Dec. 27, 2002 The story of Canadian white Pine

Giant white pines in Algonquin park around 1910.  MNR photo.

A Ministry of Natural Resources booklet "Ontario Celebrates its History:  White Pine" (1984) states that, "for more than a century, the white pine was  the dominant factor in the growth and development of Ontario."  In 1984 the  white pine was fittingly designated as Ontario's Arboreal Emblem-Ontario's  official tree.  White pine was the basis of the success of William Mackey  and the Klocks, featured in my articles earlier this month, and in previous  articles on J.R. Booth, J.B. Smith and others.  The white pine was never  used as a Christmas tree because it is often not symmetrical (see photo),  and for years no one but approved lumbermen could cut them down.  Many early  deeds had a clause stating that white pine could not be cut by the owner of  the property.  For generations, upwards of a third of the income of the  provincial government came from white pine auctions and fees.  Today I will  look at a few aspects of the white pine's history.

When early settlers arrived in what is now Ontario, the land was covered  with over 50 species of hardwoods and softwoods.  The most common trees were  the red pine and the white pine, with the white pine the most prevalent.   Fully mature white pine trees in favourable soils reached upwards of ninety  metres in height and fifty cm in diameter.  The wood was light, creamy white  or yellow, with little grain.  It can be identified by reference to its  needles, which come in groups of five, which is easy to remember because the  word white has five letters.

The major early use of white pine was for squared timber for main masts, bow  sprits, yards, and spars for the ships of the British Navy.  Some pine was  sawn in the early days in water-powered sawmills for local use.  The pine  for the navy was needed because Napolean controlled the Baltic ports,  cutting off timber for the British Navy.

As early as 1806, Philemon Wright floated some timbers that were squared for  convenience and efficiency to Quebec from his settlement on the Ottawa  River.  Once the British demand increased and duties were eliminated, the  Ottawa Valley was like a magnet, drawing "timber merchants, lumbermen,  labourers, settlers, craftsmen, shopkeepers" and other less favourable  types.

White pine rafts of William Mackey on the Ottawa River.

As the trees were cut up the Ottawa River Valley, small companies were  pushed out, and the timber barons came into being.  People followed the  lumber trade and settled behind the logging so they could be close to the  work, and so families could establish homesteads and raise crops and  animals.  Larger commercial sawmills soon followed to provide lumber for  settlers and for the wholesale market in Canada and the U.S.  When railways  were built, lumber villages like Fossmill, Kiosk, Sturgeon Falls, Cache Bay,  etc. sprung up.  By the 1850s commercial sawn lumber became dominant, but  squared timber remained in demand into the 1900s.  J.R. Booth took out his  last squared timbers from his Algonquin Park limits in 1925.

The sawn lumber business was growing rapidly.  In 1859 J.R. Booth and his  competitors sawed 25 million board feet of lumber in Ottawa, 100 million in  1886, a quarter billion in 1871 and over half a billion by 1874, and  continued to grow for twenty-five years.  Most of this lumber was white pine  from along the Ottawa Valley.  Hardwood lumber did not begin to be cut until  railways became available, because hard woods do not float.  The lumber  business today has evolved into pulpwood, veneer, plywood and a multitude of  other products, and is the backbone of Ontario's economy, especially  Northern Ontario.

White pine is still grown today, but takes many years to develop to a usable  size.  White pine took very special conditions to grow.  Forest research  found that by examining the cross sections of white pine that there were  certain years when growth was exceptional and when seeds were more likely to  fertilize in quantity.  A fire was usually involved in creating the  conditions for this growth.  The North Bay Public Library has an excellent  cross-section of a white pine near the entrance to the Children's library  showing the tree's size, growth pattern and longevity.  Planting and  preservation techniques have improved significantly today.  Algonquin Park  is one example of an area where foresters oversee the planting growth and  cutting to preserve the industry.

Algonquin Park also has a remarkable protected Old Growth white pine forest  in the dead centre of the park, almost two kilometres east of Big Crow Lake,  north of Opeongo Lake.  The publication The Raven (August 1997) notes that  there are "scores of enormous, breath taking white pine, some over forty  meters (135 feet) and 1.2 metres (45 inches) in diameter."  There is the odd  white pine in various other locations where they were missed for some  reason.  In a visit to an old J.R. Booth property with my neighbour John  Leach, who now owns the property, we found a white pine where we could just  touch our fingertips when hugging the tree.  Roy Summers from North Bay has  a beautiful white pine near his cottage on the Ottawa River that is 16.5  feet in circumference.  He told the people on the former Timber Train and  they marked it for people to see.  I bought a 24" white pine seedling at a  forestry show a couple of years ago and it has grown significantly since  then, and I have a little piece of our heritage to look at, admire, and help  me remember the incredible place of the white pine in Ontario's economic and  social history.

The National Film Board has a remarkable film called The Story of Canadian  Pine, produced in 1938, telling the full story of pine lumbering in the old  days for those  interested in having a look at the scale of the operation in those days.