A GLIMPSE OF A SASKATCHEWAN FOREST. 

 By J. C. Blumer. 



As that part of the transcontinental forest belt which is found 

 in western Saskatchewan may not be well known, a glimpse of 

 the forest of one of the great prairie provinces may not come 

 amiss. During a trip made in July, 1912, due north of North 

 Battleford, the coniferous forest was encountered north of Mid- 

 night Lake, near the fifty-fourth parallel. A low, morainic ridge, 

 composed of glacial drift, marks its beginning. Jack pine (Pinus 

 divaricata) is the dominant species, and mixed with it on higher 

 ground is some white spruce (Picea canadensis) and a few birch 

 (Betula papyrifera), black spruce (Picea mariana) and balsam 

 poplar (Populus halsamifera) and quite rarely a few tamarack 

 (Lanx laricina) are found in groups and crescents fringing the 

 glacial pock-marks. Plenty of aspen (Populus tremuloides) is 

 almost everywhere in mixture, completing the composition with 

 seven species. 



A very level, sandy country succeeds northward, and township 

 after township is covered for the greater part with pure jack 

 pine in stands of various ages. These jack pine plains are diver- 

 sified at long intervals by slightly raised ridges, on which a little 

 white spruce and birch is found, and by spbaguum bogs, known 

 as muskeg, which have become increasingly abundant and often 

 impassable northeastward. They are usually quite devoid of 

 trees, the black spruce, and the rarely noted tamarack remaining 

 in groups about the margins and on the slightly raised islets. 

 Occasionally, groups of lakes lend charm to the country. 



The forest is badly burned, there is perhaps not over five per 

 cent, of the area traversed that does not show evidence of more 

 or less recent fires, and it would be very difficult to find a single 

 area where no signs of fire could be discovered. Although there 

 are some quite barren areas, on the whole the forest restocks itself 

 rapidly over much the greater area. But the fires may be re- 

 sponsible, to a considerable degree, on certain soils at least, for 

 the preponderance of the jack pine over the other species. In a 

 bit of tall, mature forest hung with reindeer moss, and composed 



