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Six Generations in the Allagash Woods

The Pelletier Family, Syl-Ver Logging, and the Heritage of Northern Maine

A Loggerfest 2026 Heritage Feature presented by the Greater Fort Kent Area Chamber of Commerce

Vernon, Greyden, Bennett and Marty Pelletier of Syl-Ver Logging walking a logging road in Allagash Maine during filming of the Loggerfest 2026 commercial for WAGM-TV — Vernon, Greyden, Bennett, and Marty Pelletier on the job in Allagash, Maine, during filming of the Loggerfest 2026 commercial airing on WAGM-TV. Four generations in one frame. Photo courtesy of the Pelletier family.

In the far north of Maine, where the St. John River runs along the Canadian border and the woods stretch out for miles in every direction, a way of life has been carried across six generations of one family. Syl-Ver Logging, based on the Allagash Road, is the working face of that continuity today. It is a small, family-run operation that hauls timber out of the same woods that the Pelletier family has worked since before the lumber camps had names.

The company takes its name from its founders: Sylvia and Vernon Pelletier. Incorporated in 2004, Syl-Ver Logging is a husband-and-wife operation in the most literal sense. Sylvia serves as president, Vernon runs the woods work, and the business carries both of their names because neither one of them runs it alone.

The Pelletier family also generously gave their time to film a commercial for the Loggerfest 2026 celebration, which will be airing on WAGM-TV. That kind of community spirit is exactly what Loggerfest is built on, and the Greater Fort Kent Area Chamber of Commerce is grateful beyond words for it.

But the company is really only the most recent chapter of a story that begins nearly two centuries ago, with a man named Nizaire Pelletier who came down from Green River, New Brunswick, and put his first axe into the Allagash woods.

Six Generations of Pelletier Loggers

1st Generation: Nizaire Pelletier (1828–1924, lived 96 years)
2nd Generation: Thomas L. Pelletier (1886–1986, lived 100 years)
3rd Generation: Louis A. Pelletier Sr. (1920–2015, lived 95 years)
4th Generation: Vernon Pelletier (b. 1946) and Louis L. Pelletier Jr. (b. 1942)
5th Generation: Bennett Pelletier (b. 1972) and Marty Pelletier (b. 1982)
6th Generation: Greyden L. Pelletier (b. 1998) and Maverick Pelletier (b. 2018)

Three of those generations lived into their nineties or beyond. Thomas L. Pelletier reached his hundredth year. It is a lineage of long lives and hard work, and the work never stopped.

Nizaire Pelletier: The First Generation

Nizaire Pelletier was born in 1828 in Green River, New Brunswick, part of the Acadian French community that populated the upper St. John River Valley on both sides of what would become the international border. He came to Allagash and built a life there, leaving his mark in ways that are still visible in the community today. The house he built in 1865 still stands on the property that became the Kelly homestead. Tyler Kelly’s son Wade lives there today, and Tyler’s daughter Darlene Kelly Dumond runs Two Rivers Lunch right on the family land, serving her community on the same ground where Nizaire Pelletier first planted roots.

His first wife was Mary Hughes. The story Vernon Pelletier tells about Nizaire is one of the hardest in the family record: Nizaire left home to work upriver for the winter, as men in those years did, disappearing into the logging camps for months at a stretch. When he came home on the log drive in the spring, he found that his wife and their first child had both died in childbirth while he was gone. They were already buried. He had not known. Mary Hughes and her baby are part of the history of that land, a history that Wade and Darlene carry forward today, and that the walls of that old house still hold.

That story belongs to its era. Communication between the camps and the settlements was unreliable at best, and the men who worked the woods in winter were often entirely cut off from home. The grief Nizaire came home to was not unusual for the times. That does not make it lighter.

Nizaire Pelletier died in Allagash in 1924, at 96 years old. He had lived nearly a century in the St. John Valley, and he had built something that would outlast him.

Horses on a river barge crossing the Allagash River in Northern Maine circa 1930s from the Cunliffe depot era — Horses crossing the Allagash River on a barge, circa early 1930s. From the Cunliffe depot era footage held by the Fort Kent Historical Society. From the archive of Vernon Pelletier.

Thomas L. Pelletier: The Second Generation

Thomas L. Pelletier was born in Allagash in 1886 and died there in 1986, having lived one hundred years. His working life spanned the full arc of traditional river-based logging in Northern Maine, from the era of bateaux and river drives through the mechanized decades of the mid-twentieth century.

Thomas ran the Allagash Ferry Boat for 38 summers, a job that placed him at the center of the community’s seasonal rhythms. The ferry was essential infrastructure in a region where the St. John River was both a highway and a boundary, and Thomas was the man who kept it running. He also built ferry boats and bateaux for logging companies, contributing his craftsmanship to the river operations that were the foundation of the regional economy.

In winter, Thomas worked in the woods for Will Cunliffe, one of the major logging operators in the Allagash region during the early twentieth century. The winters of 1932 and 1933 are documented in film footage now held by the Fort Kent Historical Society, showing the Cunliffe depot camps along the Allagash River. Thomas, in his mid-forties and at the height of his working years, was almost certainly among the men who worked at or around that depot during those winters. The footage is rare evidence of the world he inhabited.

Loggers working in the Allagash woods in winter at the Cunliffe depot camps circa 1932-1933 Northern Maine — Loggers at work in the Allagash woods, winter 1932–1933, from the Cunliffe depot era. Thomas L. Pelletier worked these same woods for Will Cunliffe. Fort Kent Historical Society footage. From the archive of Vernon Pelletier.

Winter logging operations at the Cunliffe depot camps along the Allagash River Northern Maine 1932-1933 — Winter logging operations at the Cunliffe depot camps along the Allagash River, 1932–1933. Fort Kent Historical Society footage. From the archive of Vernon Pelletier.

Louis A. Pelletier Sr.: The Third Generation

Louis A. Pelletier Sr. was born in Allagash in 1920 and died in 2015 at 95 years old. His story is the story of the transition from horse-powered logging to the modern era, and he lived every step of it.

He finished the eighth grade at thirteen years old, which in 1933 was a standard educational endpoint for young men in the region. On the last day of school, he left with a team of horses and walked twelve miles to Allagash Falls to yard logs with his brother Leonard. That walk, on that day, was the beginning of a logging career that would span six decades.

Louis Sr. bought his first horse for fifty dollars and traded it on his first truck at Etscovitz Chevrolet in Fort Kent, a 1941 Ford. The dealership also dealt in horses, which tells you something about the economy of the time, when the transition from animal power to mechanical power was still actively underway. He eventually formed Pelletier Lumber with his sons Lou and Vernon, a company that would carry the family’s logging work through three decades and into the next generation.

He was also the kind of man who saved things. A photograph of a line of loaded pulpwood trucks at a Northern Maine mill yard came into the family because Louis Sr. salvaged it out of a mill office that was being torn down. He decided it was worth keeping. It has been in the family archive ever since. That instinct for preservation runs in the family.

Northern Maine logging mill yard with loaded timber trucks and stacked logs mid-twentieth century Allagash region — A Northern Maine log yard in full operation. This photograph was salvaged from a mill office being torn down by Louis Pelletier Sr., who decided it was worth keeping. From the archive of Vernon Pelletier.

Pelletier family members standing beside a loaded red logging truck in Northern Maine early years of Pelletier Lumber — A Pelletier family logging truck in the early years of the operation. From the archive of Vernon Pelletier.

Vernon and His Generation: The Fourth Generation

Vernon Pelletier was born in 1946 and came of age in the woods. He worked with horses and pulp hooks until 1967, when the family bought its first skidder and the era of horse-powered yarding in their operation came to an end. He graduated from Fort Kent State College in 1968 with a B.S. in Education, taught school for a year, and was then drafted into the U.S. Army, serving from 1969 to 1970. When he came back, he came back to the woods.

Vernon is the family’s archivist. He has maintained a binder of photographs, newspaper clippings, handwritten notes, and documents that traces the Pelletier logging history across generations. His handwriting appears on the backs of photographs, identifying trucks, people, and years. Without his effort, much of what is documented here would be gone. Among the clippings he kept was a newspaper article noting that his nephew Jeremy Desjardins had been named Logger of the Year, a recognition that clearly meant something to him, filed away with the same care he gave to everything worth remembering.

Louis Pelletier logging truck loaded with timber in Allagash Maine 1992 handwritten label by Vernon Pelletier from family archive — A Pelletier logging truck loaded with timber, Allagash, 1992. Vernon’s handwriting on the back reads “Louis Pelletier Trucks, 1944, 1984, 1992, Allagash.” From the archive of Vernon Pelletier.

Louis L. Pelletier Jr., born in 1942, worked with Pelletier Lumber until 1991, when he started his own Chain Saw Market and Sales. He also maintains a private collection of more than 300 antique chainsaws, a museum-quality archive of the tools that defined an era. He opens the museum to visitors who make the trip up to Allagash, sharing that history freely with anyone who wants to see it.

Cathie Pelletier

The family’s relationship to storytelling runs beyond the logging work itself. Cathie Pelletier, who grew up in Allagash, is a novelist whose books have drawn on the landscapes and communities of the St. John River Valley throughout her career. Her fiction, including works such as The Funeral Makers and The Weight of Winter, is set in and around a fictional version of Allagash, and it carries the spirit of the place she grew up in. The family that preserved the photographs and the chainsaws also produced a writer who preserved the culture in a different form.

Elaine Desjardins and the Logging Tradition in Soldier Pond

The logging tradition runs through the sisters of the family as well. Elaine Desjardins, sister to Vernon and the other Pelletiers, married into another family deeply rooted in the woods, and the heritage traveled with her to Soldier Pond. Her husband and sons built Desjardins Logging, Inc. into a working operation of their own, hauling logs, poles, beams, and lumber out of the Northern Maine forest the same way the Pelletiers always have.

The family’s commitment to the craft was recognized formally when Elaine’s son Jeremy Desjardins was named one of the 2022 Loggers of the Year by the Certified Logging Professionals program, earning the honor in the Contractor/Supervisor category at the program’s 32nd annual banquet. Vernon thought enough of that recognition to clip the article and add it to his binder, right alongside the photographs and records of his own family’s generations in the woods. That says something about how the Pelletiers think about heritage: it does not stop at the family name. It travels with the people who carry it.

The Business: From Pelletier Lumber to Today

The company history follows the generational handoffs closely:

Pelletier Lumber (1960–1991): Founded by Louis Sr., Louis Jr., and Vernon
Lou-Ver Logging (1991–2003): Louis Sr. and Vernon
Syl-Ver Logging Inc. (2003–2023): Vernon and Sylvia Pelletier
Syl-Ver Logging (2023–present): Bennett and Marty Pelletier

Today the family operates three separate but coordinated companies: Wiles Brook Logging (Bennett Pelletier), M.L. Pelletier Trucking Inc. (Marty Pelletier), and Syl-Ver Logging (Bennett and Marty jointly). The structure gives each brother room to lead his own operation while keeping the family’s combined work coordinated and efficient.

Bennett and Marty: The Fifth Generation

Bennett Pelletier, born in 1972, runs Wiles Brook Logging, named for the brook that runs near his home. He is also co-owner of Syl-Ver Logging, having jointly assumed the assets of the family business with his brother when Vernon and Sylvia retired in 2023.

Marty Pelletier, born in 1982, runs M.L. Pelletier Trucking Inc., the trucking arm that hauls Pelletier loads and supports the family’s woods operations. Like Bennett, he is also co-owner of Syl-Ver Logging.

The fifth generation is not just continuing the work. They are expanding it, running three coordinated operations with a combined scope that represents real growth from where their father left off.

Syl-Ver Logging red truck loaded with timber in Allagash Maine Northern Maine logging operation — A loaded Syl-Ver Logging truck on the job in Allagash. From the archive of Vernon Pelletier.

Pelletier logging truck hauling a bulldozer on a flatbed in Allagash Maine Northern Maine woods operation — A Pelletier truck hauling a dozer to a job site. The equipment work that supports the family’s logging operations is its own discipline. From the archive of Vernon Pelletier.

Pelletier logging truck loaded with timber driving through a snowy Northern Maine forest in winter — A loaded Pelletier logging truck making its way through the Northern Maine woods in winter. From the archive of Vernon Pelletier.

Greyden and Maverick: The Sixth Generation

Greyden L. Pelletier, born in 1998, owns his own logging truck and operates Cross Roads Logging while remaining involved in the broader family operations. He is twenty-seven years old and already running his own show.

Maverick Pelletier, born in 2018, is the youngest Pelletier and the most recent entry in the family’s generational record. Vernon’s notes describe him as very involved and interested in all aspects of logging. He is seven years old.

From Nizaire Pelletier arriving in Allagash in the mid-nineteenth century to a seven-year-old boy watching trucks and machinery today, the chain is unbroken. Six generations, the same woods, the same work.

A Heritage Worth Preserving

Loggerfest exists because Northern Maine’s logging heritage is worth celebrating, preserving, and sharing. That work would not be possible without families like the Pelletiers, families who have done the hard work of remembering, who have kept the photographs and the saws and the stories, and who continue to share them generously with their community.

To Vernon and Sylvia, to Bennett and Marty, to Greyden and Maverick, and to the generations who came before them, Louis Sr., Thomas L., and Nizaire: thank you. Thank you for sponsoring Loggerfest. Thank you for preserving the heritage of the Allagash. Thank you for sharing your stories with us, and for representing the broader culture of storytelling that makes Northern Maine’s logging communities one of the richest cultural landscapes in the state.

Six generations is a long time. The Pelletiers are not finished yet, and Loggerfest is honored to walk alongside them.

This article is part of the Loggerfest 2026 Heritage Series, presented by the Greater Fort Kent Area Chamber of Commerce. For event details, visit the Loggerfest tab on our home page.