i o 



The National Geographic Magazine 



direction to Alaska, a distance of some 

 3,000 miles, with an average width of 

 perhaps 500 miles. This vast strip of 

 timber land, if placed upon the territory 

 of the United States, would extend from 

 Maine to California and from the south- 

 ern shore of Lake Erie to the northern 

 boundary line of Georgia. It is known 

 as the spruce forest of the Dominion, the 

 great bulk of the timber being of that 

 species, black and white, the other im- 

 portant trees being larch and poplar. 



Although this belt has been but par- 

 tially explored, it is claimed that many 

 of the trees in the southern portion are 

 of a lumber-producing size, but the 

 greater portion is fit only for pulp. 



When it is considered that spruce is 

 distributed in vast quantities through all 

 the forests of Canada, and that an almost 

 incalculable amount will be produced in 

 this great northern belt, it is hardly ex- 

 aggeration to say that the Dominion pos- 

 sesses an inexhaustible supply of pulp 

 wood. 



Dr Robert Bell, Director of the Geo- 

 logical Survey of Canada, says of the 

 area of the forests : 



"The area of our northern forests may 

 be reckoned as forty-four times as great 

 as that of England. Any one of these 

 forty-four parts will produce . wood 

 enough to supply the ordinary demands 

 of the present population of Canada — 

 that is, 5,000,000 people could get what 

 is required for mining, fuel, etc., by 

 taking the timber from a space the size 

 of England— and would be able to allow 

 the other forty-three equal parts to be in 

 reserve or used for export." 



The railway being built from Sault 

 Ste. Marie to Hudson Bay will make 

 available the timber growing around the 

 bay and along the line of the road, and 

 may possibly provide a more accessible 

 field of pulp wood than can be obtained 

 in any other way for the rapidlv growing 

 industries of the Soo. 



THE SOUTHERN BELT 



The southern or commercial timber 

 belt spreads over a very wide territory. 

 It comprises that portion of Ontario and 



Quebec lying between the forty-fifth and 

 fiftieth parallels of latitude and bounded 

 on the east by the St Lawrence River 

 and on the west by the Great Lakes and 

 Manitoba. Great interest centers in this 

 great timber region by reason of its prox- 

 imity to the manufacturing centers of the 

 United States and because it contains 

 the most valuable timber for lumber east 

 of the Rocky Mountains. 



It is not, however, a compact and un- 

 broken belt of first-class timber. Climatic 

 conditions seriously interfere with the 

 development and growth of some of the 

 best species of timber that inhabit this 

 region, for none of the best ones extend 

 farther north than the watershed be- 

 tween Hudson Bay and the Great Lakes, 

 approximately the fiftieth parallel of lati- 

 tude, and many of them find their north- 

 ern limit far south of this parallel. The 

 composition and extent of this timber 

 belt can be better understood by taking 

 a map of the Dominion and tracing its 

 boundaries and noting the northern limit 

 of the most valuable species. The forty- 

 fifth parallel cuts out entirely one very 

 valuable species — the black walnut — 

 whose northern limit of growth is the 

 latitude of the city of Toronto, while a 

 few miles north of this parallel is the 

 northern limit of red cedar and white 

 oak. A line drawn from the city of 

 Quebec to Sault Ste. Marie will designate 

 the northern limit of beech, while a line 

 drawn from the northern part of New 

 Brunswick to the north shore of Lake 

 Superior will mark the northern bound- 

 ary of sugar and hard maple. Two other 

 species which have their northern limit 

 within this belt are elm and birch. 



The king of the northern forests is 

 white pine, which has its northern limit, 

 as have also white cedar and red pine, at 

 this fiftieth parallel of latitude. This 

 region is now virtually its only home in 

 the Dominion of Canada. It was at one 

 time supposed that it had a very exten- 

 sive northern range, but Dr Bell states 

 that its distribution is comparatively 

 southern, very little being found north 

 of the fiftieth parallel. 



This belt would furnish an enormous 



