It had 52 annual rings
and 50 or possibly 52 whorls of branches. The most vigorous upward
growth of the trunk corresponded exactly with the largest growth
of wood in the stump. Thus ring No. 33 was 3/8 inch wide and whorl
No. 33 had over 2 feet of growth, below it on the trunk were others
which had but 6 inches.
On the stump most growth was on north-east side; there it was
9 inches, from pith to bark next on east 8 1/2 inches, on south 8
inches, north 6 1/2 inches, west 6 1/2 inches, least on north-west
side, 6 inches. The most light in this case came from the north-east.
This was in the land of mighty timber.
On Great Slave River, the higher latitude is offset by lower
altitude, and on June 2, 1907, while among the tall white spruce
trees I measured one of average size - 118 feet high, 11 feet 2 inches
in girth a foot from the ground (3 feet 6 1/2 inches in diameter),
and many black poplars nearly as tall were 9 feet in girth.
But the stunting effect of the short summer became marked as we
went northward. At Fort Smith, June 20, I cut down a jackpine that
was 12 feet high, 1 inch in diameter, with 23 annual rings at the
bottom; 6 feet up it had 12 rings and 20 whorls. In all it appeared
to have 43 whorls, which is puzzling. Of these 20 were in the lower
part. This tree grew in dense shade.
At Fort Resolution we left the Canadian region of large timber and
entered the stunted spruce, as noted, and at length on the timber
line we saw the final effort of the forests to combat Jack Frost
in his own kingdom. The individual history of each tree is in three
stages:
First, as a low, thick, creeping bush sometimes ten feet across,
but only a foot high. In this stage it continues until rooted enough
and with capital enough to send up a long central shoot; which is
stage No. 2.
This central shoot is like a Noah's Ark pine; in time it becomes
the tree and finally the basal thicket dies, leaving the specimen
in stage No. 3.
A stem of one of the low creepers was cut for examination; it was
11 inches through and 25 years old. Some of these low mats of spruce
have stems 5 inches through. They must be fully 100 years old.
A tall, dead, white spruce at the camp was 30 feet high and 11
inches in diameter at 4 feet from the ground. Its 190 rings were
hard to count, they were so thin. The central ones were thickest,
there being 16 to the inmost inch of radius; on the outside to the
north 50 rings made only 1/2 an inch and 86 made one inch.
