Mr. McInnes has the following to say of the timber he noticed in his ascent of Burntwood river:—“Above Odei river the forest is mainly spruce and tamarack of about sixty years growth, the larger trunks reaching diameters of from eight to ten inches, but the general average not more than six inches. In the valleys occasional white spruces and tamaracks attain diameters as great as eighteen inches. These are trees that have escaped when the surrounding forest was burned and are sufficient evidence that, but for the repeated fires, there would be large areas covered with good timber. In the fifteen mile stretch of the Burntwood below Waskwatim lake, the low flat along the river is covered by sixty years’ timber growth, mainly of Banksian pine and spruce. The higher plateau is wooded principally with spruce from six to eight inches in diameter, with scattered Banksian pine, poplar and white birch succeeding an earlier burned forest. A mixed second growth forest, mainly aspen poplar, covers all the uplands round Waskwatim lake, while on the islands and on low flats bordering bays of the lake are found white spruce and poplar of diameters up to one foot. The country north of Footprint lake is described by Mr. McInnes as being covered for the most part with a mixed second growth from ten to thirty years old, but with here and there clumps of white spruce, with tall and straight trunks a foot or more in diameter. As to the region just north of the Saskatchewan, Mr. McInnes says the areas of forest, where the trunks are large enough to be of commercial value, are limited. The principal tracts of large standing timber are situated to the north of Moose lake, to the west of Atikameg, in lower Grass river valley and on the ridge separating Cormorant and Yawningstone lakes. The last named tract contains white spruce of exceptionally large size with tall clear trunks. Smaller areas are found on islands and points in the various lakes, along the upper valley of Cowan river, and in clumps along all the stream valleys in the district. Smaller timber, mainly black spruce, that would be of value for pulpwood, is much more widely distributed over large areas.”
Mr. McInnes made a computation of the age of the trees in the area he explored and found that the
Annual Growth is Slow.
They run from four to fourteen inches in diameter. They would furnish, he thinks, very strong and firm lumber, and the smaller trees, owing to their closely packed fibres and the comparative absence of open cellular matter, would be especially well adapted for the manufacture of pulpwood for paper making.
Mr. McInnes, in his evidence before the Senate committee of 1907, stated that the western part of Keewatin has evidently been a country of good timber generally, but unfortunately it has been almost all burned over, so that the only areas of good timber that he knew of were the area north of Moose lake, the area west of Clearwater lake, and the area between Cormorant and Yawningstone lakes. He made cross-sections in that country several times, and he found white spruce, and the largest tree he found was thirty inches in diameter. He would say most of these trees make about three fourteen-foot logs because they were growing thickly, and it was a regular white spruce timber limit. There were a great many from ten inches up to twenty-three inches. That is an area about six miles long by two or three wide, and going through that there are areas of swamp. He cross-sectioned through it, and would come to a quarter of a mile of good trees, and then perhaps a mile of swamp land with black spruce, and half a mile of good trees right across. North of that point there are only a few isolated areas of timber that had escaped the fire. On the islands and lakes there were pretty good timbers, and on some little peninsulas that are nearly cut off; otherwise it had all been burnt.
About Waterpowers.
Specially referring to waterpowers, Mr. McInnes, in the report of his explorations in 1906 (See p. [23]), says: —“Between Lake Winnipeg and Split lake, a distance of about two hundred and twenty-five miles, the Nelson river has a descent of approximately two hundred and seventy-five feet. The current between the numerous lake expansions is generally swift, and upwards of a dozen falls and rapids occur, some of the former offering magnificent sites for water powers. The aggregate power that could be generated along the river is enormous, as the amount of water passing over the various falls is very great. The volume of the river can be appreciated by a consideration of the extent of its drainage area, which embraces all the country westward to the mountains between the watershed of the Churchill and Athabaska on the north, and the Missouri on the south, and eastward to the head waters of Albany river, and within fifty miles of Lake Superior.”
Mr. Owen O’Sullivan, in his 1906 report (See p. [23]), states that the shores of Assean lake, which is about twelve miles long and a mile wide, are “well wooded with black spruce, tamarack, and white birch.” The forest growth at Waskaiowaka lake is chiefly black spruce and white birch of from four to fourteen inches in diameter. Mr. O’Sullivan describes a hill of drift “covered mostly with black spruce averaging eight inches in diameter” as rising for two hundred feet above the level of the water on the east side of the expansion of the Little Churchill below Waskaiowaka lake. As far down as the junction of Switching river the country on both sides of the Little Churchill produces black spruce, white birch and tamarack of small size. From a point eighty miles down the Little Churchill northward, the country, which was overrun by a fire that occurred some forty years ago, is now partly covered with bunches of second-growth black spruce, tamarack and white birch. Bunches of spruce and tamarack that escaped the fires were frequently met close to the water’s edge.
In his evidence before the Senate committee of 1907, Mr. O’Sullivan stated that in his trip in 1906, the only timber he saw was at Split lake—spruce, poplar and white birch, from four to eighteen inches in diameter. The country between there and Big lake is swampy and bears black spruce with small spruce averaging four to six inches in diameter, which would make good pulpwood. Then around Wabishkok there are birch and white spruce, and so on. They are a little larger, as large as six to eighteen inches in some places, occurring in isolated groves. The black spruce would average in the nice terraces and level clay slopes from the lake about eighteen inches. They grow that size and more. North of that, between there and the tree limit or the open barren ground, the country was
Run Over by Fire