THE FORESTS OF CANADA. S 



avalanche that descended in the form of snow will be replaced hy rivers of mud, trees and 

 rocks. The mountains will be disfigured, and travelling in spring will be both uncertain and 

 dangerous. ' 



Each succeeding summer on Vancouver Island the same destruction goes on. A great 

 deal of the interior has been burned over repeatedly, and owing to the long summer droughts 

 and the lack of brush amongst the tall trees the moss and logs become dry and the fire when 

 once started never ceases until the September rains commence when the air clears of smoke, 

 the fires die out and all things remain soaked until the following July when the same round 

 of fires begins again. In July, 1887, 1 stood on the summit of Mount Arrowsmith, an isolated 

 mountain about 100 miles north of Victoria, near the centre of the island, and almost 6,000 

 feet high. For some days the weather had been calm and the fires had made little progress 

 so that the view from the summit was very extensive, taking in the Gulf of Georgia 

 and the mountains of British Columbia on the one hand, and the Pacific for many miles 

 on the other. The view on the evening of the 16th was indescribable and of vast ex- 

 tent. The 17th was windy and started up the fires and by sunset the smoke from scores 

 of them had spread a pall over the scene and blotted out the whole landscape we had 

 gazed upon with such delight the day before. The next day we descended the moun- 

 tain and on our way to the coast passed through miles upon miles of burnt forest and three 

 distinct forest fires, one of which, at least, was very dangerous. Standing in a safe place and 

 gazing on scores of mighty trunks flaming like torches and rising 200 feet above you, 

 impressions will be made that can never be eflaced, and instinctively you will almost curse 

 the hand that applied the match that caused the destruction of such noble trees. Owing to 

 their immense height and the thickness of the bark few live trees succumb to the first fire, 

 but yearly burnings soon kill the trees and in many instances they stand in thousands, dumb 

 witnesses to man's terrible destruction. 



Apparently there is little hope of a change, for viciousness, carelessness, cupidity and 

 supineness of governments and people are responsible for this state of things which will 

 continue until the trees are nearly all dead and the destruction of our noble forests all but 

 completed ; then when the end has come party parliamentarians will rise in their places and 

 denounce all but themselves. for having permitted such senseless and culpable destruction. 



Sub-arctic Forest Belt. 



Lying south of the watershed in Labrador and south of a line drawn northwesterly 

 from Fort Churchill to near the mouth of the Mackenzie River in the Northwest Territories 

 is a belt of forest that is continuous except where the surface becomes a peat bog too wet 

 to support trees or the depressions are deeper and become lakes. This extensive belt at 

 the base of the Rocky Mountains extends from lat. 53° to 67' in the valley of the Mackenzie. 

 It trends to the south as it goes easterly so that in the meridian of Lake Winnipeg its limits 

 are between 50 and 58 ; passing still eastward it gets narrower, so that wlien it reaches the 

 Atlantic coast it is a mere fraction of what it was. In round numbers this immense region 

 contains about 1,500,000 square miles, and its forest is made up of very few species of trees, 

 the principal ones being pine, spruce, tamarack and aspen poplar. Indeed eight species of 

 trees may be said to constitute the whole arborescent flora of the region in question. The 



' What is here foretold actually happened a few days after this paper was read. 



