spruce as thick in proportion as hemp some of it dead and withered, though still standing, and some of it broken by the middle, forming a thicket impenetrable almost to the foot of man. . on the top of [the] bank, the thicket is found extending to the utmost verge of the precipice, and some of the trees having lost their

roots, are to be seen fallen or falling over. 137

Selkirk (1803) astutely deduced from one such coastal site on Point Prim, where the soil seemed to be good, that ”the spruce prevails only because of the exposed situation killing the other woods”. An indication of the width of this coastal spruce strip is given by one useful, if late, record: in evidence to the Land Commission of 1875, a North Rustico man said that the ”scrubby spruce” on the 'front’ of Lot 24 (he must mean the area between Cavendish and North Rustico) had ”extended about three-quarters of a mile from the shore” — he implies that this was before settlement, for by 1875 the spruce had been ”burned over and replaced with laurel”.138

Coastal white spruce would also have occurred on dune slacks but the only historical record of such is that of Curtis (1775) who reported spruce (though he actually called it ’fir’) "some in clusters” on a ’flat’ amid sand-dunes which appear to have been part of the Conway Sand Hills — there were enough trees in fact to provide firewood for three men stranded on the dune for a month or more.

Spruce in the upland hardwood forest — ‘Spruce’ (the species is not specified, but was probably red spruce Picea rubens) appears to have been a minor component of the pre-European upland hardwood forest. The evidence for this comes from various descriptions of the hardwood forest — either of the island in general or at specific sites139 — and in

‘37 Johnstone (1823) describes the difficulty of trying to get

through such an “impenetrable thicket", at what seems to be Abells Cape near Fortune.

‘38 Land Commission (1875): evidence of William s. McNeill, who lived at North Rustico. ‘Three-quarters of a mile‘ would mean that about three-quarters of the length of the farms on the shore side of the road between North Rustico and Cavendish had been under spruce before clearance. It may seem a high amount but McNeill twice states the distance. This also lends support to the retrospective statement of Ready (1899) that before the settlement of Lot 20 ”a heavy growth” of conifers that had included spruce, had extended two miles inland (the area is that between Sea View and Park Corner).

‘39 Gray (1793). in describing the forests along the Richmond Bay frontage of Lot 13, recorded ‘spruce fir' as an element in a “beautiful admixture of very lofty pine, black birch, maple, [and] beech’i Selkirk (1803) noted “here and there some spruce" in the hardwood forest (of maple, beech and yellow birch) south of the Pinette River. And at a spot along the coast west of Wood Islands, on the area “above the bank" (i.e. beyond the coastal cliff area,

168

particular from the use that several of the recorders made of the tree species of the natural forest as indicators of the soil’s potential to support agriculture when cleared. It also seems that Perley's (1847) comment that red spruce was found ”most frequently” on the island (in comparison with the mainland) is a reference to red spruce as a component of the upland hardwood forest.‘4° And within the hardwood forest there might have been areas where the spruces and other conifers achieved a local dominance — at least Bain, in describing the hardwood forests at Springfield (in the central hill lands of the island) said that ’spruce’ was one of the conifers that occurred in the ’hollows', while in a stretch of ”ancient forest” near North Wiltshire, he described spruce (along with fir) as "filling the

valley” through which a stream ran‘“.

Spruce as an element in boreal coniferous forests — It is likely that the spruces reached their greatest levels of dominance in the island’s boreal coniferous forests‘“, and it may be that Johnstone (1822) had such forests in mind when he noted that spruce was one of the island’s trees that could occur in ”clumps of a particular kind found by themselves”.

In general, spruce (and it may have been black spruce that was particularly meantm) was taken to be an indicator of naturally poor soils unsuitable

which had "stunted spruces") Selkirk recorded “beech, maple & birch with a very few spruce" and noted that similar vegetation occurred “on the north of Point Prim". In his later more generalized description of the island's forests (Selkirk 1805), he said that spruce (and other species) were “intermixed" with the two most common species (beech and maple). MacDonald (1804) lists spruce as one of the species that was “mixed, [in] much fewer quantities" with beech - which he said made up “the great bulk of the wood of the island”,

“0 Perley considered the red spruce to be a variety of the black spruce that was said to be "superior in size and less likely to be crooked" and he attributed the difference between the two forms to the soil. Its more frequent occurrence on the island, he said, was due to “the influence of the deep rich soil of that fertile island upon the quality of the wood". This can only be a reference to red spruce trees found on upland forest soils.

1‘“ Bain (1868-1884) (in 1873) for Springfield; and [Bain] (1882) for North Wiltshire.

”2 Bain (1890) is the only recorder to recognise that such forests on the island were akin to a northern forest-type: he considered the plants of such forests -- for which he listed spruce as an important tree dominant — to be members of what he called the island's “Sub~ Arctic Flora" — we today would use the term “northern or boreal coniferous" (eg. see Scott 1995, pp. 90-101).

”3 Though only Selkirk (1803). a 'memorial’ of the Proprietors (1837), and a witness to the Land Commission (1875) (Robert Holton of Lot 9) specify the species as black spruce.