tHE HAMILTON ASSOCIATION. 49 



living trees, or tall branchless and scathed trunks met the eye in 

 every direction. The young second growth indicated a soil not in- 

 capable of sustaining pine trees of the largest proportions ; black 

 cherry, birch (both white and black), alder, small clumps of sugar 

 maple, and a thick undergrowth of hazelnut now occupies the do- 

 main of the ancient forest. The southwest side of this hill formed 

 a precipitous escarpment 150 feet above the waters of a long, clear 

 lake. All around the eye rested upon low dome-shaped hills dip- 

 ping towards the northeast and covered with a rich profusion of 

 second growth. The vast wilderness of green was studded with 

 black islands of burnt pine, and a few isolated living trees, serving 

 by their surprising dimensions to tell of the splendid forests which 

 must have once covered the country. . . . The uniform size of 

 second growth timber on the Brule hill seemed to prove that the 

 great fire which devastated this region may have occurred about thirty 

 years since."' That would be about seventy years ago. Another 

 fire which destroyed a valuable pine forest occurred about twenty- 

 five years ago in what is now known as the Sudbury country, north 

 of lake Huron. It is said that in one day this fire ravaged a tract 

 S2venty miles long by thirty wide, or in all about 2,000 square miles. f 



* Vol. I, pp. 63-64. ~~ 



t The lirst fire in this region occurred in 1864, and extended from lake 

 Nipissing to Bruce Mines along the shores of Georgian bay and lake Huron. 

 The fire of 1871 followed in the wake of the previous one, but covered a 

 much larger area in the interior. Mr. D. F. Macdonald of Parry Sound, 

 who knows the region intimately, writes me: "The hardwood ridges and 

 dense swamps seemed to be the only effective barriers of the conflagration. 

 Lakes and rivers made no break in the fiery torrent as it ruslied along the 

 pine-clad and moss-covered ridges of rock and sandy or gravelled plains. 

 The fire of 1871 was doubtless the fiercest, as it destroyed every tree and 

 plant in its course, as well as animals, I found the cliarred bones of an 

 Indian on the Wahnapitse river in the autumn of 1872, and no doubt he had 

 been smothered in the smoke and flames. The burnt barrel of his gun, his 

 hatchet, knife and kettle, with the metallic buttons of his clothes and a few 

 wrought iron nails from the canoe, were all commingled with his charred 

 bones. This shows that the fire was heavy and hot when an Indian would 

 become a victim to its ferocity. Had he followed the river he would have 

 been swept over the falls ; he ran the fiery gauntlet about half way across 

 the portage with the canoe on his shoulders, when he fell smothered with 

 smoke and heat and was cremated on the spot. Both fires originated in 

 the neighborhood of lake Nipissing, and in 1871 there were no persons on 

 that lake except John Beatty at the mouth of South river, and Norman 

 McLeod, the Hudson's Bay trader, near the mouth of the Sturgeon, and a 

 few Indians on the Beaucage reserve, on Goulas point, and at Chaudierre 

 falls." The fire in 1864 took place in the first week in May, Mr. Samuel A. 

 Marks of Bruce Mines informs me. Only five houses were saved in the 

 Copper Bay section of the village, and about 1,500 people were left homeless. 



