British Columbia Forest Branch. 



Outline of the Organization of this New Service and Results of the First 



Year's Work. 



The establishment of the British Colum- 

 bia Forest Branch under the Forest Act, 

 framed by Sir Richard McBride and his 

 confreres, after the investigation held all 

 over the Province by the Royal Forestry 

 Commission appointed to look into the mat- 

 ter of existing forest conditions, was re- 

 ceived a little over a year ago with the 

 greatest enthusiasm by forest conserva- 

 tionists in all parts of the country. Now 

 that the Forest Branch is approaching its 

 first anniversary it is interesting to note 

 the advances which have been made by the 

 executive staff appointed by the Hon. W. 

 R. Ross, Minister of Lands. 



From the middle of last summer con- 

 tinuously without a break up to the pre- 

 sent time Chief Forester H. R. MacMillan 

 and his board of four lieutenants, have 

 been devoting themselves unstintedly to the 

 work in hand, and it may be said that the 

 results achieved are in keeping with the 

 enthusiasm with which they addressed 

 themselves to their task. Whereas under 

 the administration prior to the establish- 

 ment of the Branch there were only two 

 departments which concerned themselves 

 with the management of the forest re- 

 sources of the Province, with an executive 

 staflF of perhaps twenty men, there is now 

 an executive force of about fifty exclusive of 

 the the two hundred fire rangers appointed 

 for the dangerous season. 



The organization is divided as follows: 

 under the Minister there is the Forest 

 Board of five members, viz., the Chief 

 Forester, in whom final authority under the 

 Minister rests, the Chief of Management, 

 to whom falls the carrying out of the 

 * timber sales' which have taken place of 

 the ol<l 'special license' established in 

 1907 and discontinued in 1909, when the 

 Government of the Province placed com- 

 plete embargo upon the alienation of tim- 

 ber; the Chief of Operation, with whom 

 rests the work of fire protection; the Chief 

 of Surveys, who has charge of the various 

 reconnaissance and other surveys and land 

 classifications under the Forest Branch; 

 and the Chief of Records on whom de- 

 volves the collection of revenue and the 

 maintenance of statistics in the Branch. 



For the purposes of proper admipistra- 

 tion the Province has been divided into 

 eleven geographical districts. These are 

 as follows: In the south from east to west, 

 Cranbrook, Nelson and Vernon districts. 

 North of these is the Railway Belt, admin- 

 istered by the Dominion Forestry Branch. 

 North of this from east to west are the 



districts of Tete Jaune Cache, Kamloops, 

 Lillooet and Vancouver. The districts 

 farthest north from east to west are Fort 

 George, Hazelton and Prince Rupert. The 

 remaining district is Vancouver Island. 



The location of each of these districts is 

 fairly well given by its name. The areas 

 in acres embraced in these districts are as 

 follows: Cranbrook, 7,325,000; Nelson, 5,- 

 259,000; Vernon, 6,963,000; Tete Jaune 

 Cache, 4,698,000; Kamloops, 6,619,000; Lil- 

 looet, 11,431,000; Vancouver, 15,755,000; 

 Fort George, 28,785,000; Hazelton, 13,786,- 

 000; Prince Rupert, 18,723,000; Vancouver 

 Island, 6,463,000. 



With the enormous quantity of timber 

 which the Province possesses (it is estim- 

 ated that fully three hundred billion board 

 feet of merchantable material, or half of 

 that standing in the Dominion is within 

 the borders of British Columbia) the main 

 problem is that of protection from fire. To 

 this end every possible precaution is being 

 taken by the Forest Branch to keep down 

 this item of loss. The eonatant effort is to 

 secure as forest rangers men of ability and 

 experience in order that the system of 

 patrol will work with the regularity of a 

 machine in the dangerous season. Great 

 anxiety is being felt on all sides lest the 

 great growth of grass which was the result 

 of the unusually wet spell at the close of 

 last summer mav produce conditions of un- 

 usual danger to the forest growth. This 

 year will certainly be one Of the most dif- 

 ficult in the history of the Province. 



One of the advanced means of protect- 

 ing the forest from fire adopted by the 

 Branch is that of i)lacing eight power 

 launches on waters adjacent to large bodies 

 of timber. On the coast, there are to be 

 four ;{<) ft. launches and two 54 ft. launches 

 with a power calculated to give ample 

 speed in cases of emergency. In some 

 cases it would be impossible to reach by 

 land a fire in some of the rocky districts 

 near the sea. Rapid, water transportation, 

 however, is expected to solve the question 

 of getting men and supplies quickly to the 

 point of danger. 



The (;hief Forester notes in his annual 

 report that the scarcity of trails^ telephone 

 lines, and other permanent improvements 

 for the use of the fire protective force will 

 greatly hamper the movements of those to 

 whom" is entrusted the work of keeping 

 down fire. In jn&ny parts of the country 

 where the timber is largest and the fire 

 risk greatest, there is, as yet, no means 

 whereby a large force of men can be placed 



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