone, 1.1 million cubic metres of poplar and 260,000 cubic metres of birch are available annually on a sustainable basis, species most of the region’s existing mills were never built to use. That capacity isn’t a projection — it’s already growing, waiting on its next user.
1.36M m3/yr
sustainable hardwood (poplar & birch), Thunder Bay region
industry base
The region runs an integrated cluster around Thunder Bay: large and mid-size sawmills, two pulp mills, two engineered-wood plants, two pellet mills, and two biomass power plants, most within a short haul of one another. A new entrant can draw on existing woodlands operations, established chip and residual flows, and Sustainable Forest Licence holders already moving wood at scale — the supply chain a comparable project would build from zero elsewhere is already running here.
Large & mid-size sawmills2 pulp mills2 engineered-wood plants2 pellet mills2 biomass power plants
support network
Logging contractors, haulers, millwrights, and the equipment and civil firms that keep a forest operation running have served this region’s forestry and mining sectors side by side for generations, with local apprenticeship and skilled-trades training keeping that bench filled. That capacity reaches well past forestry: Thunder Bay’s rail-manufacturing base and its mining-services sector support a deep bench of fabrication, machining, and engineering firms well suited to turning toward a new forest-sector build.
Logging contractorsMillwrightsFabricationRail manufacturingEngineering firms
innovation
Boreal Springboard’s job is less to add new infrastructure than to connect founders straight into what’s already running. A founder working with the Springboard gets introduced to people and equipment already doing the relevant work, not routed into something built from scratch.
market access
Thunder Bay sits at a transportation crossroads where CN and CP rail, a Great Lakes marine port, and the Trans-Canada Highway converge — direct routing to the U.S. Midwest, western Canada, and southern Ontario’s manufacturing base, with the U.S. itself just across the lake. For a producer, that’s a shorter path from mill gate to customer than building the same footprint somewhere landlocked.
Unlocking the Complete Regional Ecosystem
Participants in our programs get curated access to both the forest industry and the key components of the innovation ecosystem through our Sector Map: key capacities and managers are detailed, complemented by industry advisors and mentors.