1126 



Canadian Forestry Journal, May, 1917 



The Green Timber of the Heights 



(BY A. J. C.) 



In spite of an early start and steady 

 climbing, it was nearly noon when 

 we broke from the last thicket of 

 young hemlock and gazed out over a 

 fireswept hillside; a desolate scene of 

 charred stumps and outcroppings of 

 weathered granite. Our objective 

 point, the timbered ridge that now 

 showed plainly some miles ahead, had 

 long challenged Our curiosity; being 

 visible from the lower country as a 

 jagged skyline that varied in hue with 

 the changing seasons from the pure 

 white of its winter robe to the warm 

 purple and gold of a summer sunset, 

 its lights and shadows a daily source 

 of delight and wonder. 



Where the Fireweed Grows 



It was hot, toilsome work across the 

 path of the fire. The high sun darted 

 his rays against the hillside at right 

 angles and the heat quivered back 

 from bare rock and blackened log as 

 from a furnace. Behind every gran- 

 ite ledge the young fireweed was 

 growing, promising a blaze of color 

 later in the year. Scarcely nine 

 months had passed since the fire had 

 destroyed the growing timber, but 

 small, tender shoots of the hardy 

 willows were already springing from 

 the burnt-out soil, striving to re- 

 clothe the naked land and bring back, 

 each in its turn, the insect and bird- 

 life which had fled or been destroyed. 



Blue Grouse and Blueberry 



A raven, glossy black in the strong 

 light, flew slowly over our heads on 

 heavy wings and perched, like a 

 brooding spirit of destruction, on the 

 splintered top of what had once been 

 a noble tree. We left him, "monarch 

 of all he surveyed," to his dismal 

 croaking and, climbing upward, pass- 

 ed the edge of the burnt area at last 

 and began to force our way once more 

 through the familiar tangle of sap- 

 lings and brushwood. Although not 

 a bird was visible, the dreamy, mon- 

 otonous call of the mating blue-grouse 

 boomed and echoed all about us. 



vibrating through the warm, still air. 

 We stumbled through vegetation con- 

 taining many plants seldom found 

 in the lower country. The devil's 

 club spread its trailing limbs in a 

 trap for the unwary, the broad leaves 

 concealing the long sharp thorns 

 which lay in waiting beneath. In 

 every open glade the highbush blue- 

 berry blossomed, and right well did 

 we mark the patches for our guidance 

 in the fruiting-time. 



Deep in the Forest Primeval 

 Our day of rambling and explora- 

 tion was far spent when the thickets 

 abruptly gave place to a cool, twilight 

 forest of gigantic trees and the ground, 

 clear of underbrush and carpeted with 

 brown needles of the fir, stretched 

 level before us. We were on the 

 ridge! Untouched by axe or fire, 

 rising, massive and straight until their 

 heads were lost in one canopy of 

 foliage, these stately trees formed a 

 'forest primeval" such as few parts 

 of the world can show. The change 

 from our usual surroundings in the 

 second-growth woods along the shore 

 was so great that it seemed as though 

 we had passed at one step int.o a 

 foreign country. We moved forward 

 noiselessly through the dim aisles 

 of this noble woodland, the springy 

 moss-covered floor deadening all 

 sound. The vast girth and height 

 of the trees, the semi-darkness under 

 the dense roof of their foliage com- 

 bined with the oppressive silence to 

 give rise to a feeling of reverence 

 akin to that awakened by the arched 

 wonders and pealing organ music 

 of some great cathedral. 



When Cook Sailed Straits 

 The memory of that scarred hillside 

 was still vivid; and to us, as woods- 

 men, there came a mental picture of 

 a hurricane of fire roaring through 

 this virgin forest, the heritage of 

 generations to come, and destroying 

 these mighty trees, unmatched in all 

 the world, the outcome of centuries 

 of growth, which, in their sapling 



