By G. Hammer
September 14, 2019
Jesuits have travelled to all corners of the world. In a mission to St. Andrew-on-Hudson in Ontario (Canada) in 1903, father Descoteaux, S.J., lived two months amongst lumbermen and saw a few things that are relevant to anyone interested in trees, environmental history, human ecology, geography, sociology and economics nowadays.
The following quotation is an example of what he reported:
“The population is constantly changing and is composed of all nationalities—Americans
from Bay City and Saginaw in the State of Michigan, French Canadians from Quebec
and Ontario, Irishmen from Canada and Ireland, Englishmen, Ontarians, Danes,
Swiss and Finlanders. The people are divided into distinct classes — grand proprietors
and working men.
The grand proprietors are American capitalists from Bay City and Saginaw
who have become British citizens. They formerly had large saw mills at Bay City
and Saginaw, where for several years the Michigan forests supplied them with logs.
When these were exhausted they crossed the border and purchased logs in Canada and
transported them to Bay City or Saginaw by rafts across Lake Huron. In this way
the Canadian forests were destroyed to the profit of the United States. There
were naturally many complaints till a law was passed putting a high tax on all logs
sent out of Canada. This protective tariff was, of course, the death of the saw
mills at Bay City and Saginaw.” (p. 166)
An excerpt from:
TWO MONTHS AMONG THE LUMBERMEN OF ONTARIO,
CANADA. AN ACCOUNT OF SOME MISSIONS TO THEM. A Letter from Father Descoteaux,
S. J. Woodstock Letters, Volume XXXIII, Number 2, 1 September 1904: 165-180.
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