224 



Canadian Forestry Journal, October, 191 5. 



to spend millions or even thousands 

 of dollars in seeding or planting up 

 areas of timber until the public has 

 been so aroused that there is reason- 

 able assurance that these costly 

 areas will be protected from fire and 

 allowed to mature. If we will not 

 protect what we have and what is 

 now immediately valuable what is 

 the use of^planting more forests only 

 to be fuel for new flames? 



''Forest Arson. 



It is for this reason that fire-pro- 

 tection systems are organized. It is 

 for this that men are fined for care- 

 lessness with fire. It is for this that 

 settlers who have let clearing fires 

 run contrary to law have been sent 

 to jail. Nobody wants an active set- 

 tler in jail when he ought to be on 

 his land working to support his 

 family, but until the public comes 

 to think of arson in the forest as 

 serious a crime as arson in the city 

 then our forests will burn. 



We are coming to realize that you 

 cannot destroy the natural resources 

 of one part of the country without 

 injuring every individual in the 

 country. The most careless settler 

 and the most wasteful lumberman 

 gets something out of the forest and 

 passes on something to others but 

 by far the greatest loss to Canada's 

 timber wealth has occurred in a way 

 that absolutely benefited no one. 



The Prospector's Guilt. 



Take the Klondike rush of six or 

 seven years ago, that part of the 

 rush that occurred in the valley of 

 the Mackenzie river in what is now 

 northern Alberta. Many of these 

 would-be miners were careful of 

 their camp fires and put them out 

 but the majority cared not a fig for 

 the future, or even for the present so 

 long as it did not inconvenience 

 them, and let their fire run without 

 let or hindrance. There were other 

 prospectors besides the Klondikers 

 and there were careless trappers 

 and travellers generally. The result 

 is that miles and miles of that coun- 



try covered with fine timber have 

 been burned to a desert. The game 

 and fur-bearing animals have been 

 killed or driven away and the In- 

 dians impoverished. Now settlers 

 are coming in to the Peace River 

 valley and they are in danger of 

 facing a shortage in some sections of 

 timber for building and fuel. The 

 trails have been overthrown and 

 obliterated in many places by burn- 

 ed timber. All dead loss and all the 

 result of criminal carelessness. 



One of the officers of the Forestry 

 Branch of the Department of the 

 Interior in reporting on an area of 

 about nine thousand square miles 

 speaks of it in the words given be- 

 low. In itself 9,000 square miles is 

 a large area but it takes up a very 

 small part of the map of Canada. 

 And Canada is suffering a like loss 

 in area after area all over the north 

 country from Ungava to British 

 Columbia. This officer reports : 



Fires in the North. 



"The results of repeated fires have 

 been appalling. However, the com- 

 parative figures and other considera- 

 tions given below are as nothing 

 compared with the impression the 

 eye-witness receives. 



"Over an area of about 8.00O 

 square miles, excluding the prairie 

 land from the total area examined, 

 only 648 square miles or about 8 per 

 cent, have been found bearing a 

 forest cover of 100 yards old and 

 over. These are the only portions 

 which can be regarded as having a 

 virgin cover. Besides this only a 

 little over 8.5 per cent, of the area 

 surveyed, or approximately 700 

 square miles has been found with a 

 cover from 50 'to 100 years old but 

 not averaging above 70 years. 



"The total area reported as bear- 

 ing a small pole-timber, a forest 

 which hardly averages 25 years old, 

 would represent a little less than 14 

 per cent, of the territory, or an area 

 in round figures of 1,150 square 

 miles. 



