DEPARTMENT OF LANDS AND FORESTS FOR 1930 11 



far-flung area north of the Albany River added to Ontario in the year 1912. 

 The Commissioners, Walter C. Cain, Deputy Minister of Lands and Forests, 

 representing Ontario, and H. N. Awrey, of Ottawa, representing the Dominion, 

 completed during the past summer the work begun the previous season. The 

 trip was made by„airplane, the Commissioners hopping off from Ottawa on 

 July 2nd and making a complete circuit of Ontario's hinterland and returning 

 on August 8th. Adhesions to Treaty No. 9 were signed the past year at Nikip, 

 southwest of Trout Lake on the head waters of the Severn River and at Fort 

 Severn and Winisk, both on the Hudson Bay, while important missions were 

 carried out at certain other points. Some thirteen Indian posts were visited 

 including, other than those above mentioned, a settlement at Sandy Lake 

 Narrows near the Manitoba boundary and such points as Fort Hope, Lansdowne 

 House, Osnaburgh, Attawapiskat. Albany and Moose Factory. 



The result of these negotiations has been the surrender by the Indians of 

 the entire area, some 128,000 square miles, and its acquirement by the Crown 

 in the right of the Province. Important reserves at strategic locations, selected 

 by the Indians themselves, were approved by the Commissioners and will later 

 on be regularly surveyed at the expense of the Department of Indian Affairs. 



A complete resume of the Commissioners' activities for the year 1930 

 appears in the annual report of the Department of Indian AfTairs for the fiscal 

 year ending March 31st, 1930. 



Land Transactions 



Free Grants 



In Free Grant activities the number of settlers locating and purchasing land 

 under the Free Grant Section of the Act varied but little from the previous year. 

 While during 1929 — 456 individuals were located, 460 were located during the 

 year 1930, in addition to which eighty-three purchasers were effected as against 

 ninety-nine for the year 1929. Approximately ten per cent, of those taking up 

 such holdings is found in Southern Ontario, the balance in Northern Ontario. 

 Thunder Bay District absorbed the highest number, there being 163, Rainy 

 River coming next with 121, Kenora and Sudbury following in the order named 

 with seventy-three and fifty-four respectively. 



A consistent checking up of Free Grant sections resulted in the cancellation 

 of 388 locatees who had for various reasons neglected to meet settlement require- 

 ments. Generally speaking, where just grounds are found for permitting extensions 

 of time to fulfil obligations, leniency is granted, but persistent failure to respond 

 to reasonable performance demands necessarily results in cancellation. 



As pointed out in former annual reports, those sections of Southern Ontario 

 allocated for free grants have been largely acquired in the past, the remaining 

 lots being but few and for the most part sought by sons or immediate relatives 

 of old settlers who successfully managed to steer through the pioneer period and 

 by constant thrift round out producing farms and make comfortable livings- 

 A strict application of confining the actual taking up of Crown land in the older 

 parts of the Province to such lots as cannot be primarily considered good 

 agricultural possibilities has lesssened the conflict, that in former times operated 

 between timber licensees and so-called settlers, and developed a healthy respect 

 for the timber interests. 



