Inventor Name
Wiig-Bache, John
Repository
Provincial Archives of Alberta
8555 Roper Road
Edmonton, Alberta
T6E 5W1
780-427-1750
www.tprc.alberta.ca/archives/default.aspx
Physical Description
0.08 m of textual records. – 10 photographs
Summary
The Straw Paper Company of Canada Limited, with its headquarters in Edmonton, Alberta, was incorporated for the purpose of manufacturing pulp and paper out of raw straw. The company was incorporated under the federal Companies Act on October 27, 1926. A couple of years earlier, the Government of Alberta had investigated the possibility of securing some satisfactory process to convert the huge quantity of straw that was produced in western Canada and was ultimately wasted. The government showed interest in the invention of John Bache-Wiig and his father of a process to manufacture paper of equal quality to that made from wood but made from straw. The feasibility of the Bache-Wiig Process was tested at the Forest Products Branch of the Department of the Interior, which operated at McGill University in Montreal, Quebec under the supervision of E. Parke Cameron. A committee was created to investigate financials relating to construction, equipment, materials, manufacturing as well as selling prices and volume of market. Later, a syndicate was formed to raise the necessary capital for the establishment of the straw pulp mill. The Straw Paper Company of Canada secured a license from Straw Cellulose Products Company (Portland, Maine), who held the patent for process and planned to establish a straw pulp and paper mill in Edmonton. In 1926, the Board of directors of Straw Paper Company of Canada included John Bache-Wiig, J.W. Glenwright, Fred H. Herbert, B.W. Green., F.A. Keillor, W.W. McBain, H.P. Madsen, H.F. McKee and James Sutherland. H.F. McKee was managing director and John Bache-Wiig was technical director. The company was liquidated in 1928. The fonds consists of the records of the Straw Paper Syndicate and the Straw Paper Company of Canada Limited and includes agreements, correspondence, reports, financial estimates, proxy vote forms, bylaws, minutes, newspaper clippings and samples of straw paper.
