250 



Canadian Forestry Journal, November, 1915. 



LOSSES ALONG H. B. RAILWAY. 



Serious Record of Forest Destruction Owing to Lack of Appliances 



and Official Supervision. 



The Hudson Bay Railway, which 

 is directly controlled by the Depart- 

 ment of "^Railways and Canals, has 

 been responsible for very serious 

 damage to forest growth during 

 the construction season of 1915. One 

 estimate places the loss at $250,000, 

 and the area burned over at 500,000 

 acres. If these figures are even ap- 

 proximately correct — the fact forms 

 a serious comment on the methods 

 which have been allowed to prevail 

 in connection with the H. B. Rail- 

 way's construction. 



The area traversed by the new line 

 is not, of course, heavily timbered, 

 but there is considerable jack pine, 

 spruce, black spruce and birch, av- 

 eraging from 4 to 40 inches at the 

 butt, along the waterways and on 

 islands. Certainly it is the only tim- 

 ber available to settlers and sawmills 

 which will be expected to come into 

 the country upon the opening of 

 traffic. There is little doubt that if 

 prospective farmers were told that 

 the forest growth in the neighbor- 

 hood of the road had been turned 

 into a bon-fire, they would hesitate 

 to accept even free land under the 

 handicaps of importing their fuel 

 and lumber. 



It has been commonly accepted 

 that no Canadian railway can be run 

 through new country without ruin- 

 ing during the period of construction 

 a great part of the timber upon 

 which so much of the freight rev- 

 enue of the future depends. This 

 belief has been justified by nothing 

 more than the frequent instances of 

 official indifference to the importance 

 of forest preservation. 



Whatever the reasons may be, the 

 facts are indisputable. In 1914, the 



Canadian Pacific, Grand Trunk Sys- 

 tem, Canadian Northern and all 

 other company-managed roads in 

 Canada caused the burning of 191,- 

 000 acres, valued at a little over 

 $400,000, of which about half repre- 

 sented the value of merchantable 

 timber. It is difficult to understand 

 why a few hundred miles of new 

 Government line should approxi- 

 mate the damage of 25,000 miles of 

 private-owned line. Indeed there 

 exists no reason whatever for such 

 a showing except that the Hudson 

 Bay road was not equipped with the 

 fire-prevention appliances imposed 

 by law upon the private companies, 

 and supervision of contractors and 

 men was not enforced. 



During the construction of the 

 National Transcontinental through 

 Quebec, a part of the line was pa- 

 trolled by the limit holders in co- 

 operation with the contractors and 

 with the Department of Railways 

 and Canals and the Quebec Govern- 

 ment. A^ery little was burned in this 

 section, although destruction was 

 considerable in the area outside of it. 

 So was it with the Canadian Nor- 

 thern construction through Nor- 

 thern Ontario. From the first sur- 

 vey to the completion of steel, forest 

 destruction was held down to a mini- 

 mum, the company being determined 

 that modern ideas of forest preser- 

 vation should prevail. Great assis- 

 tance was given the C.N.R. in this 

 section by the rangers of the Ontario 

 Government. 



Here were two great precedents 

 for the building of the Hudson Bay 

 Railway, and yet neither was ap- 

 plied. It is possible that the forest 

 growth in Manitoba adjacent to the 



