A Canadian invention that very few persons have heard of had a profound effect on the pine logging industry during the late 1800s and the early decades of the1900s. The logging of eastern white and red pine in Ontario's Ottawa Valley, the Georgian Bay and

In the 1890s, lumber baron David Gilmour astounded his competitors with a daring plan: he would float millions of pine logs 445 kilometres down three river systems in succession from Algonquin Park to his sawmill at Trenton on Lake Ontario.

Timber Empire follows the exploits of Mossom Boyd and two of his sons as they battle natural, political, and economic obstacles in their quest to extract a living from the pine forests of central Ontario.

Gilmour lumber company became a forestry giant, rising from early 1800s square timber dealer to major sawmiller for the American market. Gilmour relentlessly felled the forests of the Ottawa Valley then reached the treasure house of Algonquin pine.