Timber Industry Flashcards
What is a staple?
a single part of nature that is exploited for profit
significantly helped with the development of our county
Harold Inis Famous quote
Canada developed not in spite of geography but because of it.
How were forests obsticles?
Wanted to make the land productive, so turned forests into agriculture
cut down stumps
Sawmills - what is milling?
taking a tree and cutting it into usable timber
large scale milling revolutionized in the early 1800’s - came from European demand
French and Napoleonic wars changed European trading systems, so GB turned to it’s colony Canada for timber. once the wars were over, GB went back to trading with Scandinavia.
Ship construction
boats were made out of 4-5 thousand oak trees,
white pine mast poles and planks
Quebec sent 200 ships a day to GB filled with timber, peaked 1850’s
Why did the timber transportation to Europe end?
- End of the Napoleonic and French wars
- General shift away from burning wood, leaned how to use coal and fossil fuels to make energy and electricity
- timber trade degraded forests, all the trees on the coast were cut down, harder to get to the inland trees
Tree Cutting
all done by hand, teams were sent out who used to be fur traders
loggers lived in remote temporary logging camps, some turned into settlements.
Horses
used to transport trees on sleeds onto lakes and rivers
Log Drives
logs were stacked on rivers, so they would float down in the spring to trading posts
men walked ontop of the floating logs to direct them, dangerous job
log slides were built to bypass waterfalls, arrived in ottawa to be traded
Environmental impacts of the log drive
- polluted the water
altered natural path of the river, and ecosystems around it
animals, rocks, spawning areas, vegetation was destroyed
Processing of Trees
caused lots of sawdust as a by product, dumped into rivers
Government enforced regulation to stop dumping sawdust into rivers, for health concerns not for environmental concerns
Who was JRR Booth?
Mill owner who resisted the movement, used sawdust for pulp and paper
How did Forest clearing destroy the NA landscape?
trees were replaced with agricultural fields, cities
animals were extirpated
first concerns of deforestation.
What is infiltration?
Water Absorbing into the ground
minimized soil erosion and decreases likelihood of landslides
George Perkins Marsh
first saw the signs of infiltration
said that civilizations collapse because of environmental degradation.
Deforestation - soil erosion - drought - crop failure - famine - political unrest
Adirondak mountains
intensely loged in the 1800’s, water levels dropped, and there was no water in the canals, stopping shipping and trading.
New york protected it and made it a park.
Algonquin park
protected area because it is the head waters of large rivers.
first provincial park in Ontario
