Focusing on the transition from the production of squared timber to that
of milled lumber and, finally, wood pulp, Gaudreau traces the constant
depletion of the resource and the companies' resulting, inexorable push
westward from Quebec into Ontario - an economic migration that led to
the establishment of significant francophone communities across northern
Ontario. He shows how recent generations of Quebec historians have
failed to provide adequate historical explanations because of an overly
exclusive focus on Quebec. Gaudreau's work provides an important
historiographic corrective, showing that the history of Quebec is part
of a complex fabric that, like the forests themselves, does not
recognize provincial boundaries. Detailed annual data on the volume of
principal forest products produced from Crown lands in Quebec and
Ontario during the second half of the nineteenth century compiled
systematically for the first time form the backbone of this study. Based
on these data Gaudreau describes and clarifies the timing, scale, and
significance of transitions in forest outputs as spruce joined pine as
the principal type of wood logged and as milled lumber and subsequently
pulp wood joined, and eventually replaced, square timber as the key
product. The book addresses the implications of resource depletion and
the economic and historical changes in the forestry industry, including
the transition from a commercial and artisanal process to an industrial
process and the implications this had for colonization and migration.