maps contained in the original reports. These have either been made by direct photocopying of the originals, or by scanning and partially redrawing them, in the latter case only making alterations where necessary to aid in clarification.3

ANALYSIS OF THE EXTRACTS

Each of the extracts is able to be read on its own. However, here I shall briefly assess their contribution collectively to a number of specific topics that tend to recur in most of them: (1) the placing of the island's forests in the wider context of the forests of the mainland (either of the Maritime provinces or the whole of Canada); (2) comments on the internal variation within island forests, including discussion of the factors responsible; (3) attempts at mapping this internal variation; (4) speculations about the nature and tree composition of the forest before European settlement; and (5), comments on ecological aspects of the forest such as its ground and shrub flora and the phenomenon of natural succession.

Placing the island’s forests in a wider context — Five of the studies make reference to the forests of Prince Edward Island in a wider geographical context.4 For most of theses, this extends no further than noting that some of the island’s trees were species also prevalent in the boreal coniferous forest that extends across much of northern Canada, with other island trees being common in the ’northern hardwoods' forest that occurs on both sides of the Canadian-American border in the eastern part of the continent. (Table 1 lists the tree species that are mentioned in the six studies as occurring in the forests of the island.)

However, rather than being simply a transition forest between two major continental forest—types, Halliday, in his all-Canada study, considered that the forests of the Maritimes comprised a distinctive forest region, to which he gave the

3 The exception is Loucks’ map of the forests of the Maritimes

(Figure 6), where, because the original was far too large to

photocopy, I have made use of two reduced copies already available in other studies (Clark 1968', Wynn 1981).

‘ Halliday; Clark; Rowe; Erskine; Loucks.

5 Halliday; Clark; Rowe; Erskine.

name 'Acadian Forest Region’.6 7 Since then, the

term ’Acadian Forest’ has been widely used (and sometimes mis-useds) in referring to the forests of Prince Edward Island and the rest of the Maritimes. Halliday went on to subdivide his Acadian Forest Region into a number of ‘sections', and in doing so he placed the island’s forests in a section that also covered a large part of southern New Brunswick and northern Nova Scotia (see Figure 2).9 This

6 It was mainly on account of the presence of a single defining

tree species, red spruce, which was absent from his Great Lakes — St. Lawrence Forest Region that Halliday distinguished the forests of the Maritime provinces from the otherwise similar forests of central Canada.

7 By the way, Halliday noted that earlier American studies (he refers specifically to Weaver and Clements (1929)), in viewing the forests of the Maritime provinces from a distance, tended to consider them as part of the northern Boreal Coniferous forest. Though, clearly, the Canadian-American border per se is of no relevance to the pre-settlement forest, in fact the presence of the border has long exerted an artificial effect on the classification and mapping of the forests of North America, with separate national studies resulting in different classification schemes north and south of the border. What is especially evident is that those American studies that have ‘trespassed’ across the border have tended not to distinguish the forests of the Maritimes from those farther to the west. For example, in the influential study of Lucy Braun (Deciduous Forests of Eastern North America, published in 1950, well after Halliday’s work) the forests of the Maritimes were treated as an extension of the ‘New England Section' (specifically, of the ‘Spruce—Hardwoods' sub-division) of her ‘Hemlock — White Pine — Northern Hardwoods Region', a region that in its extension into Canada, combined the area covered by Halliday's Great Lakes — St. Lawrence Forest Region with that of his Acadian Forest Region. (See Braun (1950) (pp. 422, 430-31, 434-35, plus her large enclosed map showing ‘Forest Regions and Sections‘).

8 The mis—use of the term occurs especially when the phrase ‘Acadian Forest' (the word ‘Region’ having been dropped) is used in the limited sense of the pre-European settlement forest of the Maritimes, or in the even more restricted sense of the pre- settlement upland hardwood forests of the Maritimes (considered the ‘climatic climax’ forest over much of the region). In its correct sense, the phrase ‘Acadian Forest’ sensu Halliday, Rowe and Erskine simply means ‘the forests of the Maritime Provinces’ — including all the degraded and successional stages that are so prominent nowadays. I should also add that there is an even more tangential confusion in the mind of some of the lay public due to the name ‘Acadian” being also the name of the French population of the Maritimes, with whom in fact the forest name has no direct connection. One caller to a CBC program in 2007 in which the forests of the Maritimes were the topic under discussion said that it should rather be called the Mi'kmaq Forest, since they were here before the French! — and there was no attempt made to correct his misunderstanding. Had Halliday used the name “Maritime Forest Region’ much of this confusion would never have arisen, but since the name is here to stay, one way to encourage its proper use is always to use the full name ‘Acadian Forest Region‘.

9 In contrast, Rowe, in his revision of Halliday’s study, sub- divided the area covered by Halliday’s Central Section into six different sections, one of which consisted of Prince Edward Island on its own. Treating the island’s forests separately in this way makes it less easy to relate the island's forest to those of the mainland.