11/27/2025
This week, Sustana is proud to celebrate a major milestone in our industrial history: the 60th anniversary of Machine 8 at our Saint-Jérôme mill!
Commissioned on November 29, 1965, after a bold $7.5 million investment and manufactured in Sorel by Beloit, Machine 8 was the most advanced paper machine in Canada at the time. Its official inauguration by Quebec Premier Jean Lesage marked a defining moment not only for the Saint-Jérôme mill, but for our entire industry.
For six decades, Machine 8 has stood as a symbol of innovation, reliability, and the deep expertise of the teams who have operated, optimized, and modernized it year after year.
A few highlights of its time:
• An exceptional production capacity — once able to produce, in a single week, enough paper to build a 14-foot-wide road stretching from Vancouver to Halifax.
• A major daily output for its time: hundreds of pounds of paper every day, the equivalent of five freight cars.
• A machine that has continually evolved, just like our processes, technologies, and products.
Above all, this anniversary is a tribute to the people who bring our industrial excellence to life — past and present.
Thank you to all our teams for their dedication, expertise, and relentless commitment to progress.
Thank you to Histoire and Archives Laurentides for the pictures.