Longshoremen stand atop log rafts and sit inside crane cabins while loading logs into the cargo hold of the ship Koombana Bay, the first log ship to be loaded in Port Angeles since the year 2000. Click on the image to read the Peninsula Daily News article.

Logs from West End forests were lifted aboard a year-old freighter ship Monday in a three-day operation that will mark Port Angeles’ first log export operation in nearly a decade. Eighteen longshoremen — mostly from Port Angeles — started a packed three-day schedule loading the 554-foot Koombana Bay. The ship will then head to Longview to be filled with logs before it heads out on a 15-day journey to South Korea.

The absence of ships loading logs in Port Angeles Harbor has been a constant reminder of the slowdown in the industry, said George Schoenfeldt, a former ILWU dispatcher and current Port Commissioner. “The main thing is the economic benefit to the community.”

From the Peninsula Daily News, March 9, 2010