trictly be called prairie, and even so this apparently 

 ."eeless vast is relieved by general clumps of brush, 

 Dy the wooded banks of river and stream, and by 

 the density of forestalion on its rocky eminences. 

 When the northern boundary of this .prairie expanse 

 is ipassed, a fine luxuriant parkland is pierced with 

 bush, at first light and scattered, but becoming 

 thicker and denser as progress is made nortihwards. 

 Fnally, in the north, heavy woods and swamps are 

 encountered containing 'much merchantable timber 

 and pulpwood. 



With the vast stands of merchantable timber in 

 other provinces existing in close contiguity to the 

 railroads and other transportation means, and with 

 the comparatively recent settlement of the western 

 provinces and 'the almost exclusive attention paid to 

 agriculture and its many phases, not a great deal of 

 attention has ibeen paid to timber in the west, ex- 

 cluding of course British Columbia, where the in- 

 dustry is of prime importance. But in the light of 

 the universal talk of conservation of forest wealth, 

 the heavy toll put upon other Canadian forest areas 

 by reason of the wasteful methods of other countries 

 in the past in regard to their own forests, with the 

 possibility oi their depletion or indeed exhaustion if 

 the most rigorous methods of preservation are not 

 extended, it will not be long before greater attention 

 is paid to the more remote wooded areas of the 

 prairie provinces and these areas be called upon to 

 help out in 'the situation. A future awaits the prairie 

 provinces at the hands of the lumberman and pulp- 

 man. 



Five Hundred Million Acres 



It has been estimated that there are about 500,- 

 000,000 acres of forest lands in Canada about half 

 of which is covered with merchantable 'timber, and 

 the value of the forest products in 1918 was $279,- 

 548,011. The prairie provinces contain about eight 

 million acres of commercial timber lands, 5,400,000 

 acres of which are in Alberta, 1,920,000 acres in 

 Manitoba, and 750,000 acres in Saskatchewan. In 

 addition to 'this, there are large resources of pulp- 

 wood upon which no really accurate estimate has 

 been made. 



Manitoba is about seventy per cent wooded, and 

 in this province ithe principal heavily timbered sec- 

 tions have been set aside as government forest re- 

 serves located west of the Red River in the southern 

 part of the province. On the upper plateau of this 

 section are spruce, jack pine, and tamarac; in the 

 lower plateau are found poplar and white birch; in 

 the coulees elm, oak, basswood and white pine. The 

 principal trees in order of present importance are 

 white spruce, black spruce, jack pine, tamarac, balsam 

 fir, aspen, cedar, burr oak, paper or white birch, 

 white elm, green ash, white oak, balsam, balm of 

 Gilead, black ash, basswood, Manitoba maple, 

 cotton-wood, red ash, and mountain maple. 



Whilst little extensive commercial use has been 

 made of these woods from the lack of exploitation 

 due to conditions already noted, they possess a 

 potential worth commercially of some magnitude, 

 and have already been extensively made use of local- 

 ly. The province it has been estimated, contains 

 about 1,920,000 feet of saw timber or 4,000,000 feet 

 B. M. 



Alberta is estimated 'to contain about twenty one 

 billion board feet of saw timber, the principal 

 species being spruce, lodgepole pine, Douglas fir, 

 poplar balsam fir, white birch and tamarac. Fires 

 have wrought destructive havoc in the forests of the 

 province much of which has been devastated and on 

 the burnt-over areas the reproduction is mainly 

 lodgepole pine with areas of poplar and birch. 

 Lumbering operations are principally confined to 

 the Rocky Mountains Reserve which contains all 

 the lumber at present merchantable in Alberta. 



There are nearly eight hundred square miles at 

 present under license on permits issued prior to the 

 establishment of the reserve. 



Saskatchewan Well Timbered. 



In Saskatchewan 'the area actually timbered with 

 merchantable trees is about 750,000 acres, the coun- 

 try to the north-east being heavily timbered with 

 spruce, tamarac, and jack pine. Prince Albert is the 

 centre of Saskatchewan's lumber industry. 



Though the timber trade of the prairie province 

 has not as yet made a startling record in Dominion 

 figures, it is provincially of a high value and of 

 great local importance, and the economic history 

 of the great plains would have been very different 

 but for their possession of the northern woods. 

 Whilst little if any of the timber cut* ever gets 

 beyond the borders of its native province, there is 

 a local market whose demands are increasing year- 

 ly. The prairie provinces are showing a steady ex- 

 pansion perhaps unprecedented in the history of new 

 countries and their cities and towns, and above all 

 their agricultural areas, have need of lumber in ever 

 increasing quantities. 



The lumber cut for the year 1918, the latest re- 

 turn available, for the prairie provinces, was, accord- 

 ing to the Dominion Bureau of Statistics, 152,270 

 million feet B. M. valued at $3,836,053. This is 

 divided among the 'three provinces as follows: Mani- 

 toba 54,047 million feet worth $1,240,052; Saskatche- 

 wan 75,835 million feet worth $2,122,307; and Alberta 

 22,388 million feet worth $473,694. The total cut of 

 the three provinces represents nearly three per cent 

 of the cut all over the Dominion. 



Administered by Dominion Government. 



In the provinces of Alberta, Saskatchewan and 

 Manitoba, in common with the North West Territor- 

 ies and the Railway Belt in British Columbia, the 

 forests are administered by the Department of the 

 Interior of the Dominion government from whom 

 leases of timber or permits to cut upon forest re- 

 serves must be secured. There are thirty-nine forest 

 reserves in Western Canada twenty-six of which, with 

 an aggregate area of nearly 32,500 square miles, are 

 situated in the three prairie provinces. 



Little has yet been noted of the pulpwood resour- 

 ces of these provinces, an important item at the 

 present time in view of the heavy call being made 

 upon the forests of the east and the commencement 

 made upon those of British Columbia on the Pacific 

 coast. Roughtly it may be stated that the prairie 

 provinces have substantial resources of the rav 

 material for the continent's paper mills which are 

 delving into every corner of Canada's forests for 

 supplies, and that these are practically untapped as 

 yet. 



No accurate estimate has ever been conducted in 

 this territory, except to arrive at a calculation of 85,- 

 000,000 cords of spruce and balsam, besides which in 

 many sections of the north there are dense stands 

 of poplar and jack pine. A new value has been put 

 upon the forest resources of the prairie provinces 

 by the discovery of the use of jack pine in paper 

 making, for this tree is found extensively over that 

 country. 



The forests of the prairie provinces though sub- 

 survient in their value and production to other na- 

 tural resources, are by no means insignificant and 

 will form a substantial source of Dominion revenue 

 when, with the inevitable depletion of constructive 

 woods and pulpwoods in areas at present being ex- 

 ploited, the call is made upon them. Meanwhile 

 they are doing valuable work in meeting local de- 

 mand, and the Dominion's care should be to preserve 

 them against wasteful ravages for the time when 

 more extensive utilization will be made of them. 



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