references to the forests. A useful aid in directing me to the more significant of this early literature was Andrew Hill Clark’s geographical history, Three Centuries and the Island. In addition especially valuable sources were the collections of the Prince Edward Island Public Archives and Records Office, and especially for published material, the Prince Edward Island Collection of the Robertson Library of the University of Prince Edward Island. Since the 1970s both of these institutions have built up comprehensive and valuable collections of both primary documents and published material, which greatly eases the task of the researcher. I have searched the catalogues of both repositories and believe that I have found most of the material in their collections that is relevant to the topic. Also very useful has been The Island Magazine which over the last thirty years has published many early accounts of the island. I have also received suggestions from a number of friends and fellow-researchers who had come across relevant documents in the course of their own work, and these I have acknowledged earlier.

During the course of this study I am pleased to have identified and located a number of previously unknown documents, and to have located other documents whose existence was known, but for which there was no locally available copy.4 Also, since my initial search, which began in 1996, I have found that a half dozen or so new documents have turned up each year, and though the number remaining must be finite, it is likely that other relevant documents will continue to turn up in the future. A task that was largely beyond the scope of this project — simply because it would have expanded the work to several more years — was to search the many contemporary newspapers of the island for forest-related comments, and so I have only included such material when it came to my attention through a secondary source and was found to be especially relevant to the topic.

4 One of the most frustrating documents to locate was the

complete version of Gamaliel Smethurst’s (1774) account of his visits to the island, for which previously only a summary had been available to historians in Warburton (1923). After a couple of years of sporadic searching in the United Kingdom library service and elsewhere, I traced a copy to the Legislative Library of Nova Scotia, who obligingly sent me a photocopy, a copy of which I have since deposited in the PARO and the Robertson Library so that it will be available to local researchers. Another was a description of the island by an anonymous British officer assigned the task of describing the island in 1762 (Anon. 1762); the original is in the British Library in London, from which I obtained a copy.

THE TREATMENT OF THE EXTRACTS

The extraction criteria - From each document I have extracted everything that I considered to be relevant to the topic (as discussed above), as well as enough of the accompanying material to enable it to be put into context.

The transcription — Each extract is presented with its original spelling (including ’errors’) and, as far as possible, the original punctuation and use of italics. For hand—written documents there have been occasional problems in deciphering the handwriting. Any additions or alterations that I have made to the original text (usually for purposes of comprehension or explanation) have been put in square brackets, and where these do not use the words of the original writer, they have been put in italics.

The presentation of the extracts — For each author or recorder I have written a brief introduction containing a short biographical sketch in which I emphasize their previous experience of the island or of other parts of North America (which may have relevance to the usefulness of their descriptions), and I also comment on the importance of the extract to the wider topic. Very useful here has been the Dictionary of Canadian Biography for which there was an entry for many of the authors.

For each extract, l have identified the source from which my transcription has been taken and, where this was not the original, I have also listed the ultimate source as given by the version that I used. Where it was readily available I have gone directly to the primary source though I have not done so where the original manuscript has been published in an authoritative edition.

In the presentation of the 172 extracts contained in Part B, I have used bolding in order to draw attention to points of direct relevance to the forests. And where any of the extracts is referred to in any part of this report (including the footnotes and the appendices), I have also bolded the author’s name and the year of composition or publication (e.g. Stewart 1806) — in which case, each extract may be found in Part B of this report in chronological order, and as well, for ease of reference, there is a complete list of the original sources at the end of this bound volume.