try to interpret the records, than of using the records to obtain a picture of the forest of the past.

Bearing this in mind we may note that where only one of the names occurs in a list it is possible that it was being used collectively to cover more than one genera, though this is not certain. Thus the sapin in Denys' (1672) list might be taken to include both spruce and fir (he certainly uses the word in this wider sense elsewhere in his writings — see Footnote 9), as might also the épinette of Gotteville (1720) and of Duchambon (1738).

Where more than one of the names occurs in the same list interpretation is eased somewhat: both Roma (1750) and La Roque (1752) (the two more meticulous recorders) list prusse and sapin in the same list — as well as ér/cot (hemlock) and pin (pine) — and we can confidently translate them as spruce and fir15 — the same also applies to Anon. (17605?). However, Franquet's (1751) omission of both sapin and prusse from his list is odd - though, on his departure from Port La-Joie when he put ashore on the two islands in Hillsborough Bay (’i/es au Gouverneur et de St-Pierre’), he noted that they were completely covered with ’sapinage’ (i.e. 'woods of sapin’) probably conifers in general rather than fir in particular”. Thus it seems that Franquet in his general list of the trees of tie Saint-Jean — which he indicates anyway to be only a partial list — simply over-looked prusse and sapin.17

‘5 I also note that although La Roque (1752) did not use the

name épinette on lle Saint-Jean, he did use it for Cape Breton Island in the same report (Massignon 1962, p. 169).

16 I could not find sapinage in any of the comprehensive French

dictionaries of France. However, Bergeron (1980) in the Dictionnaire de la langue québécoise defines sapinage as “sapiniéres, pousses de sapin, branches de sapin — coniféres, surtout sapins e! épinettes" (i.e. “stands of sapin, shoots of sapin, branches of sapin — conifers, above all firs and spruces").

‘7 Not shown in Tables 1-2 and 1-3 are the following records that refer to épinette:

(1) Saint-Ovide (1726: 28 November, Letter 1), the governor at Louisbourg, in reply to a directive from France (see point 2 following), referred to masts that had previously been cut on He Saint-Jean and sent to France (presumably by the Company of He Saint-Jean) as ‘epineffe‘ — though earlier (Saint-Ovide 1725), he had said the Company’s masts were ‘fous de pin rouge‘ [all of red pine].

The directives, written in the previous spring by the intendant of the Marine at Rochefort in France (Beauharnois 1726: 6 April,) and the minister of the Marine (Maurepas 1726: 16 April), had specifically requested sections of ‘epinettes rouges et blanches’ (as well as of pin), to be sent to France from the island - a distinction in this tree type that occurs nowhere else in the records relevant to lle Saint-Jean. These tree names are first mentioned in Beauharnois‘ letter and it may be

(2)

128

The remaining recorder in Table 1-2, Cartier (1534), does not list anything that is immediately recognizable as spruce or fir, though undoubtedly he must have seen spruces along the coast, and since on the same voyage he saw trees in the Gaspé that he called pruche”, he was familiar with the name. On Prince Edward Island, of the needle- bearing conifers, he lists only pin and iffz (i.e. if, 'yew’) possibly hemlock — though Bideaux (1986) notes that if could be fir, the flattish leaf arrangement of which has a resemblance to that of the European yew (Taxus baccata).19 But since spruces are otherwise absent from his list, did Cartier also mean if to include them, or might they be subsumed under his ’pin’? Or, are spruces among the ”au/tres p/useurs a nous incongneuz” [”several others unknown to us”]? — though this seems unlikely, given his use of the word pruche a few days later on the same voyage.

Specific areas — There are few details extractable from the records on the specific distribution of spruce and fir on Prince Edward Island during the French period. Roma (1734) records sapin as one of the trees occurring near the site of his fishing station at Saint-Pierre (perhaps near the mouth of St. Peters Bay)”, and, as has been noted above, Franquet (1751) recorded that the two islands in Hillsborough Bay were completely covered with ‘sapinage’. La Roque (1752) listed sapin and pruche (spelling it thus) on both of these islands, as did Pichon (1760F) (though spelling it prusse) — however his information is likely to have come directly from La Roque’s report. Finally, Bonnaventure (1753) said that all the land facing Egmont Bay behind the marshes between ’/a pointe’ [West Point] and ‘la r/‘v/ere’ [Percival River] is ”qun Cloique mauvesce prusiere ou peti sapeins” — which, if we are reading it correctly, translates as ”only a quagmire of poor spruce land or little firs", the 'or’ indicating that either he did not know which of the two was present (sapin or prusse), or

relevant that he had had three years‘ experience in North America (as intendant of New France from 1702 to 1705) - though it may be that he was only lifting the words from earlier letters sent from He Royale or else from ‘Sieur Fleury‘ (a Canadian-born merchant living at nearby La Rochelle) who had prompted the request (see Appendix 3).

‘3 Biggar 1924, p. 47.

‘9 Bideaux 1986, p. 328. 2° I do not know whether from the surviving records anyone has

been able to determine the exact location of Roma's fishing establishment at Saint-Pierre.