The last woods was the limit of other interesting creatures—the Ants. Wherever one looks on the ground, in a high, dry place, throughout the forest country, from Athabaska Landing northward along our route, there is to be seen at least one Ant to the square foot, usually several. Three kinds seem common—one red-bodied, another a black one with brown thorax, and a third very small and all black. They seem to live chiefly in hollow logs and stumps, but are found also on marshes, where their hills are occasionally so numerous as to form dry bridges across.
I made many notes on the growth of timber here and all along the route; and for comparison will begin at the very beging.
In March, 1907, at my home in Connecticut, I cut down an oak tree (Q. palustris) that was 110 feet high, 32 inches in diameter, and yet had only 76 rings of annual growth.
In the Bitterroot Mountains of Idaho, where I camped in September, 1902, a yellow pine 6 feet 6 inches high was 51 inches in circumference at base. It had 14 rings and 14 whorls of branches corresponding exactly with the rings.
At the same place I measured a balsam fir—84 feet high, 15 inches in diameter at 32 inches from the ground. It had 52 annual rings and 50 or possibly 52 whorls of branches. The most vigorous upward growth of the trunk corresponded exactly with the largest growth of wood in the stump. Thus ring No. 33 was 3/8 inch wide and whorl No. 33 had over 2 feet of growth, below it on the trunk were others which had but 6 inches.
On the stump most growth was on north-east side; there it was 9 inches, from pith to bark next on east 8 1/2 inches, on south 8 inches, north 6 1/2 inches, west 6 1/2 inches, least on north-west side, 6 inches. The most light in this case came from the north-east. This was in the land of mighty timber.
On Great Slave River, the higher latitude is offset by lower altitude, and on June 2, 1907, while among the tall white spruce trees I measured one of average size—118 feet high, 11 feet 2 inches in girth a foot from the ground (3 feet 6 1/2 inches in diameter), and many black poplars nearly as tall were 9 feet in girth.
But the stunting effect of the short summer became marked as we went northward. At Fort Smith, June 20, I cut down a jackpine that was 12 feet high, 1 inch in diameter, with 23 annual rings at the bottom; 6 feet up it had 12 rings and 20 whorls. In all it appeared to have 43 whorls, which is puzzling. Of these 20 were in the lower part. This tree grew in dense shade.
At Fort Resolution we left the Canadian region of large timber and entered the stunted spruce, as noted, and at length on the timber line we saw the final effort of the forests to combat Jack Frost in his own kingdom. The individual history of each tree is in three stages:
First, as a low, thick, creeping bush sometimes ten feet across, but only a foot high. In this stage it continues until rooted enough and with capital enough to send up a long central shoot; which is stage No. 2.