Doctor Bell, at one of his examinations before the Senate committee of 1887, produced as an exhibit a branch of the Banksian pine (Pinus Banksiana), often called the jackpine and scrub pine. This is about the only tree in North America which we can call strictly Canadian. Both its northern and southern limits are practically in Canada. It extends thousands of miles from the southeast in New Brunswick to the northwest, in a belt, throughout the Dominion.
In height this tree grows one hundred feet and upwards. Doctor Bell had seen them six feet in circumference. The largest trees that he had seen of this species were on the upper waters of the southern branches of Albany river. In general, trees attain their greatest perfection in the centre of their geographical distribution. Sometimes they degenerate into brush, at the outside edge of the territory in which they grow. As you go north, south, east or west, they may become smaller and smaller until they die out, but this is not the case with all kinds of trees.
The Banksian pine is not particularly valuable for lumber. It resembles the red pine; it has a coarse, distinct grain and can be used for many purposes. In England it would be used for the manufacture of fashionable bedroom furniture.
It is something like the pine of Florida and Georgia, which has been used for some years past in England in the manufacture of furniture. It would
Become An Article of Commerce
if means of communication with the northern forests were provided. The Banksian pine would make good ties, telegraph poles, and timber for general purposes, besides fuel. In groves it grows very straight, but it is more likely to be branchy than red pine. Doctor Bell had seen hundreds of them in groves, affording logs of from twenty to twenty-two inches in diameter—two or three logs to a tree. It grows very rapidly. He had seen it, in his own experience, within fifteen years, growing to be useful trees; whole tracts had been covered with good timber.
Asked while giving evidence before the Senate committee of 1887 whether the shores of James bay and Hudson bay are wooded, Doctor Bell explained that on the west side to Seal river, a little beyond Churchill, commercial timber could be obtained from all the rivers flowing in from the south, and jackpine from some, and spruce and tamarack from all the rivers of James bay. This would be all of merchantable size, not extraordinarily large, but plenty of it. The spruce might be described as generally of a small size, but making up in quantity in the number of logs that might be obtained. The tamarack, though, is large.
In the course of his 1886 report (See p. [18]) Mr. A. P. Low of the Geological Survey states:—“The trees around Favourable lake consist of white and black spruce, aspen and balsam poplar, white birch, balsam and tamarack, many of which exceed eighteen inches in diameter.” On the shores of Sandy lake Mr. Low saw many trees of white spruce, poplar, birch and balsam exceeding eighteen inches in diameter. Between this lake and Severn lake there is a considerable area supporting a growth of black and white spruce, tamarack, poplar and birch, slightly smaller than those seen around the lakes.
As Severn river descends towards Favourable lake “the surrounding country gradually becomes smoother and the timber larger until within three miles of the lake, when the stream passes through low, swampy land, covered with thick, wet moss and a small growth of black spruce and tamarack.”
Mr. Low reports the soil about Deer lake as being “very thin and the timber correspondingly poor, except on a few low points where some white spruce, balsam and poplar exceed fifteen inches in diameter.”