The perpetual forest: Using lessons from the past to sustain Canada's forests in the future

Liquidation EraIn addition to wolves, the North American forest was home to justifiably hostile native inhabitants whose tenure was threatened.It was a dark, dangerous place with little utility.These newcomers embarked upon a policy of forest liquidation.The primary objective, reflected in the few forest laws and regulations thenin effect, was to get rid of the forest, to clear the land for the more "civilized" enterprise of farming.A similar policy was adopted toward the aboriginal population, beginning with the physical extermination of the Beothuks in Newfoundland and softening with time and the movement westward, into assimilation.North America's legendary embodiment of the prevalent attitude of forest liquidation was, in real life, a Canadian who participated in the 1837 Papineau rebellion and fled to the US where heperformed heroic feats of deforestation.The mythical Paul Bunyan was North America's prototypical logger, dedicated to the task of felling trees and clearing the land for settlement and civilization of the continent.By early in the nineteenth century, the assault on the Canadian forest had spread west along the St. Lawrence River, and up the Ottawa Valley into the largest and most valuable stands of white pine in the world.For most of the nineteenth