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Forestry Camp, one of thirty-five Newfoundland Overseas Forestry Unit forestry camps set up across the Scottish Highlands in the Second World War. The NOFU was created on November 17, 1939 when the Newfoundland Commissioner for Natural Resources appealed for volunteer loggers to work in Great Britain, given that local labour was in short supply as many men had been conscripted into the Armed Forces., and overseas supplies of raw timber were restricted. The Dalmachie camp (NOFU Camp 39) was built in a clearing along the line of an old drove road on the lower slopes of Craig Coilleach, to fell the trees above the camp on Craig Coilleach and the adjoining Pannanich Hill. The camp comprised the cookhouse, a recreation hut and three bunkhouses, each sleeping 20 men. The huts were built from rough hewn logs which were then draught proofed using moss gathered from the forest. Behind them terraced into the hill was a second row of bunkhouses, a wash room, staff room and office, as well as various smaller buildings for tools and stores. Above the camp a water reservoir was built into the Dalmochie Burn with a steel pipe laid to the camp below and beneath the camp an irrigation plant was built to treat waste water. Also beneath the camp were stables and a blacksmith's shop. By early spring 1940 all the infrastructure was in place and the Newfoundlanders started on the logging work. Most of the felling on Pannanich Hill was finished by winter 1942, the labour force declined as men were transferred to other forests and by 1943 the work was complete and the camp given over to Italian PoWs. In 2005 the Ballater Historic Forestry Project was established with the aim of reconstructing the camp on its original site, where the concrete bases of the huts and stoves lie in the forest.
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Historic Environment Records (HER)