From Loggers to Foresters: The Newfoundland Overseas Forestry Unit (1939–1946): Wartime Labour, Colonial Politics, and Postwar Recognition

From Loggers to Foresters tells the remarkable and little-known story of the Newfoundland Overseas Forestry Unit (NOFU), a Second World War civilian group of over 3,000 men sent from the Dominion of Newfoundland to the United Kingdom to cut timber in an age still dependent on wood for wartime needs. Their experiences touch on important themes and issues in the history of Newfoundland and Labrador, forming part of a previously unexamined study of the intersection of labour history, migration, colonial politics, citizenship, and national and occupational identity. Drawing on hundreds of primary sources, the author examines the conditions of the men’s work lives during the Great Depression and their experiences and treatment overseas during the war, where they worked alongside other wartime forestry units, as well as the reception they met on their return home. The overt and behind-the-scenes influences of the Commission of Government—Newfoundland’s non-responsible governing entity during the years leading up to and during the war—and the Dominions Office of the UK government, with its growing concern for how to solve the “Newfoundland Question,” are interwoven into this detailed account of the unit’s experiences. From Loggers to Foresters traces a story that spans over a half-century, encompassing the formation of the NOFU in 1939 and the period of its overseas work, as well as the men’s repatriation and reintegration without benefits as the debates about Confederation with Canada waged—all of which set the stage for decades of struggle for recognition of their work overseas. This struggle had an enduring impact on the evolution of the meaning of war service and its attendant benefits within Canada, and it extended to the end of the twentieth century when the status of NOFU members as war veterans was finally, and so belatedly, granted.