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Archival description
Fonds Bernard Levesque
CA ON00402 BL · Fonds · 1963

The fonds contains photographic documents relating to the trial of the lumbermen accused of unlawful assembly following the shooting that took place at Reesor Siding, during the night of February 11, 1963. Located 55 kilometers west of Kapuskasing, Reesor Siding was a railroad siding, where pulpwood had been stalked. The wood had been cut and pilled by non-unionized woodsmen, settlers’ cutting permits licensees and members of the Coopérative forestière de Val Rita, a forestry cooperative. The lumbermen on strike were employees of the Spruce Falls Power and Paper Company in Kapuskasing and the Kimberly Clark Pulp and Paper in Longlac and were members of locals 2995 and 2693 of the Lumber and Sawmill Workers Union. They were going to Reesor Siding to bring down the pilled wood so that it wouldn’t get to the Spruce Falls paper mill in Kapuskasing. Upon the arrival of the strikers, members of the cooperative opened fire. Three strikers were killed, eight were wounded.

Levesque, Bernard