Sleigh, Lieut.-Col. [8. W. A.] (1853) Pine Forests and Hacmatack Clearings — or Travel, Life and Adventure 
     
     in the British North American Provinces. Richard Bentley, London. 408 + xvi pp. 
     
    
   
   
    
       
     
    
   
   
    
     Colonel Sleigh lb. 782 7, d. 7869) wrote for effect and not to convey factual information — this is as true of the book’s 
     
     tit/e ’Pine Forests and Hacmatack Clearings’, and of the preface where he explains the choice of title, as it is of the rest 
     
     of the book. The description that he gives of the forests in his preface (he included Prince Edward Island under the same 
     
     blanket description as the rest of Atlantic Canada) is deliberately simplistic and twisted to suit his own purposes. If 
     
     it had been the only description to survive, we would have an entirely erroneous picture of the island ’3 forests. Sleigh 
     
     must have known there was a greater variety of forest types than he acknowledges in his preface — in fact he must 
     
     have been reasonably familiar with the forest types in the whole of eastern British North America: though part of his 
     
     life was spent abroad (in the West Indies and in England), he had been born in Lower Canada, and spent some time in 
     
     Halifax. For a short period in the early 78503 Colonel Sleigh had even owned land on the island (or at least claimed he 
     
     owned) — some 100, 000 acres (the Worre/l estate) in northern Kings County. During that period, he visited the island, 
     
     spending sufficient time to gather the information which he was later to include in his witty if largely damning 
     
     commentary on the island people and especially its political leaders — though it also includes one of the most vivid 
     
     accounts of an ice-boat crossing that has survived. 
     
    
   
   
    
     REFERENCE: Waite, P. B. (1976) Sleigh, Burrows Willcocks Arthur. Dictionary of Canadian Biography, IX: 723-24. 
     
    
   
   
    
       
     
    
   
   
    
     . The prevailing features of the northern division of the British North American Continent, 
     
     Con/fer ”995- are vast successions of PINE FORESTS, which stretch along the shores of the Atlantic, 
     
     and timber the bays and rivers which disembogue themselves into the Gulf of St. 
     
     Lawrence. The same genus, Pinus, including every variety of resinous evergreens, 
     
     grows within the regions bounded by the 43rd and 50th parallels of latitude. Proceeding 
     
     inland are to be found the white pine (Pinus Strobus), the red pine (Pinus rubra), the 
     
     black pine (Pinus nigra), hemlock (Pinus Canadensis), the spruce (Pinus nigra et alba), 
     
     the balsam, or fir (Pinus balsamea), the tamarack (Pinus pendu/a), and the cedar (Thuya 
     
     occidental/s). These species are most generally in the intervals, forming what are 
     
     termed ”soft woodlands". 
     
    
   
   
    
     Where the progress of man has not as yet swept away the timber of these solitudes, 
     
     they cannot be more appropriately designated than PINE FORESTS. 
     
    
   
   
    
     Tamarack. The tree next in frequency to be met with by the traveller is the Larix Americana—the 
     
     HACMATACK of the Indians, and Tamarack of the Dutch. Botanists state that the 
     
     Hacmatack grows in profusion in the North-eastern States and British America; but it 
     
     prevails to an even greater extent in New Brunswick. Nova Scotia, and Prince Edward 
     
     Island. It is more frequently used in ship-building of Colonial vessels, as it is a "wood, 
     
     hard, strong, and durable,” while the houses of the settlers are almost entirely 
     
     constructed of it. It is "not so easily ignited as most of the Pine tribe, but once blazing, 
     
     it burns with great briskness, giving out a fervent heat; ...”. It is the most durable wood 
     
     to be found in British North America, equalling English oak or the far-famed teak. There 
     
    
   
   
    
     is ”no record of a vessel built of Hacmactack having been destroyed by dry-rot;” 
     
    
   
   
    
     Where the forests have been felled by the axe of the pioneer, these places are called in 
     
     Provincial phraseology, ’Clearings;’ and as the locations where now are to be found the 
     
     great cities and cultivated lands of the British North American Provinces, were formerly 
     
     timbered with the Larix Americana, I considered it as appropriate, and conveying the 
     
     meaning I wished to be understood by the title of the work, to refer to those places as 
     
     ‘Hacmatack Clearings’. Hence the combination of the two words has suggested to the 
     
     author ”Pine Forests and Hacmatack Clearings.” 
     
     [from the Preface, pp. iii ~ vi] 
     
    
   
   
    
       
     
    
   
   
    
     157