Canadian Forestry Journal^ December, 1^15. 



297 



fires used by them; and particularly 

 so at the present time when cautions 

 are drilled into them by the authori- 

 ties and by notices posted far and 

 wide through the forests. And I 

 may here say, that such notices are 

 to be seen in all kinds of difficult 

 and unlooked for places, and they 

 speak vigorously for the thorough 

 manner in which the fire guardians 

 are doing their duty. Indians, as a 

 habit, use small fires for cooking, 

 generally inside their teepees, and 

 are careful to extinguish them. It is 

 in their own interests to do so, for 

 fires destroy their camping grounds 

 and drive the game to other parts. 



It would seem that the most fre- 

 quent causes are due to operations in 

 the development of industries : rail- 

 ways, lumber camps, mining, road- 

 making, etc., and it is in such con- 

 nection that the law should be most 

 strictly and rigidly enforced. It has 

 been said that prospectors have been 

 known to fire and burn large tracts 



of forest to make the work of pros- 

 pecting easier. This is not probable, 

 and certainly not at the present day. 

 Prospectors travel rapidly over ex- 

 tended areas and most of their ex- 

 plorations and discoveries are above 

 or near timber line, where burns are 

 seldom seen. 



Lightning s Effects. 



It is a cause of much wonderment 

 how bush fires could have started in 

 tracts of forest destroyed long ago 

 that are far from probable causes. 

 In some cases this is undoubtedly 

 due to lightning. I have several 

 times seen trees in burned tracts 

 that have been blasted and broken 

 by lightning. I once saw the light- 

 ning strike in the forest and smoke 

 go up directly afterwards. When on 

 Mount Bonney, near Glacier Station 

 in the Selkirks, an isolated patch of 

 bush in the Fish Creek Valley was 

 seen to be on fire. It is difficult to 

 imagine how it could have been 



A beautiful mountain side as seen from a Grand Trunk Pacific train passing 

 through Bulkley Valley, British Columbia. 



