However, as the following evidence will show, the actual utilisation of the island’s timber resources in the French period, either for local use or for export, was very limited.

Building materials — Though nothing survives in the records to indicate the size of private dwellings and barns, or the materials used in their construction, we may presume that all of the houses and barns constructed between 1720 and 1758 will have been built from local wood obtained from the forest.78 However, Roma (1734) has left us with estimates of the number of pieces of timber of various types used in the construction of the Company's buildings at Trois Rivie‘res in the first two years of the settlement”:

3000 posts, 450 roof rafters, 200 rails, 7 70 beams or struts for the floors; 5000 boards for the roofing, pane/ling, partitions, closets, holds, vaults; 1500 beams for the upper and lower floors.

The 5000 boards, he says, were cut from about 300 trees.

And, for a group of government buildings erected in the 17305 at Port La-Joie (an officers’ residence and a storehouse), we have even more detail due to the survival of the relevant contracts and plans in the archives of the Marine (Verrier 1733)”. As a result, not only would it be possible to work out the total amount of wood required in their construction, but we are also told the types of wood specified for particular parts: red pine for the framing, pine (species unspecified) for floors,

granted the island to the Company of lle Saint-Jean (Louis XV 1719) did not mention the exploitation of the forests as one of the Company’s objectives -— rather only the cod fishery and the settlement of the island are mentioned. However, the letters patent of January 1720 (Margry, Vol. 1, p. 49) that added the Magdalene Islands to the Company's grant, explicitly included the ‘exploitation du bois' as an additional objective applying to the Magdalenes. The omission of such an objective for lle Saint-Jean, which, unlike the Magdalenes, has substantial forests — which the Company did indeed exploit in building three ships (La Ronde 1721) and in exporting masts to France — must have been an oversight.

7“ We do have Captain Holland's precise count of the number of barns and dwellings still standing in the winter of 1764-1765. [Holland, Samuel (1765) Plan of the Island of St. John. PARO: map 0,617C.]

7" According to Roma these comprised nine buildings: two large dwellings each of 80 feet; three smaller dwellings (two of 50 feet and one of 68 feet); a storehouse of 50 feet; a bakery of 40 feet; a forge of 40 feet and a barn of 40 feet (PAC, AC, CHB, Vol. 16, fol. 173). See also MacLean (1977) (pp. 9-11) for a plan, based on archaeological excavation, of the Company's large dwelling.

8° See Schmeisser (2000) (pp. 78-81, and Figures 8a to 15) for the plans and elevations of the buildings, and the layout for a palisade.

19

partitions and doors, and oak and yellow birch for window frames and for the ends [bouts] of doors (i.e. tops and bottoms). The contract also states that a palisade of pine posts (each at least 7 inches in diameter and 10 feet in length) was to be built around the buildings. We know that 3000 posts were cut and transported to Port La—Joie for this palisade though it appears that it was never constructed.81

Roma's building materials are likely to have been entirely the product of hand-wielded axes and cross saws“. The Marine’s buildings at Port La— Joie are likely to have also used the products of a water—powered saw-mill, since there seem to have been some in operation at the time.83 In 1752 there appear to have been only two saw—mills serving the whole colony“; one of these was on the riviére a mou/in a scie [’Saw-mill River’] which seems to have been a stream on the south side of the upper part of the riviere du nord—est [Hillsborough River].85 The other seems to have been at Port La-Joie.86 How long these two mills had been in operation is not known, though one or both may date from the 17305.87

Fencing — The only record of the use of wood in fencing comes again from Roma's submission of (1734): he says that he fenced five small gardens with what appears to have been a post-and-rail fence made from some 230 half-posts [moitiés des piquets] and 1350 split rails [lisses]. These appear

9‘ Schmeisser 2000, p. 74.

82 Franquet (1751) refers to the axe as a tool for tree cutting; Boulaye (1733) mentions both axes and sales de traverse [cross- saws].

”3 Schmeisser (2000) (p. 16) states that there were operating saw- mills on the island in the early 17305, but does not say where. (I could not locate the reference that she gave for this statement.)

8‘ Clark 1959, p. 37— from the La Roque census. 85 Possibilities are Glenfinnan River or Johnstons River (see Rayburn 1973, pp. 55, 70).

9“ Schmeisser(2000) (p.45), citing NAC, MG1, C"B, Vol. 29, r9). 382 (Desherbiers & Prévost (the governor and commissaire at lle Royale) to the minister), says the inhabitants were encouraged to supply wood to the saw-mill at Port La-Joie, and that the mill produced boards for building and planks for boat-building. (I could not find the original from the reference that Schmeisser gave.)

9’ As Clark (1968) (p. 248) points out, in addition to the larger

items used and made by the Acadians (such as building materials for houses and barns, fencing, boats and vessels, and fuel), the forest must also have been the source of the wood used for numerous smaller items such as carts and sleds, furniture, implements, tools and household utensils — though no information survives from He Saint-Jean for any of these.