HISTORY OF THE BRITISH COLUMBIA FOREST SERVICE

The forests of British Columbia have been utilized for thousands of years. The native peoples of the province used the forest for food and shelter. They built kekwillies (pit-houses) and longhouses and made clothing, tools and utensils from a variety of forest products. Forests also provided edible and medicinal plants, fish and wildlife, forage, fuelwood and water.

Europeans were first recorded using British Columbia’s forest resources on March of 1778 when Captain James Cook repaired the ships Resolution and Discovery at Nootka Sound. In 1788, Captain John Meares built a small dwelling and constructed a ship in Nootka Sound, the North-West America, largely out of local Douglas-fir and western redcedar. Later in 1788 Meares took spars from Vancouver Island to China, where they were sold for a good price. The exporting of spars to foreign markets continued on a sporadic basis into the mid-1800’s.

The building of forts was the first recorded use of timber for major construction. Fort McLeod was built in 1805 followed by, Fort St. James (1806), Fort Langley (1827) and Fort Victoria (1843). The lumber for the forts was rough-sawn by hand. The Hudson’s Bay Company built the first mechanical sawmill in British Columbia at Millstream, near the head of Esquimalt harbour. It began operations in November of 1848, utilizing local timber. The mill produced lumber for Victoria and the lower mainland and exported to California and Hawaii. A second mill was built by the company at Nanaimo in 1854. The first private saw mill was started by Captain Walter in 1850 at Sooke

The gold rush of 1858 developed the interior of the province increasing the demand for lumber. Coastal and interior communities grew and larger mills were built to produce lumber for domestic use and the expanding export market. The latter half of the 1800’s witnessed the establishment of B.C.’s pioneer logging operations and mills.

On September 23, 1853 the first regulation regarding harvesting and milling of timber was established. The Legislative Council of Vancouver Island established a duty of ten pence per 50 cubic feet (1.4 cubic metres) of timber cut on public lands. In addition, anyone cutting timber on public lands who was neither a British subject nor a resident of Vancouver Island could be fined up to 20 pounds. Governor James Douglas’ Land Proclamation of February 14, 1859 declared that "unless otherwise specifically announced at the time of sale, the conveyance of land shall include all trees."

The British North America Act of 1867 gave the provinces exclusive jurisdiction over the "Management and Sale of the Public Lands belonging to the Province and of the Timber and Wood thereon" (Section 92 - 5). After entry into Confederation in 1871, the provincial legislature was established to govern the entire province. In 1874 the Bush Fire Act was created but it was not until 1905 when four Fire Wardens were appointed within the Lands Branch of the Department of Lands and Works did a forest protection organization be created. After two years their numbers grew to 37 and by 1911 reached 123 when ten geographic divisions were overseen by Divisional Fire Wardens and 110 District Fire Wardens were engaged in fire prevention and suppression duties.

The origins of the B.C. Forest Service can be traced back to the Royal Commission of Inquiry on Timber and Forestry, appointed July 9, 1909. In submitting their report to the Legislature in January 1911, the Commissioners made 21 recommendations regarding forest management and, as a result, the first Forest Act was drafted. The secretary to the royal commission, M.A. Grainger, was then assigned the task of drafting the first Forest Act. The new legislation addressed trespass, timber tenures, rights-of-way, charges for timber, scaling, timber marking, manufacturing, forest protection, rules and regulations and penalties. Receiving assent on February 27, 1912, the Forest Act also brought into being the B.C. Forest Branch, as the Forest Service was then called.

The Timber Inspection, Scaling and Protection branches of the Department of Lands were assimilated into the new Forest Branch, whose staff was quickly recruited. The Victoria headquarters consisted of the Chief Forester and three Assistant Foresters in charge of the Timber Management, Operations and Records offices. Eleven forest districts were created; each headed by a District Forester. The forest districts in turn were divided into ranger districts. Each forest district had a technical assistant in the forest district to deal with forest surveys and silviculture. Each ranger district had Forest Rangers, Scalers and Forest Guards to look after forest protection in the ranger districts. In 1913 the staffing levels included the Chief Forester, four Assistant Foresters, 11 District Foresters, 33 Forest Rangers, 18 Official Scalers, 27 Forest Assistants and Cruisers and 43 Clerks and Stenographers. There were 159 Forest Guards on a five-month basis and 127 short-term Forest Guards and Railway Patrolmen.

The impact of World War I decreased the Forest Branch’s ability to function and by 1918 staffing levels had been reduced to 40% of the pre-war complement, largely due to enlistments in the armed services. In 1917 the Imperial Munitions Board and the Forest Branch began a cooperative program to provide large quantities of Sitka spruce for the manufacture of aircraft. One outcome of the war was an improvement in technology. Relatively portable gasoline-powered fire pumps were first manufactured in 1918 and aircraft began forest patrols in 1920.

On April 5, 1945 the Department of Lands became the Department of Lands and Forests, with a Deputy Minister of Lands and a Deputy Minister of Forests. The Forest Branch then became the Forest Service and reported to its own deputy minister. On April 1, 1957 the Parks and Recreation Division of the Forest Service was transferred to the newly-created Parks Branch and Department of Recreation and Conservation, ending twenty years of involvement with forest recreation.

Helicopters were first used for forest protection purposes during 1957 and the next year water bombing became operational in a modest way. The 1958 fire season was the worst in the history of the Forest Service, with 4,120 fires burning over 835 877 ha (2,065,423 acres), mostly in the Prince George Forest District and caused by railways, lightning and smokers. The Continuous Forest Inventory published in 1958 found that more trees were lost to diseases than logging.

Today The British Columbia Forest Service is the steward of the timber, range and recreation resources of British Columbia’s unreserved public (Crown) forest land, which covers two-thirds of the province (about 59 million hectares). The Forest Service manages this land for many uses, including recreation, forage, timber, and wilderness, and, in cooperation with other agencies, for water, fish, wildlife, tourism, heritage, energy and minerals.

References; Russell Trenaman, John Parminter