The early travellers were also impressed with the fine trees in this section of the northwest, and occasionally mention extra fine groves which attracted their attention. For instance, Simpson speaks of “firs of great size” on a projecting point in Methye lake, and, referring to one of his camps in Clearwater valley, says:—“One of the pines, under shelter of which we took up our night’s lodgings, measured three yards in girth at five feet from the ground.” As in other parts of Canada, forest fires have wrought dreadful havoc in parts of this belt, but there still remains considerable areas of good timber. The Venerable Archdeacon McKay, in his examination before the Senate committee of 1907, stated that as to the country around Lac la Ronge there is timber all through it, wherever it has not been destroyed by fires. He explained that he put up a sawmill operated by water power at Lac la Ronge in 1906. The logs that are sawn there are the kind of timber found in that part of the country. They average seventeen logs to the thousand feet. They would be logs fourteen or fifteen feet long. The diameter would be about two feet across at the butt—good, large logs, clean timber, very much the same timber as at Prince Albert. This good timber is scattered all over the country, sometimes for miles. It depends on the nature of the country. Asked how far this timber area would outskirt to the east, west and north, the Archdeacon replied he would say that kind of country extended all the way through right down to Lac la Ronge, and down all the way to the border of the province. Although he had not been through it, he had travelled backwards and forwards on it a good deal, visited Indian camps and so on, and it is very much the same kind of timber all through. In some places it is muskeg, and in some places heavy timber. Reindeer lake is not north of the tree limit. There are trees there, but they are small. They do not grow so large as farther south. It is a good way north of Reindeer lake before the barren grounds are reached. The Archdeacon had never been farther north than Reindeer lake. TIMBER ABOUT LAC LA RONGE. Mr. Tyrrell describes the country immediately north of the Saskatchewan as a thickly wooded belt, “which contains a large quantity of timber, chiefly white spruce, trees up to eighteen inches in diameter. It is a wooded country with trees from twelve to eighteen inches in diameter, tall with clean trunks—good, nice timber. Of course, the timber does not grow as large on high, dry, sandy ridges as it grows in the valleys. Most of the timber is in good soil in the valley bottoms, but there is more or less land all over. The poplar and birch affects the higher land, and the spruce and hemlock the valleys.” Mr. Dowling states that the sides of Green lake are “densely wooded with poplar and spruce.” PIONEER ARBORICULTURE.