Scott MacKinnon (BSc’98), owner of Elite Balsam Products, has this week shifted his efforts to a small retail tree lot at the Walmart in Antigonish, work that’s “not even the frosting on the cake” for his business.

MacKinnon just shuttered the wreath barn where workers fastened brush to 25,000 steel rings, work that went on seven days a week, 10 hours a day for a month.

“Generally we are making wreaths into the first week of December and there’d be all kinds of people here. This year, we finished our wreaths last Thursday, so we’re a week ahead in shipping,” said MacKinnon, in an interview with The Chronicle Herald.

Work at Elite Balsam began in earnest in mid-October, when MacKinnon’s workers, sometimes watched by coyotes, deer or bears, started to cut trees for export to Puerto Rico, where the trees are spray-painted vivid colours before being put out for sale.

As well as New Jersey, MacKinnon has wholesale customers in Chicago and in New York City, where the main criteria is that a tree for an apartment, which can sell for as much as $100, be skinny.

Read more in “U.S. markets improve for Elite Balsam’s Christmas trees”

Photo credit: Tim Krochak