118 



MARINE AND FISHERIES 



6-7 EDWARD VII., A. 1907 



THE STE. CROIX RIVER. 



Returning again to the immediate subject of my report, I would like to call special 

 attention to tlie conditions found at St. Stephen, N.B., on the Ste. Croix river. 



This river has been the scene of lumbering and milling operations, I suppose, for 

 over a hundred years. At first the trade was an export one with the mother country, 

 the lumber being in the forln of square timber. The many old wharfs at St. Andrews 

 now in a state of utter decay may be taken as an index of the extent of these early 

 lumbering operations. That a great deal of wealth was accumulated in these early 

 days, both at St. Andrews and St. Stephen, from the trade in timber, is attested also 

 by the remains of many fine private residences and grounds still to be seen in every 

 street of these towns, but especially in St. Stephen. 



Gradually, as the character of the lumber trade changed from the manufacture 

 and export of square timber to that of deals and boards, the centre of this business 

 shifted from St. Andrews to St. Stephen, because here there was magnificent water 

 power. At one time — ^some thirty years ago — there were not less than 13 large saw- 

 mills at St. Stephens, all discharging every pound of their sawdust into the Ste. Croix 

 river. To-day there is not one-third of this number. The sawdust is still discharged, 

 however, into the river, excepting that from cedar shingles, which is carted away and 

 burnt. 



During the many years that sawing has been carried on here, millions of tons of 

 sawdust must have been passed into this river. When the tide is out, the sawdust is 

 carried down below the town by the river's current, so that for practically a mile below, 

 little or no sawdust accumulates along the banks. But beyond this point, for a dis- 

 tance varying from li to 3 miles, immense beds form, especially during July, August 

 and September, when the water is low in the river. During the freshets of sprinj^ 

 these beds are washed down and away out into Passamaquoddy bay. 



Here then, if anywhere in Canada, we ought to find fish killed by thousands as a 

 result of the fungus growths, poisonous gases, or other effluvia which have been so 

 graphically described by those who have written upon the ill-effects of sawdust. But, 

 strange to say, so far as I ean learn, no unusual death rate among fish has ever been 

 reported along the mouth of the Ste. Croix. On the contrary, there has been only the 

 usual decrease in the catch of anadromous fish, such as has occurred along almost 

 every river in the maritime provinces. The decrease has not been due to the efi^ects 

 of sawdust, but to deforestration, to overfishing, and to lack of fishways, or improper 

 , fishways, so that anadromous fish cannot pass up the rivers to their natural spawning 

 grounds. 



Moreover, Mr. Frank Todd, an unusually well-informed man upon all fishery mat- 

 ters, a gentleman who has been inspector of fisheries for this district for a number of 

 years, tells me that he has caught hundreds of salmon at the tail end of the lowest 

 mill on the river, where sawdust would naturally be most abundant; and that during 

 every season for years he has watched salmon ascending the river towards their natural 

 spawning grounds above. 



Looking at the mills, the sawdust, the fishways and the annual catch of salmon 

 by anglers, it is quite clear that sawdust has not destroyed the salmon^, fishing on the 

 Ste. Croix river. 



Turning now to look at the subject from the point of view of an infusion of saw- 

 dust in water, what do we find ? Well, we find this : The annual cut of lumber at St. 

 Stephen, board measure, is, according to Mr. Frank Todd, about 35,000,000 feet. Ac- 

 cording to Mr. Wells, from whose report I have already quoted, the annual outflow 

 of water of Ste. Croix is 44,800,000,000 cubic feet, or, expressed in pounds, 2:,800,000,' 

 000,000. 



Now, if we express the weight of sawdust as percentage of the weight of water 

 for two-thirds of the year, which is about the length of time that the sawmills run each 

 year, we shall find that the solution is one of -^02 per cent strength. 



