THE FORESTS OF ACADIE. 39 



particularly the canoe or paper birch, so called from the 

 readiness with which its folds of bark will separate from 

 the stem like thick sheets of paper. Smooth and round, 

 mthout a knot or branch for some forty feet from the 

 ground, is the tree which the Indian anxiously looks for; 

 it affords him the broad sheets of bark which cover his 

 wigwam and the frame of his canoe, and long journeys 

 does he often undertake in search of it. The bark is 

 thick as leather, and as pliable, and in the summer can 

 readily be separated for any distance up the stem. From 

 it the Indians make the boxes and curiosities, by the sale 

 of which these poor creatures endeavour to earn a liveli- 

 hood. Their fanciful goods cannot, however, compete 

 with the useful productions of civilised labour, and are 

 only bought by the stranger and the charitable. The 

 white birch of the forest is as closely connected with the 

 interests of the Indian as the pine is with those of the 

 lumberer, and the former dreads the ultimate comparative 

 scarcity of the birch as the latter does that of the noble 

 timber-tree. 



From the mountains of Virginia, on the south-east, 

 this important tree ranges northwardly in Atlantic 

 America far into the interior of Labrador, whilst in the 

 extreme north-west it ascends the valley of the Mackenzie 

 as far as 69 degrees N. lat. 



In travelling the forest in summer it is quite refreshing 

 to enter the bright sheen of a birch-covered hill, exchang- 

 ing the close resinous atmosphere of heated fir- woods for 

 its cool open vaults. The transition is often quite sudden 

 — the scene changing from gloom to brightness with a 

 magical effect. Such a contrast is presented to the 

 marked lights and shades of the pine forest ! The silvery 



