Our Story

Frank arrived in Fiordland in the mid-80s. He came for work and ended up staying. He started on fishing boats, then skippered tourist vessels through the same waters. Day after day on the fiord, he got to know the place, not just the routes and weather, but the small details most people miss.

That’s where he first noticed them, the logs. Big, weathered trunks drifting beneath the tannin-dark surface. Ancient trees torn from the hills by storms and time, carried down by slips and slides into the fiords. He started wondering: could they be saved? Years later, after a lot of questions and red tape, Frank was granted permission to salvage them.

Fiordland isn’t just big, it’s wild. Over a million hectares of steep forest and glacier-cut valleys, stretching from Milford Sound to Preservation Inlet. It rains more days than it doesn’t. The trees grow out of moss and stone, tangled in a web of roots barely clinging to the granite. When they fall, they fall hard taking others with them in what locals call “tree avalanches.”

That’s where we come in.

Salvaging a log from Fiordland takes time. It begins with spotting one — a trunk floating just beneath the surface or wedged in tight against the rock. Some have been there for years, waterlogged and weathered. Frank knows what to look for. The grain. The shape. The signs of potential.

Once a log is chosen, we work with the tides. Mussel floats are strapped on to lift it slowly. Nothing is rushed. When it’s floating, we tow it behind the Stabi, carefully navigating the fiord. It’s slow going. The weather doesn’t always play nice, but that’s part of the process.

When we reach the edge of the fiord, we find the nearest point we can get a truck to. Then it’s hauled out and taken back to the yard. Each log is cleaned and assessed. Some are milled into slabs, others left whole. Every piece reveals something different. Once cut, the timber is dried in a kiln over several weeks. This step is crucial. It balances the moisture, stabilises the wood, and brings out the deep colour and grain hidden inside.

This is timber with a past. We’re just giving it a future.