Early 20th century Lumber Yard Cutting pulpwood timber

Primary Divisions and Guiding Principles

Forestry includes the following primary divisions:

• harvesting
• milling
• silviculture technology
• fire prediction and suppression

The harvest of Canada's vast endowment of forests has long been viewed as a defining element of the country. Identified by early explorers as one of the richest resources of the land, and later associated with the staple thesis of Harold Innis and W.A. MacKintosh, the harvest of timber in Canada was and remains an activity of extraordinary economic, social and environmental importance. It has also been a subject of notable technological and scientific developments.

Eddy Match Plant, Pembroke, Ontario, ca. 1938

As a curatorial area at the Canada Science and Technology Museum, forestry is principally concerned with the various technologies employed in the cutting and transporting of timber, primary processing (wherein the raw log is reduced in a single, continuous process to a commercial product), forest cultivation and management, and, finally, the tools and instruments applied to predicting and fighting forest fires.

Men working logs in the mill pond of the Balaclava Mill, Renfrew County, Ontario

Hauling Logs to the Balaclava Mill, Renfrew County, Ontario

While the overall emphasis is clearly on technology, the various ideas (processes) and instruments relevant to scientific research in forestry are also included in this working definition of the subject. (However, forestry science here excludes the interpretation of plant and parasite biology since these topics are served by the Canadian Museum of Nature in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada.) Although provincial governments are the main players in Canadian resource management, the federal government has historically played an important role in forestry research as well as in the establishment of technological standards. The Canada Science and Technology Museum therefore has a special responsibility to preserve and interpret this story, and to present and contrast regional interests and practices.

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