“I already have plans for that,” I replied. “I am applying for entry at Memorial University of Newfoundland (MUN) for this coming fall.”
After questioning me further and learning that I had no definite planned specialty, other than maybe a general science degree, he suggested, “You should consider studying forestry. If you do, I recommend that during your studies you look for summer work with other companies or governments to broaden your experience.” Then he added, “Any summer that you can’t find work, I will see that you get a job with AND.”
With my love of the bush, the forester’s encouragement, the students’ inspiration from the previous summer, and the manager’s promise, I made my decision. That winter I applied at MUN for entry into their pre-forestrydiploma course. MUN had an arrangement with the University of New Brunswick (UNB), whereby an additional three years at the latter school could lead to a Bachelor of Science in Forestry (B.Sc.F.). I was accepted and registered that fall.
At the back of my mind, I still saw myself as an airplane pilot and had also applied for admission into the Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) Regular Officer Training Plan (ROTP). I had an ulterior motive; acceptance into the ROTP would guarantee that my education would be funded by them. At registration, I applied for the ROTP program and apparently qualified.
After a two-weekcooling-offperiod, I was interviewed by a perceptive recruiting officer who quickly got me to admit that my main motive was to have ROTP pay for my education. He said, “Now look, Malcolm, you are committing yourself to five years in university. That’s all to the good, but do you realize that upon graduation you are committing yourself to a five-yearcommission as an officer in the RCAF?”
“Yes, sir, I do,” I replied.
“Well, okay,” he continued. “What use do you think your forestry degree will be to you after that?”
I recall that he offered a few days for me to think on that and also assured me that, if I decided to withdraw from the program but changed my mind again, I could reapply the next year.
“That won’t be necessary, sir,” I replied, “I want to be a forester. You have helped me realize that and I thank you. I withdraw my application for admission into the ROTP program.”
He stood up, shook my hand, and congratulated me on a good decision. From that moment on I have been committed to forestry.
Decision Made — Now for the Hard Work
During my student years, I followed the woods manager’s advice and during summers worked with Fraser Papers in New Brunswick, Forestry Canada, and Parks Canada. For the final summer, I applied to AND, where the woods manager proved to be as good as his word. There, for part of the summer, I studied a new harvesting system that they were testing and used it as the subject of my senior report that was required for graduation.
All of my summer employers invited me to apply for permanent employment upon my graduation.
In the spring of 1963, despite additional interesting offers, I chose to return to Newfoundland and work for Price (Nfld.) Pulp & Paper Limited, formerly AND (in 1961 AND had been purchased by Price Brothers Limited of Quebec City). All through my youth, right up to graduation as a qualified forester, I was becoming increasingly contemptuous of clear-cuttingand even-agedmanagement in the boreal forest. With my forestry degree, I was now determined to return to my home and be instrumental in making changes that I felt were necessary to sustain the health of the forest.
3
The Boreal Forest Needs Sound Science
I do my best to be objective. However, like you, I have experience-basedbiases, and you should know what mine are and how I acquired them.
I initially chose to work for the forest industry because I believed that industry was best positioned to advance forest management; all that was required were positive incentives, and strong legislation that was enforced on companies that failed to otherwise respond favourably. The Anglo (Nfld.) Development Company Ltd. (AND) had extensive private land, and on the Crown land it managed, it had ninety-nine-yearrenewable leases and licences. The timber leases and licences came with no stumpage fees (fees per volume of wood harvested); rather, they were associated with area-based, land-rentalfees. The combination of secure long-termtenure and area-basedfees prompted them to search for ways to maximize yield from the land.
At Price (Nfld.) Pulp & Paper Limited, I came under the direction of a highly respected forester, Frank R. Hayward, who took an intense interest in my training. He was open to hearing my perceptions of what good forest management looked like and at no time told me I was wrong about anything. He was, however, skilled at getting me to question my objectivity.
He was unfazed by my assertion that clear-cuttingwas wrong and didn’t ask me to explain why I believed that was so. The fact was, from my earliest childhood experiences on logging operations with Dad, the sight of dense piles of drying treetops, dead and dying herbs and mosses on the extensive cut areas revolted me. I thought of all the wildlife that, as a result, were displaced and the baby birds that probably died when the trees were harvested.
It never occurred to me that the forest fires that frequently burned in our area did the same thing, and more, by often killing all life above ground in their paths. All through forestry training, despite what I was learning in silviculture and forest management courses, and even through my first four to five years of forestry work, I continued to be revolted at clear-cuts.
I hadn’t been working under Frank long before he outlined what he saw me doing over the next several years. He told me about the company’s long history of harvesting and stand-managementresearch and suggested I spend some time getting familiar with the records. In their fire-proofvault, I discovered file cabinets full of field data and interim reports. Some of the data and reports went back as far as 1921 and had been authored by John D. Gilmore. John was an early graduate of the University of Toronto’s Forestry School and had joined AND in 1918, later becoming woods manager and starting the various “trials.”
The trials covered a variety of stand-managementmethods and logged-areatreatments, including different prescribed burning techniques over different establishment years. Logging slash (discarded branches and tops of harvested trees) treatments and prescribed burning of harvested areas were company practices through the 1920s.
The records revealed to me that in its early years AND had been operated according to the values of its owners who were familiar with current European forest management methods. They wanted to ensure that their harvesting encouraged healthy regrowth and they intended to periodically thin the new stands as they developed. The company had for decades been trying to determine the best silvicultural (forest farming) practices for the forest under its control.
That effort continued following the Second World War, when AND in Grand Falls, Newfoundland, and Bowater Pulp & Paper Ltd. (Bowater) in Corner Brook, Newfoundland (the original Bowater paper mill and at that time also British-owned), jointly formed the Anglo-BowaterForestry Research Organization. In 1946 they hired W.M. Robertson, the newly retired director of the Canadian Forestry Service, to manage the organization. He added additional stand-managementtrials across AND’s land holdings and established 999 permanent growth-and-yieldsample plots (PSPs), which were measured four times over three decades.
Scheduled re-measurementsweren’t due for any of the trials for another three to five years when I joined the company, so I had time to see them in the field and plan my schedule. Over a two-yearperiod, I cruised timber (collected tree and stand data), surveyed and mapped stand depletions, and completed a survey of tree regeneration
