Western or Alaskan White Cedar

[Peter Malquest]

I am trying to help a friend locate some cedar strip building material in the Cleveland area. This guy claims he must have Alaskan White Cedar to build a strip built sea kayak. I have never heard of cedar by this term. He would like to find some in the Cleveland area. Is there such a thing as Alaskan White? Is there a good substitute in Ohio. Thanks

[Dave Fleming]

Is your friend Colour Blind? Jus' funnin' ye lad.

ALASKA YELLOW CEDAR is what we have out here as well as Red Cedar (Roof Shingles and Wedge Seam material).

Back in the Right Coast they have Atlantic White Cedar but, IIRC, It is more a Juniper than a true cedar. A wood much favoured bye many a small boat builder on the New Jersey shore.

And of course there is Eastern Incense Cedar, the clothes closet liner stuff, it too is a reddish colour.

;)

[Garrett Lowell]

From what my local lumber shop tells me, Cedar prices have gone up 19.2% since June (his numbers). This is due to some tarrif on Cedar from Canada. Not to hijack the thread, but has anybody else heard of this?

[Dave Fleming]

If I remember correctly there was an increase of many percents on all lumber from north of the border. Builders are complaining that it will add several thousand USD to the cost of a new home.
USA imports about 6 Billion USD worth of softwood lumber a year from Canada.

[Bruce Hooke]

I've never heard of Alaskan White Cedar...I think he is mixing up Alaskan Yellow Cedar and Eastern/Atlantic/Northern White Cedar. Many woods work well for strip planking (unless it's a very particular color he is looking for) so I would certainly try to guide him towards something that is locally available. A useful web site for tracking down lumber sources is http://www.wdfinder.com

As to cedar prices, I wonder which cedars on the US market are actually coming primarily from Canada. I'd guess that most of the Western Red Cedar is, which is what would most likely show up in home-building (that stuff was steep even last winter!). I'm sure what the home builders are worried about is D. Fir and Spruce. I suppose some of the Alaskan Yellow Cedar might be coming from Canada too. I would guess that most of the east coast cedar is from within the US. Actually, does anyone know if those tarriffs apply to all lumber of just the standard softwoods? Based on what I think the fight is about it would seem to make more sense for the tarriffs to just be on the softwoods, rather than on hardwood and 'specialty' lumber that is probably largely coming from private woodlots, but these things rarely make sense!