Forest Bailiffs
When Tehkummah was first opened for settlement in the mid-1860s, the thinking was that there was little in the way of saleable wood on Manitoulin Island.
Back then, pine was the only species that had any real commercial value and land surveyors had noted that pine stands on the island were few and far between.
If a settler was fortunate to find pine growing on their land, the feeling was that they would most likely use it to build structures. Selling it made little sense since doing so would mean constructing their homes and outbuildings out of lesser quality woods that would be unlikely to stand the test of time.
However, Crown regulators decided to tax the sale of lumber on the island anyway. They had seen how fishing and oil resources had been exploited in the past and decided that over regulation would be a better approach than under regulation.
