Canadian Forestry Journal. Sepfcniber. ipi6 



723 



Fort William's Energetic Protest 



The following letter was address- 

 ed by the President of the Fort Wil- 

 liam Board of Trade to the Minister 

 of Lands and Forests at Toronto : 

 Fort ^^'illiam, Ont., 

 August 11th, 1916. 

 To the Honorable G. H. Ferguson, 

 Minister of Lands. Forests and 

 Mines, Parliament Buildings, 

 Toronto, Ont : — 



Dear Mr. Ferguson, — The recent 

 forest fire tragedy in Northern On- 

 tario, entailing such frightful loss of 

 life and property, has served to re- 

 mind us very forcibly of the repre- 

 sentations made to your Govern- 

 ment by this Board in the spring of 

 this year, as embodied in memoran- 

 dum dated 14th February. AVe feel 

 impelled to renew our solicitations 

 of that date with increased earnest- 

 ness, that some remedial steps may 

 be taken at the earliest possible mo- 

 ment by your Government to reduce 

 the hazard of devastation by forest 

 fire, and to prevent as far as is hu- 

 manly possible a repetition of the 

 holocaust which recently occurred in 

 Northern Ontario. 



In years past, constantly recur- 

 ring forest fires have seemed to in- 

 dicate that our forest protection ser- 

 vice had not kept pace with the 

 needs of the province, the need of 

 forest protection has grown from 

 year to year, and will continue to 

 grow just as long as settlers can be 

 induced to locate on timbered areas. 

 The location of settlement on the 

 timbered areas of Northern and 

 North A\'estern Ontario is greatly to 

 be desired, but with their location 

 there comes an added responsibility 

 to those who are charged with the 



protection and preservation of our 

 forests. As we hope for the settle- 

 ment of the timbered areas of Onta- 

 rio, so must we prepare to protect 

 the settler, and teach, or force, if 

 need be. the settler to protect him- 

 self from the catastrophe of forest 

 fire. No word of ours can ade- 

 quately describe the need of the 

 situation, the tragedy recently en- 

 acted in Northern Ontario is sadly 

 elocpient. 



While it may be true that forest 

 fires cannot be entirely eliminated 

 or their causes entirely removed by 

 legislation, we are convinced that 

 the laws relating to the prevention 

 of forest fires, and the regulations at 

 present existing in the Province of 

 Ontario are inadequate to the needs 

 of the province, and that legislation 

 should be enacted which would pre- 

 vent many abuses of existing privi- 

 leges, and remove at least a great 

 number of the causes of forest fire. 



Our Memorandum to you of Feb- 

 ruary 14th dealt largely with the 

 commercial loss sustained through 

 forest fires. The commercial loss 

 is indeed great, and it is not our de- 

 sire to minimize it in the least, but 

 recent events have fixed our atten- 

 tion on the enormous possibilities 

 for the loss of life as well. 



\\> have }-our assurance, per vour 

 letter of May 31st. that the question 

 of fire protection of our forest re- 

 serves is receiving the best consider- 

 ation of your department. 



We trust that in the very near fu- 

 ture Ontario will be provided with a 

 modern and efficient system of for- 

 est protection. 



Fort William Board of Trade, 

 authorized by resolution in 

 Council. August 10th. 1916. 



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