Heideman Forest Services in Eganville, Ont., located 190km northwest of the Larose Forest, had already been logging in the Larose Forest for 15 years prior to the takeover by Prescott-Russell. Ed Heideman established a market for red pine in the early 1990s that allowed plantation owners in eastern Ontario and Quebec to profit from thinning their stand. The company employs two logging teams trained specifically to tackle the challenges of harvesting red pine in thinning operations, using versatile machines to reach through the dense stand without damaging remaining trees. Each harvester and forwarder team works in the Larose Forest as well as on private plantations in the region. All trees are made cut-to-length onsite and then trucked to the Heideman sawmill. At the second site, a forwarder was finishing a red pine thinning operation northeast of the Larose Forest. The Puma forwarder, with Kesla 600 arm and Hultdins SuperGrip grapple, is a product of Norco Equipment Co. in Wisconsin. The 12-ton six-wheel Puma 612 forwarder was introduced by Norco in July of 2010, and has now been re-branded as the Barko 612, featuring the same 197hp Volvo engine - following Barko Hydraulics' purchase of Norco Equipment in May of 2012.