If the last bit of newsprint that rolled off the Abitibi Bowater mill in central Newfoundland on Thursday is long enough to write the troubled history of the forestry products industry since the recession hit, then maybe what’s left can wipe up the tears, too.

Tears for lost jobs and incomes; 38,000 jobs and 207 closed mills since 2003, according to the Forest Products Association.

Tears for lost revenues and tax bases; B.C. forestry revenues dropped from more than $1 billion to $652 million, making 2008/09 the worst year on record.

Tears for entire communities that staked their future on the forestry mills and expected to last as long as the trees; here’s looking at you, Marathon, Ont.

Tembec announced an indefinite shutdown of the Marathon Pulp plant Thursday, throwing 230 people out of work and costing the town of just 4,400 people about $1.2 million in lost taxes.Not coming soon to a home near you (CBC)

Mill closings seem to have become a rite of passage for many Canadian communities in the 21^st century. But even in the last few months, along with the Grand Falls, N.L., and Marathon closings, the casualty list is long.

• Millar Western Forest Products cut 138 jobs and slashed production at Whitecourt and Boyle mills in Alberta.
• Catalyst Paper threatened to shut at least one of its B.C. mills — in Crofton, Port Alberni, Elk Falls or Powell River — unless it can get a deal to pay 75 per cent less in taxes. Some of the mills employ more than 800 people.
• Canfor announced plans to cut production at mills in Grande Prairie, Alta., and Quesnel, B.C.
• Montreal-based Tembec announced plans to lay off nearly half of its workforce of 7,000 as it temporarily shuts mills in British Columbia, Manitoba and Ontario.
• Domtar reported a $676 million loss in the latest quarter. The Montreal company has cut 1,990 jobs or 15 per cent of its workforce in the last year. And it’s already considering further closures for this year.
• Interfor, reported a net loss of $18.5 million for the fourth quarter, compared with a net loss of $8.9 million in the fourth quarter of 2007. Interfor said its mills operated at less than 40 per cent of available capacity.
• GLV, a Montreal-based company that makes pulp and paper machinery, saw its profits drop by half to $464,000 in the latest quarter. GLV’s chief executive cut his base salary for the coming year to one dollar.
• Last year, the New Brunswick Forest Products Association reported only 13 of the province's 61 sawmills were operating at full capacity.

"These are extraordinary times for the economy generally and for forest products in particular," said Jim Lopez, president and CEO of Tembec.

Is there any hope?

The forestry sector has been bogged down by depressed markets for all its products: pulp, newsprint and lumber.

Kraft pulp is use to make paper bags and sacks – not exactly a growth industry. And the paper mills of China are turning out kraft more cheaply with recycled paper, much of it from Canada.

'There will be pent-up demand when the credit crisis is over. And they will continue to build houses using wood.'—Avrim Lazar, Forest Products Assn.

You can read all about the decline of newsprint in the newspaper obituaries. The Christian Science Monitor is discontinuing its print edition, the Boston Globe cut back to four sections and the New York Times has a $400 million US loan payment due in May but apparently doesn’t have anywhere near that amount in cash. Even as those grey ladies struggle, the suburban and weekly papers are going or gone. It’s hard to see newsprint ever roaring back.

The collapse of the U.S. home-building sector has pulled down the price of lumber to 1991 levels. PricewaterhouseCoopers recently predicted the U.S. housing market would continue to deteriorate in the next quarter. This week, Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation reported housing starts in this country fell to 153,500 units in January from 172,200 in December.

But Avrim Lazar, CEO of the Forest Products Association of Canada, sees light at the end of the tunnel.

"Americans will continue to live in houses," he said. "There will be pent-up demand when the credit crisis is over. And they will continue to build houses using wood."

Lazar was encouraged by measures in the last federal budget that the association believes will help with some of its pet projects: such as commercializing waste wood for bio-energy, bio-fuels and bio-chemicals.

Looking farther ahead, Canadian mills might find a future in recycling. As much as four per cent of Canadian paper is sent to China for recycling to take advantage of its lower labour costs. But that may be offset when energy costs rise again.

A look even further into the future was glimpsed in southeastern Finland this week. A paper mill owned by Stora Enso closed early last year after more than half a century in operation. But it’s just been purchased for about $50 million US by an unlikely buyer: Google.

The U.S. high tech company hopes to turn the site into a data centre.

That might seem far-fetched and a false hope for many Canadian mill towns.

But after all, in the 1940s, the once-bustling town of Marathon, Ont., was barely surviving. It was home to just 23 people when a new employer — the pulp mill —arrived to help the town grow and prosper for the next 60 years.