500 Forestry Quarterly 



roughly the area extending north of the Upper Fraser basin, 

 including the upper watersheds of the Naas and Skeena Rivers, 

 and all the Peace River drainage except the Upper Parsnip. The 

 topography is mountainous, with rather narrow valleys. The 

 annual precipitation is over 20 inches, mostly snow ; the winters 

 long and cold, summer frosts frequent, and the climatic condi- 

 tions in general severe. The resulting forest is rather sub-alpine 

 in character, dense and slow-growing. The species are Engelmann 

 spruce, Alpine fir and Lodgepole pine, the first two nearly always 

 associated, while the pine may be found in pure stands, as well as 

 in mixture. 



The region is at present undeveloped and its forest wealth 

 inaccessible and unexploited. When it is opened up, the forests 

 will yield great quantities of fine pulpwood, as well as large 

 amounts of good spruce lumber. 



Timber Resource of Central British Columbia 



The description of the forests having been dealt with, the 

 questions naturally arise how much timber is there, and what is 

 it worth? Will there be any market for it? 



It is conservatively estimated that 80 million acres of the total 

 106 million acres is forested. Allowing 10 million acres — a lib- 

 eral estimate — for potential agricultural land, there remains 70,- 

 000,000 acres of absolute forest land valuable only for growing 

 timber, and in part for summer grazing. Probably at least 

 40,000,000 acres of this is capable of growing merchantable tim- 

 ber. The present stand is estimated to be at least 80 billion feet 

 b.m., and is probably nearer 100 billion — or about one quarter 

 the total stand of timber in the province. 



The annual growth may be estimated at 100 board feet per 

 year, or four billion feet b.m. per year on the 40,000,000 acres. 

 This is not far short of the total cut of Canada at present. Reck- 

 oned as pulpwood, the total quantity is at least 200 million cords, 

 and the annual growth 8 million cords. This latter figure is 

 approximately twice the present yearly consumption of pulpwood 

 in the United States. 



While only a very small portion of this annual growth is now 

 being utilized by man, still the total merchantable stand is not 

 being greatly added to by this annual increment, as a large part 

 of it is accounted for by natural destructive agencies, such as 

 wind, insects, old age and fire. 



