an additional number coming from the diaries and letters of persons reporting actual forest fires in progress”). Even though the map, being heavily influenced by the geographical location of the recorders, cannot be taken as an objective picture of the relative distribution of such fires and their after-effects, some interesting points do emerge. For example, there are a few areas that drew repeated comment concerning forest fires, presumably because of the extent or visibility of burned land in the area: fires and burned lands in the Murray Harbour area were commented on by five recorders37‘, while the fires that had occurred nearby in the area of Wood Islands also drew the attention of several persons, probably because it was directly on the coast.372 There was also a great number of fires reported for the Charlottetown area (six records) though this is most likely due to the town being the abode of the

diarists and letter-writer who made the

recordsm.374

37° Chappell (1775-1818): 8 May, 24 May 1775; 18 May 1778; 28— 31 May 1806;16 June 1814; 30-31 May 1818; Mary Cambridge (1811):15 June; Mann (1829):15 July.

37‘ Gesner (1846) said that “fires have committed great ravages among the timber' at Murray Harbour; Cundall (1854-1865) (in 1855), said that there was ”considerable burnt land on both sides of the Murray River"; while E. Thorton M.P.P., in evidence to the Land Commission (1860) said that "fires have run over the land" of Lot 64. We have specific information as to a possible date for at least one of the fires in an entry in the daybook of Benjamin Chappell (1775-1818) that may be connected with a forest fire at Murray Harbour: "Last Thursday [Le 23 June 1814] the Mr. Cambridges burned at Mury harbour Considerable"; another date is given in the recollection of William Sencabaugh of a fire in Murray Harbour “about 1801 or 2" the effects of which “will be seen to the end of time", and still another date in the recollection of John Brooks of Murray Harbour South of a fire that ‘burnt up' ‘nearly all the woods‘ that had been toppled in the ‘great storm' of 1839 after the wood had dried (Questionnaire 1876).

372 On the map of Captain Holland (1765), the words “Burnt woods" are written at a tiny spot along the coast halfway between Woods Island and the county line. Almost forty years later Selkirk (1803) saw large stumps at about the same spot and said that he learned later in Charlottetown, that "all this coast had been laid waste by a great fire 30 or 40 years ago". The date would fit a fire that occurred about Holland's time, but I would place little value in its preciseness. However Selkirk’s comment suggests that a much larger area was affected than that covered by the small spot marked on Holland‘s map. Then forty-three years later Gesner (1846) said the area, which he called "Burnt Woods”, was “covered with charred stumps and windfalls" — could they have been the same stumps as Selkirk saw, or had there been other fires since? Then in 1860, Sutherland, also taking his cue from the name “Burnt Woods", wrote that “a great part of [the area from Flat River to the county line] was once covered with very large pine timber, which was over-run by a great fire”.

373 Forest fires were observed in the Charlottetown area by Benjamin Chappell (1775-1818) on 28-31 May 1806; 16 June 1814; 30-31 May 1818; by Mary Cambridge (1811) on 15 June; by Horatio Mann (1829) on 15 July; and by Richard Hudson “fifty-nine

60

The 'burnt woods’ in the landscape — As a result of widespread forest fire, ”burnt woods" were a common feature of the landscape of Prince Edward Island throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries375. To the landscape legacy of the French period fires, was added that of many other fires, such that by 1822 Walter Johnstone could record that ”burnt woods are to be seen in the neighbourhood of almost every settlement, some of them of considerable magnitude”, while John MacGregor (1828) noted that "whole forests on thousands of acres have been destroyed”.376 And on any particular area the burnt forest would likely be evident for a generation or more — unless some enterprising settler should undertake its clearance.

Walter Johnstone (1822), visiting from the Old World and shocked by the appearance of the ’burnt woods’, used all his literary skills to create a word-picture of them for a Scottish readership more used to forests and woods as positive features in the landscape:

But how to represent to your imagination a correct picture of these burnt woods, baffles my skill. They form, in reality, a scene the most ruinous, confused, and disgusting, the eye can possibly look upon. many acres, nay, many square miles, of standing trees, all dead, leafless, scorched, and going fast to ruin. If soft wood, and recently burnt, its green foliage is all

years ago” (Questionnaire 1876) — this last could be the same fire as reported by Chappell in 1818. (If Hudson were answering the questionnaire in 1877 (which is possible), 1818 would be the year he meant. He had only arrived on the island from England in 1817, which might have anchored the date in his mind.)

3" I should note here that there is extensive additional information

on the location of burned areas on some of the early maps, as well as from the survey notebooks, held by the PARO, and it is my intention to analyze and map these at a future date, so as to obtain a more detailed picture of the spatial distribution of forest fires over the island.

3’5 Selkirk (1803), Johnstone (1822), MacGregor (1828), Mann (1829), Lawson (1851) and Ward (1887) all comment on ‘burnt woods' as an element in the island landscape, and several respondents to the Questionnaire (1876) indicate that the landscape effects of fires were still to be seen then.

376 However it seems that Wilford Woodruff’s (1844) entry on August 1 in his diary, while visiting Wilmot Valley, that "hundreds of miles of country has been burned over this year with fire sweeping many millions of acres of forest, farms, dwellings, mills, lumber, lumber yards, and in some instances the inhabitants have had to flee into the sea or on the beach to escape the flames“ contains an element of exaggeration, either by himself or on the part of his hosts. It is just possible that he is referring to the fire that began on the northern border of Lot 12 that is mentioned by Mollison (1905) as having occurred about 1840. Newspapers of the day may provide some help here, but have not been consulted.