C(tn(i<li<in Foieslrij Joiinuil, August, 1!>17 



1249 



a night gaiii* was started but could 

 not accomplish much in the dark- 

 ness, but at dayhght a large shift 

 was at work and during Monday fire 

 lines were well under way and were 

 completed on Tuesday, the fire being 

 by that time well under control, 

 and there has not been any further 

 danger since that time. There is no 

 definite estimate of the loss sustained 

 in this fire as yet, but under the cir- 

 cumstances and with the conditions 

 that had to be faced it was kept w'ell 

 under control and prevented from 

 getting into areas of valuable timber. 

 There were several hundred men at 

 work and the cost of fighting the fire 

 will be very heavy. No detailed 

 encjuiry as to the cause of the fire 

 has been made as yet but it seems 

 reasonably conclusive that the fire 

 started in some way from the Mc- 

 Laren mill, illustrating that even 

 among the people w^ho are most 

 seriously affected by fire, namely, the 

 timber owners, there is not sufficient- 

 ly effective action to prevent danger- 

 ous fires starting. 



Some Fin Reports Exaggerated 



Earlier reports of damaging forest 

 fires in North Western Ontario turn 

 out to have been somewhat exagger- 

 ated. The fires reported from Sault 

 Ste. Marie district, May 15th, when 

 navigation was interrupted by smoke 

 were on the United States shore, and 

 not in Ontario. As is the case with 

 many newspaper accounts based on 

 statements of excited persons, the 

 damage ascribed to the fire near the 

 village of Hymens was overdrawn 

 greatly. One new^spaper version 

 mentioned the wiping out of manv 

 settlers, with a total loss of §10,000. 

 According to the ranger's report sent 

 to the Department at Toronto, the 

 private property damaged was a hen 

 house and store, totalling -SI 70.00. 

 Furthermore, the ranger states that 

 far from Mr. George E. Hymens 

 having cause for complaint, as quoted 

 by the newspapers, it was he who 

 started the fire by burning marsh 

 grass. 



STANDS OF RUSSIAN OAK 



.John Alberts, of the Allis-Chalmers 

 Co., Seattle, who spent considerable 

 time in Russia, says he saw the most 

 magnificent stands of oak timber 

 near Odessa, a port on the Black Sea. 

 Many of the trees were six to eight 

 feet in diameter. The timber stands 

 in the I'ral Mountains are very heavy, 

 consisting larl^ely of oak, with some 

 scattering ash and other wood>s. Mr. 

 Alberts visited Riga, where large 

 quantities of Baltic pine are exported 

 and where som.e large mills are oper- 

 ated. 



PROHIBITION AND LOGGERS 



{From ''The Timberman" ) 



Only a few^ short months ago the 

 city rendezvous of the average logger 

 in the Pacific Northwest was a short 

 pace indeed from the corner saloon 

 be ow the "line" in Portland or 

 Seattle. A 25-cent room or even a 

 10-cent bed in vermin-infested odg- 

 ing hous? served him w^ell enough in 

 he days gone by. His accumulated 

 pay checks, often untouched from 

 Christmas to the Fourth of July, 

 rnelted at the bar like the proverbial 

 dew before the rising sun Ten days 

 to tw^o weeks were often ample to 

 reduce his roll to the last farthing. 



The logger was easily "rolled" or 

 "trimmed" out of the last remnant of 

 his once tidy little sum by the leeches 

 of the lower levels of society, were 

 any left after John Barleycorn fin- 

 ished wdth him. A few^ days of such 

 revelry usually sufficed to send him 

 back to his camp with a bad taste 

 in his mouth and a feeling of disgust. 



With prohibition has come a new 

 order of things. This year on the 

 second "dry" Fourth of July we have 

 observed the logger in the better 

 class hotels up town, enjoying a room 

 w ith a bath. He now dresses as well 

 as his superintendent and even fol- 

 lows the latest whim in white collars. 

 It no longer surprises us to hear that 

 he is investing in agricultural lands, 

 city real estate and municipal bonds. 



As for the prohibition question, we 

 see nothing more to argue about. 



