A CANADIAN FOREST SURVEY. 



By James W. Sewall. 



During the last winter it fell within the province of the firm 

 of which the writer is a member to map and estimate some two 

 hundred and thirty square miles of timber land in the Province 

 of Quebec on the rivers a Mars, du Moulin, Cyriac and Mon- 

 couche, which enter the river Saguenay near the town of Chi- 

 coutimi, below Lake St. John. This would have been a simple 

 piece of work were it not that the limit of time allowed for the 

 completion thereof was between the first of February and the 

 first of May, namely three months, which in fact coming spring 

 shortened to about two and one-half months. 



As soon as the work was definitely decided upon, an office was 

 established at Chicoutimi, a town of some six thousand people; 

 this office served as a draughting room, and as the headquarters 

 for hiring and paying men as well as for a central bureau where 

 the field crews obtained information and ordered supplies. By 

 telephone this office was connected with the depot camps of the 

 Chicoutimi Pulp Co. (for whom the mapping was done), these 

 depots being by chance stragetically located for the purposes of 

 the survey ; from them the pulp company furnished supplies, thus 

 doing away with considerable cartage. They are located on the 

 river du Moulin and on Lac des Ilets, on the northerly end of the 

 mapped territory. 



Our field force of some forty-five men was divided into three 

 parties, at one time augmented by a fourth party for sledding. 

 The magnetic needle was used in all surveying, and the calipered 

 strip system in obtaining estimates. The duties of the parties 

 were immediately laid out, and very few variations from the first 

 plan of campaign occurred. 



Party No. i was a surveying crew only, on it fell the recon- 

 naissance and boundary work of a large part of the job. Starting 

 from the Chicoutimi Pulp Co. depot at Lac des Ilets it was 

 hauled by team nine miles, hand sledded some eight more up the 

 river Cyriac valley, and began its survey by running a boundary 

 line eastward toward the river du Moulin ; on reaching the du 

 Moulin it used the stream as a base on which to haul supplies. 



