DRYDEN, Ontario – Prime Minister Stephen Harper learned firsthand about the devastation in Canada’s forestry industry but he didn’t meet with hard-pressed workers or offer any solutions.

As part of a two-day northwestern Ontario tour, Harper stopped Friday in Dryden, a city of 8,000 whose major employer is the Domtar Corp. mill. Dryden Mayor Anne Krassilowski says over the past four years, the mill’s work force has been halved, to about 600 workers.

Domtar’s difficulties have been felt across the border in Maine and other states where it has mills. Domtar announced this summer it will shut down a paper machine and eliminate 150 jobs at its Baileyville, Maine, mill, which has been a pillar of the local economy.

Similar stories been repeated in lumber towns across Canada as the soaring Canadian dollar hikes the cost of lumber exports to the United States, just as that country teeters on the brink of a possible recession. British Columbia is grappling with the added devastation wrought by the pine beetle.