A Foresters Work in a Northern Forest. 3 



munication; all supplies must be transported in canoes and on 

 men's backs in the summer, and by horse or dog sleighs in the 

 winter. For this reason work must always be planned for at least 

 one year ahead, and every detail must be carefully thought out if 

 the work is to proceed without delay and at the minimum of ex- 

 pense. Then, too, in the early summer from the first of June until 

 the first of August the black flies and mosquitoes tender the 

 woods almost uninhabitable and in winter all woodswork must 

 be done on snowshoes, and with the thermometer often from 

 thirty to forty degrees below zero. 



First, a survey party was organized, consisting of chief of party 

 with his canoe man, plane table man with two rodmen, cook and 

 assistant, and eight or nine men to pack, clear lines, move camps 

 and so forth. The chief of party explores the country, locates 

 the boundary lines, picks out the camp sites and lays out the 

 work for the plane table man. The latter uses a small 15" plane 

 table with telescopic alidade having stadia hairs and his two rod- 

 men are equipped with balsam poles, having a ring of bark 

 peeled every foot. Where the country is very thick with under- 

 brush, traverses are made by pacing, and where there are roads 

 as in the neighborhood of the settlements, these were mapped by 

 buggy traverse. The plane table man as need be acts at the same 

 time as fire-ranger. All work incident to camp moving, packing, 

 &c, is done for the plane table party so that they are always free 

 to keep steadily at their work. All boundary lines, lot and range 

 lines, county lines, rivers, lakes, creeks, roads, trails, portages, 

 dams, camps and caches, principal hills and ridges, burnt areas, 

 pure stands of jack pine and black spruce swamps are located, and, 

 where valuation surveys have already been made, as was done in 

 one section, the beginning and end of each strip was located. 

 Traverses are all closed with a limit of error of 1 in 66 and the 

 error has only once or twice exceeded 1:132. This gives maps 

 sufficiently accurate for the needs of the work. The rate of pro- 

 gress of this work during the past year has averaged fifty square 

 miles per month, and about 700 square miles have been mapped. 



The most important problem in the management of timber 

 lands is that of fire protection. In this Province, the Govern- 

 ment formerly appointed the rangers, generally men with some 

 political backing who took a shot gun and their fishing tackle and 



