How to Increase Northern Tree Growth.
In a letter published in the Ottawa Journal on February 19, 1910, Mr. William Ogilvie, the well-known surveyor and explorer, and ex-governor of the Yukon, wrote, in speaking of Athabaska and Mackenzie regions:—“As time goes on much increase to the commercial timber area might be made by draining the swamps, and drying the moss on the surface which now keeps the ground beneath cool, indeed preserving the frost in it during the whole summer. Once dried the moss would die, and instead of keeping the ground cool would absorb heat and help to warm it. Anyone who has travelled in the north cannot help noting the difference in the size of the timber on mossy ground, as compared with that where there is no moss. On mossy ground you will see trees from one hundred to two hundred years old, according to the annual growth rings, only three, four or five inches in diameter, while only a few yards away where there is no moss or moisture, trees of seventy and eighty years’ growth will be nearly a foot in diameter, and of a different quality of lumber.”
Anglican Church, School and Rectory at Fort Simpson.
In the same communication Mr. Ogilvie wrote:—“Those who have never seen a northwest forest, when told of it, naturally compare it with others they have seen, but one from the eastern parts of Canada would find a great difference between his native woods and those of the northwest. The varieties of trees are fewer, and smaller in size, than those in the east and south. Of varieties the principal are spruce and poplar; of the poplar there are two kinds, one of which, the balsam poplar, in some places grows to be a very large size. On the lower stretches of Liard river I have seen them well over four feet in diameter, stump high, but generally such large ones are unsound and full of cracks. The other kind seldom grows more than a foot thick, and the trunk is seldom suitable for turning out lumber.
The Spruce Bears the Palm.
“When dry it makes good fuel but is not comparable as a heat producer with the eastern hardwoods. As commercial lumber the spruce bears the palm, metaphorically, as well as literally. It seldom grows to more than fifteen to seventeen inches in diameter near the ground, and where it stands thickly together grows to a good height with straight tapering trunk, but where scattered it is not so long nor so graceful, consequently less useful. It supplies all the lumber for local demand all over the northwest, and north, and is found from the forty-ninth parallel of latitude to Arctic ocean, and on the alluvial flats of Mackenzie delta I have seen specimens about as large as any I have noticed elsewhere in the territories. The other varieties of trees are so few and far between that they are hardly worth mentioning except white-birch which is found all over, but is seldom of sufficient size or shape to be useful. I have seen a few tamaracks at odd spots, and on the Athabaska I saw a small grove of Canada balsams, the only place I ever saw them in the northwest. They seemed as vigorous as any I ever saw, which proves that they would grow there if given the opportunity, and if they, why not other specimens of our more southern trees. It has often occurred to me that it would be well to try planting our white pines and other commercial trees in those northern forests, to see if they would naturalize, and if so, increase greatly the value of the northern domain. It would cost very little to do it, and a fostering care of them might by selection at last make a success of the experiment, if it did not succeed from the start.”
| [23] | Fort Enterprise is a little east of the eastern limit, of the tract of country defined in a preceding chapter; but as it is in the Mackenzie watershed, it may well be treated of in this chapter. |