_Report on the Forest Wealth of Canada_, by the Statistician of the
Department of Agriculture, 1895.
Reports of Crown Lands Departments, of Bureau of Forestry of
Ontario, and of Forestry Branch of the Dominion.
DEFEBAUGH’S _History of the Lumber Industry of America_, Vol. I,
1906, brings together much information on this phase of the subject.
HOUGH’S _Report on Forestry_, Vol. II, 1880, has a compilation of
earlier statistics.
_An Analysis of Canada’s Timber Wealth_, by B. E. FERNOW, in
Forestry Quarterly, Vol. VI, 1908, attempts a differentiation of
commercial forest areas.
The largest single colony of Great Britain and the most important as
regards forest supplies, both as to quantity and character, Canada has
been for a long time supplying the mother country with a large
proportion of her imports.
Although in size larger than the United States, its land area being
estimated at over 3,600,000 square miles, Canada has so far attained
only one-fifteenth of the population of her neighbor, namely less than 7
million, although now rapidly growing. Much of her territory is still
unknown, and will remain for a long time unavailable for civilization
owing to its inhospitable climate. Indeed, as yet not one-third of its
territory may be considered opened up to civilization, and not much more
than 100,000 square miles can be said to be occupied, one-half improved
in farms, and two-thirds of this in crops.
Much of the northern country remains unorganized and the vast North West
Territory (2,656,000 square miles) between Hudson’s Bay and the Rocky
Mountains, as well as Labrador, are for the most part uninhabited except
by Indians and a few military and trading posts.
The central interior region, dotted with lakes and intricate river
systems, is a continuation of the forestless arid and subarid, plains
and prairies of the country West of the Mississippi River, toward the
north changing by steps into lowlands studded with open treegrowth, and
barren tundra frozen all the year, a million square miles answering to
this last description. The Pacific Slope is a rough and lofty mountain
country, the extension of the Rockies and Coast Ranges, with a variable,
in part humid and temperate, in part dry and rigorous climate, more or
less heavily wooded, about 600,000 square miles, with the Fraser River
in the South forming the most important drainage basin.
The Atlantic portion, south of the plateau-like, bare, or scantily
wooded Hudson Bay and Labrador country, with a climate, somewhat similar
to North Eastern Germany, is formed by the slopes of the watersheds of
the Great Lakes and of their mighty outlet, the St. Lawrence River and
its Gulf; the slopes rising gradually northward to the low range of the
Height of Land, a plateau with low hills, not over 1500 feet elevation,
which cuts it off from the northern country and forms the limit of
commercial forest. This region, the bulk of the provinces of Ontario and
Quebec--a belt of not exceeding 300 miles in width and about 1500 miles
in length, altogether 300,000 square miles--with 93,000 square miles in
the maritime provinces, around 250 million acres in all, represents,
outside of British Columbia, the true forest region of Canada, and at
the same time the centre of Canadian civilization.
Although the Cabot brothers discovered Cape Breton and Labrador in 1497
and 1500, the first settlement of Canadian territory was not made until
1541 by French colonists, after the first Captain-General of Canada,
Jacques Cartier, the discoverer and explorer of the St. Lawrence (in
1534), had taken possession of the country for Francis I; but not much
progress in colonizing was made until Champlain’s arrival in the first
years of the next century. Quebec was founded as early as 1608, and
Montreal in 1611, but Ottawa dates its first beginnings not farther back
than 1800.
The northern country around Hudson’s Bay was, under the name of Rupert’s
Land (after Prince Rupert, the head of the enterprise), undefined in
limits, granted by Charles II, in 1670, to the Hudson’s Bay Company, a
powerful fur-trading corporation which had not only a commercial
monopoly but, except for occasional interference by the French, held
absolute governmental sway over the country through 200 years, its
jurisdiction at one time extending to the Pacific Coast.
Friction and warfare with the English resulted in the latter acquiring
by the treaty of Utrecht in 1713, Newfoundland, and settling their
rights on Hudson’s Bay. The final conquest of “New France” by the
English ended French rule in 1763, but the French colonists remained
peacefully, and their descendants form to-day, at least in Quebec, the
predominating influence. Indeed, in 1774, by the so-called Quebec Act,
the first permanent system of self government was established much on
the lines of the French feudal system, and the French civil law was
retained.
At first, under English rule, the territory, then including the States
of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin and Minnesota, formed
one colony, but after the war of the Revolution, in 1791, the territory
remaining English was divided into two separately governed provinces,
Upper and Lower, or West and East Canada. They were re-united in 1840,
and continued so until 1867 when the so-called Union or British North
America Act effected the present organization of the Dominion of Canada,
a federal union, comprising only the provinces of Ontario, Quebec, New
Brunswick and Nova Scotia. After various combinations and subdivisions
all of the British Possessions in North America, except Newfoundland and
its dependencies in Labrador, came into the union, and, in 1882, the
union was completed with the then seven provinces (those mentioned with
Prince Edward Island, Manitoba and British Columbia) and all the
organized and unorganized territory.
In the same year, four territories, Assiniboia, Saskatchewan, Alberta
and Athabasca, in 1895 the territory of Ungava in Labrador, and in 1898
that of Yukon were organized, with a view of their eventual elevation
into provinces, the relationships of the federation being quite similar
to that of the states and territories in the United States.
In 1905, the Western territories were organized into two provinces,
Saskatchewan and Alberta.
The government, although practically much like a republic and largely
independent of the home country, is theoretically a limited monarchy,
the king being represented by a Governor-General, appointed by the
king, and a privy council selected by the governor. The latter also
appoints (now 81) senators for life to form the upper house of the
Parliament or legislative body, while the lower House of Commons is
elected by the people. Besides this imperial government, each province
has its own separate government with a lieutenant-governor, appointed by
the Governor-General, and an elected legislature; this autonomy being
somewhat similar to that of the states of the United States and the
division of functions between federal and provincial governments being
also similar.
Although the home government retains the veto power, the supreme
jurisdiction and various other powers, and although apparently, by the
appointment of officials, its influence is guarded, practically the
party management as exercised in Great Britain prevails, and
independence from imperial influence and from the home government is
continually increasing. In regard to the crownlands, including forests,
this division as well as this relationship becomes important. Each
provincial government except those of the three middle provinces
administers the crownlands within its boundaries in its own way, yet on
similar lines, while the Dominion government controls only the lands
located outside of the provinces together with those of the middle
provinces and the so-called railway belt in British Columbia. These
latter lands were mostly acquired by purchase from the Hudson’s Bay
Company, the Company relinquishing its territorial rights in 1868, and
the transfer being completed in 1870 upon payment of £300,000.