The southeastern territory south of the Height of Land was originally all densely wooded. From it a farm area of round 25 million acres has been cut out, less than 7 per cent. of the land area included. Especially the south-western half of Ontario, between the Great Lakes, which contains the most fertile land, is densely settled, as also the shores of the St. Lawrence. A large part of the remaining forest area is cut over and culled, especially for pine; the amount of White Pine remaining according to estimates made in 1895 would now be less than 20 billion feet. Extensive areas have been turned into semi-barrens by repeated fires.
The Statistician of the Dominion in his report made in that year comes to the conclusion that “the first quality pine has nearly disappeared” and that “we are within measurable distance of the time when, with the exception of spruce as to wood, and of British Columbia as to Provinces, Canada shall cease to be a wood exporting country.”
The composition in general is the same as that of the northern forest in the United States: hardwoods (birch, maple and elm prevailing) with conifers mixed, the latter, especially spruce, becoming occasionally pure. The nearly pure hardwood forest of the southern Ontario peninsula has been almost entirely supplanted by farms, and here, even for domestic fuel, coal, imported from the United States, is largely substituted for wood. Although White Pine, the most important staple is found in all parts of this forest region, the best and largest supplies are now confined to the region north of Georgian Bay. Unopened spruce and fir lands still abound especially in Quebec on the Gaspé peninsula and northward. Spruce forms also the largest share in the composition of the New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Newfoundland forest, the pine in the first two provinces having practically been cut out. Extensive, almost pure Balsam Fir forest, fit for pulp wood, still covers the plateau of Cape Breton, while Prince Edward Island is to the extent of 60 per cent. cleared for agricultural use.
Much of this Eastern forest area is not only culled of its best timber, but burnt over, and thereby deteriorated in its composition, the inferior Balsam Fir appearing in largest number in the reproduction.
North of the Height of Land, in Ungava and westward, spruce continues to timber line, but, outside of narrow belts following the river valleys, only in open stand, branchy, and stunted, hardly fit even for pulp, for the most part with birch and aspen intermixed. This open spruce forest, interspersed among muskegs continues more or less to the northern tundra and across the continent to within a few miles of the mouth of the Mackenzie River and the Arctic Ocean, the White Spruce being the most northern species. In the interior, northern prairie belt, groves of aspen, dense and well developed, skirt the water courses and form an important wood supply.
The forests of British Columbia partake of the character of the Pacific forest of the United States, the Coast Range along the coast for about 200 miles being stocked with conifers of magnificent development, Douglas Fir, Giant Arborvitæ, Hemlock, Bull Pine and a few others, the Rocky Mountain range also of coniferous growth, pine and larch, but of inferior character, large areas being covered with Alpine Fir (Abies lasiocarpa) and Lodgepole Pine, important as soilcover and for local use in the mining districts, but lacking in commercial value.
If much of the forest area in the settled provinces is burnt over and damaged by forest fire, much more extensive destruction is wrought in this northern forest by fires sweeping annually over millions of acres unchecked, many of them said to be started by lightning. About 50 per cent. of this country is said to be fire-swept.
Among the large notable forest fires the great Miramichi fire in New Brunswick in 1825 destroyed more than 6,000 square miles in a few hours. In 1880 the loss by forest fires in the Ottawa valley alone was still estimated at $5,000,000 annually. In 1909, reports indicate over half a million acres burnt over in that year.
The river systems of Eastern Canada, with the mighty St. Lawrence permitting sea-going vessels to come up to Montreal, have been most potent factors in the development of the lumber industry and export trade, without the need of railroads. Yet although, as a consequence this trade was early developed to a relatively large figure, it has not grown at as rapid a rate as might have been expected, and to-day with an export in excess of imports of less than 40 million dollars is considerably below that of the United States.
The small export trade of earlier times, having been stimulated by exempting Canadian timber from paying duties in the home country, or at least allowing it a preferential tariff, had by 1820 grown to 15 million cubic feet, all squared timber, and sent to England. In 1830, it had crept up to only 20 million cubic feet, but by 1850, it amounted to over 50 million cubic feet, two-fifths of which was sawed material, the 2632 mills being reported by the Census (1851) as having cut 776 million feet B.M. By 1867, when the Dominion was formed, the total export of forest products had advanced in value to $18 million; the next decade, with a climax year in 1873 of $26 million, saw an increase to $20 million in the average, the proportion of sawn material being nearly three times that of hewn wood, and the entire cut of Ontario going to the United States. At that time it was computed that the waste of value in shipping square timber amounted for the province of Ontario alone still to over $350,000 annually. At present sawed lumber, deals, boards, planks, etc., form 70 per cent. of the total export.