In 1941 Chisholm sawmills limited built a road to a site on the west shore of Fawcett Lake from a point on highway 2 a mile or so west of the Athabasca River. At that time horses were still used. It was a a fight between the horses and rabbits for the hay.
The sawmill started operating in 1942. Power was provided by 3 traction boilers, with Dutch ovens, using sawdust for fuel, and driving a large stationery engine and several smaller ones. This was used until being replaced by a Diesel engines in 1944. The blacksmith built his own small steam engine to power the equipment in his shop.
In 1947, Swanson Lumber Company bought out Chisholm Sawmills Limited and took over operations.
Lumber from the sawmill was hauled to Smith where a home built crane, powered by a D4 Caterpillar engine, would lift an entire truck load of lumber and put it on a flat car for shipment to Chisholm.
The road to west Fawcett lake was built by Swanson lumber company in the early 40's to accommodate the mill. Even then it was not much of a road. It was around the late seventies that it was upgraded to the road it is today. Some residents remember driving out to the lake in a tractor or cat as it was the only way to get there in the summer months.