: :

: OK, this shouldn't be too hard to figure out.... this isn't a piece
: of driftwood we're talking about... it's tons of cedar that was
: systematically removed...

: who's got a saw big enough to cut thru
: 3 m of wood?

It's logging country - lots of fallers and gear out there.....

Who's got equipment that can carry out that kind of
: weight... or cut it up...

As above- it's a big business out here to ship logs offshore, and there are idle contractors around.

And, the tree was probably cut into shake blocks (for cedar roof/siding) at the site, and then the wood just went into the legitimate industry with a 'cover story'.
The logging industry has moved to using 'contractors' (saves on employee benefit costs, paying union wages, etc) so there are many small operations at work. It makes it hard to trace something like this.

: it had to go past somebody on highways
: to get to a sawmill... just put a blurb on the news... who saw
: tree chunks this big going by, and what company's truck was
: it???

Kinda hard to tell the difference between the many legit logging trucks in that area and the criminals.

The number of park rangers (here in BC, Vancouver Island) has been halved in the past 10 years, and there probably weren't enough even then to prevent this crime.