1396 



Canadian Forestry Journal, November, 1917 



The Beginnings of Lumbering in 

 Canada 



Opening a page of Canadian his- 

 torical records at 1683 we come upon 

 seignorial grants conditioned upon 

 'the preservation of oak timber for 

 the building of vessels.' Pine and 

 other woods were merely occupying 

 good room. Only the necessities of 

 the Royal Navy caused any reference 

 to the value of a forest in tne deeds 

 or land policies of that time. Like- 

 wise in 1713, 1747, and other years, 

 we find the French Governors re- 

 serving areas for oak timber for ship 

 and bridge building. Down to the 

 close of the French regime no in- 

 dustry had. evolved from the forest 

 resources except as applied to labor 

 in getting out naval timbers. 



From the time of the occupation 

 of the British in 1763, new demands 

 arose. White pines adapted to naval 

 masting and accessible for water car- 

 riage were expressly reserved for use 

 by the Home Government. Thirty- 

 four years afterwards licenses were 

 issued to contractors for the Royal 

 Naval Dockyards who in turn sub- 

 let the cutting and export rights to 

 merchants and lumbermen in Canada. 

 Therein was provided the first sub- 

 stantial impetus towards extensive 

 exploitation of the forest. The privi- 

 leges of our present licenses may 

 sometimes seem elastic enough, but 

 what would be said to-day to a 

 timber license, granted in 1808, by 

 the naval authorities, to "travel into 

 and search our woods in our provinces 

 •of lower and Upper Canada where 

 we have reserved to us the property 

 in any woods or trees and the right 

 of cutting them, and there to fell 

 and cut so many good and sound 

 trees as may answer the number 

 and dimensions of said contract." 

 A license giving one firm the pick 

 of probably 350.000,000 acres of mer- 

 chantable timber! 



The remoteness of Canada's tim- 

 ber from the European user and the 

 small capacity of ocean carriers was 

 not the worst handicap in our lumber 

 development, for a strange prejudice 

 against Canadian woods had gained 

 hold in the British market. Giving 



evidence before a British Parliament- 

 ary commission in 1820, Alexander 

 Copland, a timber merchant and 

 builder stated that "Norway, Swed- 

 ish, Russian, and Prussian timber is 

 very superior quality to that import- 

 ed from America. The bulk of that 

 is very inferior in quality, much softer 

 in its nature, not so durable, and very 

 liable to dry rot. Indeed, it is not 

 allowed by a professional man under 

 Government to be used, nor is it 

 ever used in the best buildings of 

 London." This sort of buncome was 

 bound to dissolve before common 

 sense experience, and, indeed, it short- 

 ly came that few buyers discriminated 

 against Canadian woods in matter 

 of quality. 



The export timber trade of Can- 

 ada mounted until in 1825 from the 

 one province of New Brunswick, 

 400,000 tons of white pine went over- 

 seas. During and after the Na- 

 poleonic wars, partly because of the 

 disorganization of Baltic trade, and 

 as much from the desire to encourage 

 Colonial commerce and help pay the 

 battle bill, the timber trade between 

 Canada and the United Kingdom 

 grew until Britain, ninety-seven years 

 ago, imported 335,556 loads (a load 

 equal to 50 cubic feet) of timber from 

 British North America, and 166,600 

 from European countries. This was 

 a most advantageous change from 

 17 years earlier when only 12,133 

 loads were provided by Canada, and 

 280,550 loads from European coun- 

 tries. In the year of Confederation, 

 1867, Canada had so promoted its 

 lumber industry as to sell to the 

 United Kingdom $6,889,000 worth, 

 and to the United States a bill just 

 nine thousand dollars smaller. 



Canada's White Pine 

 As was noted at the beginning of 

 the article, the changes in the lumber 

 industry of Canada since Confedera- 

 tion have been chiefly in respect of 

 extension of volume rather than of 

 evolution of manufacturing methods. 

 It is true that narrowly that period 

 occurred the apotheosis of the square 

 timber trade. Means of quick econ- 

 omical, transport by rail have also 

 wonderfully advanced. 



