Logs End: Reclaimed Wood Flooring

River Run Pine - Red Mahogany Stain 

Mill Run Birch - Early American Stain

River Run Pine - Natural

Floating logs down the Ottawa River, Circa 1800

Reclaimed wood flooring usually means that the wood is salvaged from old barn walls and floor joists from demolition sites. At Logs End they are utilizing the retrieval of lost lumber from the 19th-century logging days of the Ottawa Valley in Canada. Of roughly 14 billion logs that floated down the Ottawa River  an estimated 2-5% were lost as they sunk to the bottom each year. And they remained that way until 1997 when Logs End, with the help of historical logging maps and advanced underwater sonar technology, began its operation. Their scuba team locates and carefully lifts each log so as to cause the least amount of disruption to the sediment covered riverbed.

Logs End is extremely devoted to limiting their negative environmental impacts, and as it is they are actually doing a service to the local ecosystem. The sunken logs can sometimes release toxins into the water that are harmful to the fish and underwater vegetation, and because the logs still move around so much they can contribute to erosion and sediment relocation. They also have a no waste policy and carefully utilize all of the timber they retrieve. With centuries old and kiln dried solid oak, birch, red and yellow pine, among others, in their stock, Logs End is able to provide beautiful variations of wood flooring one would be hard pressed to find in today's world.