name that the species appears to have always been referred in the early records.282

General distribution and abundance — Cedar, presumably due to its restriction to the west of the island, appears in only nineteen of the thirty-six potential tree lists (Table 1-4)283, and it receives only twenty-three other mentions (Table 1-1). It is evident that it was overlooked especially by many of the eighteenth century British observers, who may not have known of its presence in the far west of the island. In the nineteenth century several recorders did note its restriction to the

2” There is one other name among the early records that may just possibly refer to cedar: in the tabular description of each of the island's townships that accompanies Captain Samuel Holland‘s map of the island (Holland 1765: October), for Lot 42 (the lot just to the east of St. Peters Bay) the following is written: “near the Ruined Village of 5 houses there is a grove of Cypress Shrubs". It is not immediately evident what these cypress shrubs could be, but there are two possibilities, both remote: Ganong (1909) (p. 213) says that cypress, as cyprés, was the name initially used by Champlain (in 1603) for the white cedar (he later used the name cedre for the species), and that it was also used by early English voyagers “in the same way": he cites Hale's account of Sir Humphrey Gilbert‘s voyage to Newfoundland in 1583 — though the cypress of this account cannot be white cedar since the species is absent from Newfoundland (Farrar 1995). This use of the name ‘cypress' for white cedar is understandable, as the cypress genus (Cupressus) belongs to the same family as white cedar (Cupressaceae) and its leaves bear a close resemblance to those of Thuja occidentalis.

Could Holland’s cypress shrubs have been white cedar? Counteracting this suggestion are two factors: firstly, Five Houses (the name is still extant as a place name) is so far to the east of the present distribution of cedar as to make this suggestion unlikely — though one might argue that cedar trees could have been planted near the settlement by the French. Secondly, if the shrubs had been white cedar, it would seem unlikely that anyone in the survey party would not already have been familiar with the name ‘cedar’ and would have used it instead of the by then archaic name cypress — though we cannot call as evidence any of Captain Holland‘s three tree lists since cedar is not listed in any of them.

The other possibility is even more remote, but I mention it anyway: according to Marie-Victorin (1964) (p. 142), cyprés is a localised vernacular name in Canadian-French for the jack pine (Pinus banks/ana): he says that the name was used for jack pine by “/es Canadiens francais du nord (lac Saint-Jean, Abitibi. etc)" and was already in use in that region at the beginning of the nineteenth century. However, there is no evidence that it was ever so used in Acadian-French (it was not noted by Massignon (1962) in her in- depth study of the Acadian-French vocabulary), and thus I think we cannot give it serious consideration.

By the way, I have found to my surprise that Holland simply copied the names of many of the sea-birds that he listed for the island from the English version of Thomas Pichon’s book, Genuine Letters and Memoirs relating to the Islands of Cape Breton and Saint John, that had been published in England just five years earlier in 1760 (see Sobey 2002, pp. 111, 115) However, the name of this unknown tree did not come from that source.

233 The thirty-seventh list, that of [Bain] (1882), did not include the conifer trees.

185

west or north-west of the colonyze“, Stewart (1806) noting that it occupied ”a considerable district” there, while both Cambridge (1796?) and Plessis (1812) commented that it was not plentiful on the island as a whole. Much later, Chalmers (1895) noted that it was ”met with not uncommonly” on the island, while by contrast, in the same year Johnson (1895) said that ”if indigenous, it [is] very rare”.

Specific areas — There are several references to its occurrence at specific places, all in the west of the province (Figure 1-6): Hill (1839) recorded that it was ”common in the district of Cascumpec”, while Gesner (1846), at Miscouche, noted its increasing presence ”towards the north". He also noted it on the low lands that occurred both west of Fifteen Point and around the shores of Egmont Bay. [Lawson] (1877-1878) said cedar had been one of the "prevailing" trees in the pre-settlement forest of Lot 11, as well as occurring in the Miminegash 'region'. Craswell 8: Anderson's (1856) survey of Lot 11 also found cedar, seemingly in parts of the township on both sides of the Western Roadzas, while evidence given to the Land Commission of 1875 recorded its widespread occurrence in Lots 9, 10, and 12, as well as the fact that cedar posts ”came from” Lots 6 and 8286. It was also noted in the census of 1841 on Lot 7.287 Finally, Macoun (1895) noted it ”in isolated patches” near Tignish, and Watson (post 1904) reported it at a number of specific places in west Prince County: at Tignish, in Lots 3 and 4, and at Montrose.

Tree size — The only information on the size of old- growth cedar trees on the island is retrospective: Lawson (1877-1878) reported that the pre— settlement cedars of Lot 11 had had "butts of 3 feet in diameter, and were 65 feet high"288. This

28" Stewart 1806; MacGregor 1828; Bain 1890; Watson (post 1904).

285 Interestingly, their "fine grove of cedar poles" is in the general region of the ‘grande ce‘dn'ere' [great cedar grove] that La Roque had reported a century before (see footnote 288).

236 Land Commission (1875): for Lot 9, see the testimony of George DeBlois, Robert Holton, Felix McKinnon, John McKaller and Donald McPhee; for Lot 10, Daniel McDonald and James Warburton; and for Lot 12, James Warburton and Albert Williams. It was a Lot 9 resident, Donald McPhee, who said that cedar posts came also from Lots 6 and 8.

237 Census 1841. 288 [Lawson] (1877-1878) also said that the cedars that once occurred in the Miminegash area were larger than elsewhere in the province. The size claimed for the Lot 11 trees reminds us that during the French period Joseph de La Roque in a survey of 1752 had recorded (seemingly from second-hand reports from the local residents) cedar trees between Cascumpec and Egmont Bays that