Blakely Pacific Limited History

Sustainable forest management, integrity, honesty, and being a good corporate citizen, are four of the springboard values for Blakely Pacific Ltd.

Blakely Pacific Limited is a New Zealand forestry company with its roots in the historic Northwest of the United States where its head office resides. In New Zealand the main office is based in Christchurch. There are two branch offices, one in the North Island at Tauranga and in the South Island at Timaru. Blakely Pacific prides itself in keeping the old values of loyalty to staff and customers alike and honest business practices as alive today in the 21st century as it did when founded in the 1800's.

Port Blakely Tree Farms, its parent company in Seattle, Washington, had its beginnings in 1864 when the colourful historic sea captain from Nova Scotia, Captain Renton, opened his sawmill on Bainbridge Island in the Puget Sound areas of Washington State and this became the site of the Port Blakely Mill Company, once the worlds largest sawmill under one roof. During the early days, the company was involved in shipbuilding and the marketing and shipping of timber. During the time that the parent company, Port Blakely Mill Company, was shipping wood all over the world, many cargoes found their way to New Zealand. The timber was used for mining timber in the Otago Gold Rush and many of the government buildings in both New Zealand and Australia were built with timber from Port Blakely.

Port Blakely was sold to the present owners, the Eddy Family, in 1903. When the sawmill burnt down in 1924, it was never re-built, but the company retained ownership of extensive timber holdings through Washington State.

In New Zealand, Blakely Pacific owns or manages a total of 27,472 hectares, of which 4005 hectares is located in the North Island and 23,467 hectares in the South Island. In addition to the fast growing, short rotation Radiata Pine species, Blakely Pacific grow Eucalyptus and Douglas Fir. Some other species include Macrocarpa, Lusitannica, Ponderosa Pine, Corsican Pine, Cedar & Larch.