Canada and the British immigrant

by Emily P. Weaver

The three chief industries of the province are farming, fishing and lumbering. Masts were the first article of export, and for years the people almost lived by the timber trade. Even not very long ago this industry brought $10,000,000 (nearly £2,000,000) into the province yearly, of which one-third was paid out in wages; and upon its prosperity depends the well-being of many not directly engaged in it. Since the introduction of iron vessels, the dependent industry of shipbuilding has declined, but new uses are continually being discovered for wood, increasing the value of all sources of supply. These have been recklessly reduced by greed, blunders and largely preventible accidents, but New Brunswick still possesses noble forests, and, perhaps, since the new day of deliberate “conservation” has dawned, may continue to possess them indefinitely.

The provincial government owns over 10,000 square miles of forest; but the greater part of this has been rented upon certain conditions for the cutting of timber, and the rents and dues thus collected bring in a considerable revenue to the public coffers. In 1906 it amounted to $250,000 (£50,000). Originally almost the whole of the province was covered with magnificent trees. For long, white pine was the only wood valued for export, and now little pine remains; but since the manufacture of paper from pulpwood began, a new value has been put upon the once despised spruce which, it has been said, grows in New Brunswick “like a weed,” on lands where farmers would be predestined to failure. Nowadays, however, immigrants are not permitted to settle on such lands, for it is realized that their doing so will be of benefit neither to themselves nor to the province.

Spruce is exported as “deals” and boards, and is used for railway sleepers, fence posts, and building materials, as well as for pulpwood; but fir, tamarac, maple, elm, birch, ash, butternut, poplar and hemlock also abound, and serve many useful purposes.

One great advantage of New Brunswick as a lumbering region is that its rivers everywhere form excellent waterways, down which the logs can be “driven” to market. The St. John and its tributaries drain nearly one-half of the province, and the Miramichi has a “watershed embracing about five thousand square miles.” Most of the forest exports go to Great Britain.

The lumbermen work in gangs of fifty or more, living in log camps built in the forests. The work is heavy, the life is rough, and accidents are somewhat frequent. For instance, when the logs going down stream get caught at some point and form a “jam,” it is often a risky business to “break” it; but work in the woods is healthy, and the lumbermen are well fed. In fact, the cook in a lumber camp is a most important functionary.

Fishing is another old industry in New Brunswick, which has a sea-coast of about six hundred miles. Considerably over twenty thousand persons, including lobster canners, are employed. In 1909-10 the herring fishery proved most valuable of all. Next in order came the catches of lobsters, sardines (said to be equal to the Norwegian sardines), smelts (of which enormous numbers are caught in the Gulf of St. Lawrence), cod and salmon, which are exported fresh and frozen, smoked, salted or pickled. A variety of other fish are taken in smaller quantities.

Owing to ice the Gulf fisheries cease during the winter, but those of the Bay of Fundy are carried on all the year round. The old-time oyster fishery has suffered here, as in the neighbouring provinces; but steps are being taken to preserve and increase the productiveness of the fisheries, as of the forests, and to educate the fishermen. With the latter object, the Dominion government a few years ago brought to Canada “a Scottish expert,” in the curing of herrings, “with a steam trawler and crew complete,” and with a view to the former they established several hatcheries of young salmon and lobsters, from which 122,000,000 of the last-named were distributed in a single season.

In addition to these commercial fisheries, New Brunswick finds a source of profit, as well as pleasure, in her trout streams and salmon rivers, which attract hundreds of anglers and holiday-makers to the province, as the vast woods of the interior, stretching through a district eighty miles wide by a hundred long, bring in sportsmen in search of red deer, moose, caribou and wild fowl. This region, too, is the haunt of many valuable fur-bearing animals. The game laws aim at preserving the supply of game, and outsiders have to pay twenty-five times as much as residents for a hunter’s licence, though in both cases the number of animals that may be killed is strictly limited. The province annually reaps a considerable harvest from licence fees, whilst the settlers in the wild districts to which the hunters go find the profits of the tourist trade a very welcome addition to incomes which are usually somewhat meagre.

There is not much mining, and of manufactures many depend on wood as their raw material. There are consequently many saw mills, pulp and paper mills, furniture and carriage factories. But this province, by the sea, is in a position to obtain readily and cheaply raw materials from other lands, such as cotton from the Southern States and sugar from the West Indies, so she has several cotton mills and “candy factories.” Other manufactures that may be mentioned are those of boots and shoes, nails and other ironware, brass goods, soap and woollen cloths. Finally, in 1911, there were in operation twenty-four cheese factories and sixteen creameries, which bring us back all the way round the circle to agriculture, the most important industry of all.

Throughout New Brunswick there is much excellent land, suited for different purposes. Like Nova Scotia, the province has its salt marshes and dyked lands on the Bay of Fundy, and its “intervales” along the rivers, both famous for their enormous crops of hay. It has, too, districts as well adapted, it is said, for the culture of apples, as the Annapolis valley itself. In fact it, also, is a mixed farming region, where grains of all kinds will grow; where one man pins his faith to dairying; another urges the profits to be made from sheep or poultry or pigs; and a third points triumphantly to his enormous and excellent crops of potatoes. The fact is that practically every branch of agriculture could be made far more productive with better methods and more labourers, even on the farms now being worked—to say nothing of the land that might be cultivated, and is not, at present, for want of population.