Immigration

There are a number of feature articles about Dutch immigrants that have languished on the drawing boards, awaiting completion during a slack week or even a slow day. Such moments rarely presented themselves anymore as regular issue features became more demanding with fewer people on staff. Below follows an example of such a subject. Previously published in the 2012 Farewell issue of The Windmill Herald

When Canadians think of Dutch immigrants, they generally do not think of them as lumbermen. Yet there are Dutch Canadians who have left their mark in the lumber industry or are still heavily involved in it.

Over the years, the story of Netherlands Overseas Mills Limited (N.O.M.) surfaced off and on in conversations with people, who had lived in the Interior of British Columbia. This Prince George firm was sold by its owner Nick van Drimmelen in the early 1970s, after it had clawed out of receivership, in no small part thanks to the help of its sympathetic receiver.

Forty sawmill operations

Already before immigrating a partner in Houthandel van Drimmelen in the Netherlands, now among the country’s largest lumber traders, N.O.M. founder Nick van Drimmelen bought many portable and other small sawmill operations in BC’s Interior. At one time, he owned as many as 40 of such firms, all valuable for their timer rights, employing as many as 500 people. All located in a huge area between Merritt (where his firm also logged trees on the huge Nicola Valley’s Douglas Lake Ranch), Revelstoke and Prince George. In this central northern BC town Van Drimmelen built a new planer mill to supply BC lumber to the far steadier European market, interestingly, to avoid U.S.A. concessions and price volatility.

Son Peter van Drimmelen, who writes about his family’s N.O.M. history below, still meets people occasionally who fondly remember his father for his help to their community, many of which prospered with Van Drimmelen’s busy sawmills. These communities also benefited from the Dutch immigrant’s drive for better infrastructure, such as roads, so his small fleet of the huge Kenworth trucks could safely deliver their heavy loads to the mills.

Among those who in the past loved to reminisce about Nick van Drimmelen and N.O.M. was the company’s former accountant and comptroller Nick Vandervelden, who felt that lumber industry historians never understood this newcomer who saw so many opportunities the industry’s establishment was missing.

Who among the current or future post graduate students interested in Dutch immigrant and settlement history in Canada will accept the challenge to further research Van Drimmelen’s lumber career and the Dutch who settled in or near BC’s forests and continue to leave their mark such as another Dutch Prince George, B.C.-based lumber pioneer, Veendam-born John Brink? 

What follows is Peter van Drimmelen’s contribution to our 2012 The Windmill Herald’s Farewell Issue:

From barge to lumber

Nicolaas Maarten van Drimmelen was born on Dec 8, 1917 in the small (Southern Dutch, ed.) town of Klundert. His father, Pieter Cornelis van Drimmelen was in the shipping business and used to travel by barge transporting goods back and forth between Germany and Holland and, as circumstances changed, eventually went into the lumber business.

After WWII, my father met many Canadians, who encouraged him to come to Canada where the forests were plentiful. He dreamed of coming to Canada and to eventually ship lumber to Europe.

His first trip to New York was in 1950, Visas were obtained in Ottawa and the following year, at the end of May 1951, he (and his family, ed.) left Holland for New York, aboard the passenger liner Nieuw Amsterdam.

Adventurous trip

Kees Brouwer was a friend of my dad’s and an economist by profession. He had worked for Shell in Indonesia and had returned to the Netherlands after the Netherlands East Indies gained independence. My dad asked him if he would be interested in emigrating to Canada as well. The proposal was accepted and Kees Brouwer and dad agreed to venture out together.

After purchasing a car and tow trailer, the nine of us crossed the United States with our destination being Vancouver, British Columbia. It was a very long but adventurous trip… four adults with 5 children under the age of 9.

During the war, dad had met Harvey McDiarmid, who had lumber interests in the Okanagan Valley. He showed my father this region along with a mill in Lone Butte (located in the Cariboo region, ed.). To the surprise of Harvey, my dad preferred Lone Butte to the Okanagan. My dad knew his lumber and he thought the Okanagan was too dry. So this was the start of the Netherlands Overseas Mills (N.O.M.) Kees Brouwer and his wife Joke lived in the basement of our home where we built a good-sized office.

Consolidation

At this time, dad met Roy Woodland, who was the agent of the railway P.G.E. Roy was of great help and became the manager for all operations around the 100 Mile House. Dutch immigrant Bart van Dijk was hired to run the planer mill in Lone Butte. Fellow immigrants Tony van Kempen ran the operations in Macalister and Chris Mulder was instrumental in hauling equipment from Pitt Meadows up North.

Gradually things improved and expanded. N.O.M. now had a planer mill in Exeter (100 Mile House) and portable sawmills in Horsefly and Crooked Lake. Dad and Roy went to Quesnel***** Large acreage on the lake from an American couple who operated a hunting lodge and who were planning to retire.

My dad met John Whitmer, who joined N.O.M. in 1957. He became the logging superintendent for the N.O.M. operations throughout the Interior and Cariboo. By then N.O.M. had purchased 40 small independent operators.

Back home, the company’s office was moved to Lonsdale Avenue in North Vancouver, and eventually to the main Royal Bank building at Granville and Hastings.

Cracks

N.O.M. hired Keith Holman from MacMillan Bloedel to become Chief Accountant, Dick Stursburg became the Chief Financial Officer, and Hugh Hamilton was Head Forester. Nick Vander Velden moved to Prince George to head up Accounting. Bram Kool was in charge of sales in the Vancouver office.

During these expansion times, N.O.M. set out to purchase operations with Prince George Interior Planer Mills, Norman N. Smith, Swanson Lumber and Prince George Planers. Cracks were, however, starting to form.

BC Premier W.A.C. Bennett was expanding the P.G.E. at an alarming rate to develop the North. In order to finance this endeavour, the government had raised its lumber freight tariffs. These tariffs were much higher than those with CN and CP Railways. Since N.O.M. was highly concentrated on the P.G.E. line, it was struggling to survive. My dad knew the Minister of Highways well and asked if it would be possible to have a meeting with W.A.C. Bennett. After a successful meeting with W.A.C. Bennet, it was decided that the P.G.E. freight tariffs would be dropped.

European market

My dad also became good friends with the Minister of Forestry. There was concern for small sawmill operators, who, when nearing retirement, only had old machinery to sell. In the early 50’s, there were more than 500 sawmills in the Prince George area. My father suggested a quota system whereby an operator would receive something extra if and when he sold his operation.

My dad’s vision was to ship lumber to Europe. He had joined broker ‘Seaboard’ which was a co-op of many operators who together sold lumber to Europe. N.O.M. joined, but wanted to eventually leave and ship lumber on its own.

With the new quota system, dad could see the writing on the wall for these small operators. Pulp mills were being built in Quesnel and Prince George, and the demand for chips was enormous. Small bush mills would become history. Dad decided to sell all operations in B.C., and concentrate in Prince George. His employees were welcome to come to Prince George.

A loan from Roynat, a financial arm of the Royal Bank, was granted. My dad’s plan was to build a large sawmill in the Interior, and to build it to European specifications.

N.O.M. contracted Louis Bidden to build this large mill. Roy Dawson was the B.C. Rail manager who arranged for the 100 acre site. My father’s cousin, Piet Maris, moved up from Merritt to manage the construction of this large operation.

Volkswagen

N.O.M. had by now resigned from Seaboard and started its own negotiations for transporting lumber to Europe. Dad had met the owners of Volkswagen Ships, who shipped vehicles and who had fantastic ventilation systems. They returned to Germany empty. He obtained a contract with them to ship lumber to Europe.

N.O.M. was operating and cutting almost 80% of its lumber for Europe. This lumber was rough sawn with very thin strips put between each layer of lumber. It was strapped and sent to Vancouver Wharves, where they built a dip tank on the property. Each lift of the lumber was totally submerged into the dip tank before being loaded onto the VW ships. The ventilation would be running and the lumber was drying during the trip. It was an ingenious idea which no one had ever attempted to do.

Missing Letter

Dad made an arrangement with a very successful agent in Europe who sold all this wood through a financier. After each ship was loaded, N.O.M. would receive a letter of credit prior to leaving the dock. One day, after a ship was loaded, Dad was informed that there was no letter of credit. He decided to ship the lumber to his brother in Holland, who could at least unload and store it for N.O.M. This was not a success. With all lumber cut to European standards, and no dry kilns on the BCR property, N.O.M. production had to be converted to US standards. All lumber was now being trucked to the downtown Prince George planers that N.O.M. had acquired previously, with a huge extra cost.

It was a difficult time and the situation was not good and Roynat called the loan. A good friend of my father, Greg McKeown, was the Royal Bank Manager. He arranged for Ian Bell, from Touche Ross, to be appointed as the Receiver for N.O.M. This was a huge blow for my father.

Small profits

At this time, Canfor was anxious to pick up N.O.M. at a reduced price but it was refused by the Minister of Forestry. This gave N.O.M. some desperately needed breather space. Ian Bell liked the management people that N.O.M. had. He asked Manager John Whitmer, Superintendent Bob Lundblom, Sales Manager Roy Barret and Forester Harvey Anderson to come up with a conservative plan to operate the mill at about 60% production, and what price they would need to make a small profit. This plan was approved.

Each month the mill made some profit. By the spring of 1968 our sales manager wanted to leave his position and dad was anxious to see me get the job. It was approved by Ian Bell, the Receiver. The company was making record profits, due to the increase in lumber prices.

Things were going well, and N.O.M. was able to pay all of its debts and suppliers. Dad now owned the mill again. He was able to make arrangements with bankers to sell 10% of his remaining shares to John Whitmer.

N.O.M. sold

Around December 1970, or January 1971, dad got an offer from Balfour Guthrie, which was almost too good to be true. He struggled with this however, but after his family urged him to do so, my dad finally accepted the offer to sell N.O.M.

John Whitmer agreed to stay on for a five year contract. Dad stayed in touch with John for the remaining years. Following a time of illness, Nicolaas Maarten van Drimmelen passed away in 1988.

I am proud of what my dad accomplished in Canada. I think of him every day, and i will miss him forever.

Peter C. van Drimmelen.

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Cultivating ‘patches’ of heath remained a challenge for several generations of descendants to then heath-dweller Jacob Alberts, who when living at Noorderdragten 278 in the Frisian/Dutch municipality of Smallingerland in 1811, officially declared his surname to be Van der Heide.  Along this Noorderdragten route Jacob Alberts was not the only one to opt for the surname Van der Heide; there were four more families to do so, none of them related.  Heath could be found throughout the eastern parts of the province of Friesland, no doubt an influence in surname adoption since over 70 families decided they wanted to be known by that identity.

To carve out a living on the heath is generally not considered to be evidence of great prosperity. In fact most heath-dwellers may have been squatters on nearby communities’ common sheep grazing land (in Dutch ‘marke gronden’ commonly owned by farmers.)  If a squatter could overnight complete a sod hut and have smoke arise from its ‘chimney’, he would have secured the right to reside there. This raised the questions, ‘Had Oldeberkoop-born farmer’s son Jacob Alberts fallen into poverty’, and, ‘Was he a squatter?’  The answers are not definite, so likely a mixture of yes and no as documents show that he was a day labourer but one who resided on heath owned by his father-in-law Lieuwe Fokes, a peat fuel bargeman and merchant.

These circumstances, ironically, made Jacob Alberts van der Heide, living and working at his in-laws owned peatbogs, where he would have dug up heath-covered bogs to be sold as heating fuel, by necessity a combatant of heath. Some years later, his younger son Meine van der Heide worked the soil at an Ommerschans, Overijssel institutional farm, soil that had been heath until a few years before he settled on it. It seems, that the Van der Heide generations were never far from former heaths.  Records show that grandson Jacobus van der Heide, whose wife Jantien was born on a peat fuel barge (in Dutch a ‘turfschip’), also farmed on former heath-covered bog land in distant Lutten. Also the next generation, greatgrandson Antonie Albertus van der Heide farmed on former heath fields near Rheezerveen and Heemse, Hardenberg. In fact, in A.A.’s working years, he actually turned two separate heath-covered properties into productive farms. Three of Jacob Alberts’ greatgrandsons, A.A.’s sons Hilbert, Jacobus and Meine turned near Ommen separately in the late 1930s, in an estimated total, more heath acreage into productive land than all the previous generations here named combined.  Much of that former heath spread remains in the family and now belongs to an estate, in Dutch ‘landgoed’, known as Den Woesten Heide, home to a flourishing tree farm, to lush pasture, and annual crops such as potatoes, grain and grass seed.

Much has changed in the country between the years 1811 and 2011. Most former heath covered bogs, moors and marginal sandy regions by far have become significant contributors to a vast Dutch agricultural output. It is great that some of Jacob Alberts van der Heide’s descendants have a share in that national success story but it is also very appropriate that the heide / heather / heath / Erica ‘roots’ are kept alive, after all we hail from ‘Den Woesten Heide.’

Photo: Heather with hundreds of tiny bell blossoms in full bloom at a walkway overpass location, a continent away in North Vancouver, BC, Canada, taken January 2017.

P.S. Descendants of Jacob Albert van der Heide have spread far and wide.  Son Albert lived out his days in Makkinga, Friesland. Son Lieuwe raised his family in nearby Groningen. Son Roelof’s branch settled in its entirety in Michigan, as did two of Meine’s children but most remained in NE Overijssel.  Today’s generations can also be found in Canada and Australia.

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The customer, an older woman, clearly wanted to stretch the conversation when she was finished placing her order for a birth tile to memorialize the latest addition to her multi-generational family. Do you know anything about the roots of my surname, she inquired. “I am certain you never heard of mine.” She was right in her assumption. Doodkorte, a name which could be translated as “Dead short” or more literally “Shortdead”, is not a common Dutch surname.

The English translation of these two strung together Dutch words, “Dead” and “short” do not offer a clue as to their meaning nor do “Dood” and “korte” into the Dutch language. The customer did not know anything about their meaning either.

Asked what part of the Netherlands her family was from, the answer “from the north”, was somewhat helpful. Doodkorte would definitely not be an indigenous surname in Friesland or Groningen. If it is not Dutch, is must have an origin from across the border, in Germany. At this point, an awareness of ancestor migration patterns is helpful.

Over the centuries, the Netherlands, before 1795 a collection of semi-independent provinces, attracted numerous seasonal workers and peddlers. The Dutch called them “Hannekemaaiers” and “lapjespoepen”. Many of these men eventually stayed and integrated into Dutch society.

What your name? Todtkotte! In former times when literacy was not as common among the labourers and the peddlers, it would not help to ask them to spell their surname. Clerks just recorded the information the way it sounded to them. Oh, Doodkorte.

The Dutch Doodkorte clan hails indeed from Germany and has been traced back to a man name Gerardi Todtkorte, who lived in Epe, Westphalia, the German county where many peddlers of the farm-based cottage industry textile came from. A farmer, Gerardi died in 1730. His oldest son, Johan Herman, settled in the Netherlands. (His other sons were known back home as Doetkotte.)

Westphalia belongs to the Dutch/German region where the Saxon dialect was spoken. The Saxon noun “kotte” suggests that Gerardi lived on a small farmstead which way back became known as the Todtkotte. But why Todtkorte? Why “todt” (‘dood’ or ‘dead’)? The known records do not say but area history may well offer clues if investigated further. Does the name suggest that it was long ago the site of a murder, a place where the remains of foul play were found or the site where Saxon tribes brought pre-Christian era sacrifices? These suggestions are all very plausible.

In this Dutch-German region farmstead names were in fact ancient addresses, they can easily be 800 to 1000 old and frequently precede archived documentation but always point to an early occupant or history. Since surnames often precede recorded genealogical data, it follows that they may be seen as the archeology of genealogy.

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