Donald A. Macdonald – Canada’s last Dominion Forester

Abstract

The federal forest service, originating in 1899, began with Elihu Stewart as the chief inspector of timber and forestry and the title of Superintendent of Forestry; it grew to become the Dominion Forestry Branch. Until 1930 the main federal forest lands were in the western provinces where major agricultural settlement was taking place and the main priorities were fire protection and tree planting. In 1924, E.H. Finlayson a 1912 graduate in forestry became the first Dominion Forester; he was succeeded by D. Roy Cameron as the second Dominion Forester and when he left in 1947 Donald Angus Macdonald became the third and last Dominion Forester until his retirement in 1956. Macdonald’s career bridged the early period of the federal forestry branch’s activities of forest management and protection and into the post 1930s when the priorities were on research and the establishment of experimental forests. Following World War II Macdonald was instrumental in the crafting of the Canada Forestry Act of 1949, which led to the implementation of major provincial forestry activities such as forest inventories, regeneration and forest protection. It was followed by a succession of federal–provincial agreements, which have left an underpinning for forestry across the nation.