Arizona republican., 1908-06-25

ing of the national transcontinental, the Grand Trunk Pacific. that the northern part Of it will be finally opened to the world.
 Work on this railroad Is being push- ed and the grading from Saskatoon to this city has now been completed. From Saskatoon to Portage La Prairie the grading has been done and the rails laid. and within two months trains will be running between Sask- atoon and Winnipeg. The main line of the Grand Trunk Pacific will touch the forest east of Winnipeg and west and north of Edmonton. For the greater part of it's course it will run through the level wheat lands of Sask- atchewan and Alberta. Branch lines have been planned. however, that will run north te Prince Albert and beyond into the hearts of the timber country.
 When the pathfinders were first sent out three years ago to find a route over the Rocky Mountains, their way lay through a primeval wilderness. Day after day they tramp ed through the silence of the forest or set their canoes afloat in streams where probably no white man had ever been. Upon them fell the brunt of the work of locating the third of Canada's transcontinental lines and slowly but surely they mapped out their route, overcoming all difficulties until a path was found for the great iron way to cross the roof of the continent with only ''fourtenths grande." The Union Pacific in Wyoming climbs to an altitude 8247 feet; the Great North ern engines have to overcome an as- cent of 15,9S7 feet and the Santa Fe of 34,003 feet. The pass through which the Grand Trunk trains will run Is but 3712 feet above the ocean and the total ascent is only 6,990 feet
 On account of this easy grade and the northern location of the line the National Transcontinental will re- duce the time of travel around the earth by two days. Its 3600 miles of rails will girdle an eighth of the earth's surface, where the circum- ference is smaller than along any of the more southern routes.
 The fires this spring have been mostly in virgin forest and have not caused any serious loss to lumber men and homesteaders. Gradually. however. the lumberjacks have pushed north along the headwaters of the Saskatchewan. The growth of the prairie towns has created a great de- mand for lumber and the saw mills of Edmonton and Prince Albert together turned out nearly l00, ,000, 900 board feet last year.
 For this reason the extension of the fire ranger service over Northern Sas
 katchewan and Alberta would be of in calculable benefit. Since the sys- tenn has been in force in the govern ment reservations hundreds of thous- ands of dollars of timber have been saved from destruction every year The rangers life is one of ceaseless
 search for fires and as many of the patrols lie in the heart of the wilder
 means journeys of thousands of miles
 year.
 Many novel methods are used to se- cure the end in view. In one reserva- tion. through which railroad runs
 every train is followed by a ranger on hand car who locates and stamps out any stray fire that may be caused by
 sparks from the passing engine. Each ranger follows the train through his
 division into the next. where there is | another ranger who follows it out of his division. and this silent work of preservation Is carried on daily from
 year to year during the dry summer months.
 Canada's total timber supply, ac- 1 cording to figures recently compiled by the Dominion Government is 1,657, ,6O0-
 900 acres. This is larger than the combined area of tinberlands in the United States and Europe. The prin- cipal government reserves at present are the Rocky Mountains Park on the Canadian Pacific railway, the Yoho Park on the Pacific slope of the Rock les, the Algonquin National Park in Central Ontario. the great timber re- serve in the Timiskaming district and | a tract of 1,s20,00O acres in Northern Quebec. The combined area of the re- serves is enormous although it does
 not begin to approach the total of 42.912,S55 acres reached by the 15O l national forests in the United States | and of course is very small indeed in | comparison with the forest area still | left