TY - JOUR
T1 - "The solution is aircraft"
T2 - Aircraft and the political economy of Canadian forest fires
AU - Pyne, Stephen
N1 - Funding Information:
fight budgets before they fought any fires.2 The larger agencies moved in quick-step. The Great War had prodded the research behind flying, boosted its public appeal (even with the war grinding on, pilots lectured about the future of forest aviation), and with the Armistice, liberated planes and pilots. The idea mesmerized the Commission of Conservation; the Dominion Parks Branch investigated the unlikely possibility of zeppelins; in QuCbec, the St. Maurice Protective Association agreed in November 1918 to purchase a “hydroaeroplane” for patrol. For the next season it hired a former Canadian Air Force pilot, Stuart Graham, to fly two Curtiss flying boats (HS-2L) from Halifax to Three Rivers, before commencing regular patrol^.^ What made aircraft a working proposition, not simply an exercise in fire-reconnaissance barnstorming, was the donation by Great Britain of over a hundred war-surplus aircraft to Canada in June 1919. Hoping to jumpstart a civilian air-transport industry, the Dominion established an Air Board, charged with both stimulating and regulating civil aeronautics. The Board convened an interdepartmental conference in January 1920 to recommend projects, with the Dominion Forestry Branch (DFB) an enthusiastic booster. The outcome was a constellation of bases located at B.C., Alberta, Manitoba, Ottawa, Quebec, and Nova Scotia. By 1920 there were reconnaissance flights for British Columbia and Alberta, and a year later, similar patrols out of Roberval, Qutbec, and Manitoba. New Brunswick “experimented” with an airplane in 1920 but otherwise contented itself with observing the results elsewhere in Canada and the U.S. The next year, with enthusiasm still high, the Air Board staged a second interdepartmental conference and increased operations, especially for fire patrols and transport. On 1 January 1923 the Air Board was dissolved and incorporated into a Ministry of National Defence; thereafter, the Royal Canadian Air Force flew any missions required by the Dominion. On the eve of the 1924 Forest Fire Conference, forestry constituted about 60 percent of Canadian flying, and firefighting the largest pr~portion.~ The planes investigated were seaplanes: Canada’s lakes furnished an endless array of landing areas. The preferred models were Curtiss HS-2Ls, and later De-Havilland Moths and Vickers Vikings. Across the dry interior west, boasting only graded landing sites, there was little opportunity for more than aerial reconnaissance, which Alberta demonstrated enthusiastically but which, all parties agreed, could not pay for itself (The Alberta flights continued until the DFB erected a network of towers.) Likely, B.C. determined that, much as it craved aircraft, it could not justify planes simply for recon, although the Dominion still flew over some critical landscapes of the Railway Belt. When, in 1923, the Dominion’s contribution ended for Qutbec, the province paid for the service itself Ontario first flew in 1920, quickly appreciating the ability of aircraft to extend protection into its own immense northwest, briskly establishing a base near Sudbury and another at North Bay. Subsequently the province decided that it would create its own Provincial Air Service, purchasing the Laurentide Air Service (inheritor of the St. Maurice program), believing that this would, ultimately, reduce expenses, and appreciating no doubt the fickleness of Dominion support. Overnight, Ontario acquired the whole package, not only planes but pilots and service crews.5
PY - 2006
Y1 - 2006
N2 - As for the case of Canadian forest fires, there are two paradoxes to be considered. First is that the institutions must settle the relationship between political confederation and the boreal forest. In addition to the problem is the British North American Act which have granted certain provinces the control over their lands and natural resources. The second aspect to be dealt with is the Canadian scene which have matched the world's most savage fires within its most advanced machines. However, in the end, Canada used the same methods all over again as they approached the use of airplanes for fire protection along with the latest technologies while dealing with the northern economy, American market, the politics of confederation, internal agreement, and institutional improvements.
AB - As for the case of Canadian forest fires, there are two paradoxes to be considered. First is that the institutions must settle the relationship between political confederation and the boreal forest. In addition to the problem is the British North American Act which have granted certain provinces the control over their lands and natural resources. The second aspect to be dealt with is the Canadian scene which have matched the world's most savage fires within its most advanced machines. However, in the end, Canada used the same methods all over again as they approached the use of airplanes for fire protection along with the latest technologies while dealing with the northern economy, American market, the politics of confederation, internal agreement, and institutional improvements.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=54749121293&partnerID=8YFLogxK
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U2 - 10.1080/02722010609481403
DO - 10.1080/02722010609481403
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:54749121293
SN - 0272-2011
VL - 36
SP - 458
EP - 477
JO - American Review of Canadian Studies
JF - American Review of Canadian Studies
IS - 3
ER -