Would the west be any different if John Palliser

[boarderbloke]

....John Palliser would have came stomping through the prairies this year or last? or did John Macoun counter everything Palliser claimed about the southern prairies anyway? Any opinions?

This weather cycle might be much like the '40s, when unworkable(can you image with the equipment they had then) wet sloughs and potholes led to the establishment of poplar bluffs.

[oneoff]

Here is a recollection from a long deceased youngster from the earliest homesteading days in SE Sask; as told to a now 95 year old who has relayed it to me a few times over the past 60 years.
On a known quarter section it was reported that it had been homesteaded and broken and that there was not one tree or bush other than hand planted trees in the farm yard.
I surmise that trails and roads on road allowances and ploughed fireguards and newly broken land would have largely controlled prairie fires that prevented the establishment of trees outside the Souris River valley and the Moose Mountain highlands. Indeed; these were the only heating wood sources and the coal hauled from the Bienfeit- Estevan area.
Now that same quarter section has numerous poplar bluffs and willow rings around the slightly deeper sloughs. My grandfather reportedly saw and recalled the water shimmering in the moonlight from a local lake more than 3 miles to the east. That view is now blocked by perhaps at least a half dozen bluffs, no matter what angle you look in that direction.
It seems logical to me that the environment has changed in a dozen interrelated ways. The "lake" has been given an "adequate outlet"; the trees and willows collect snow banks which under natural conditions would have partially or largely blown out of the country depending on the conditions during snowfall. It would have been a slow process to get tree establishment going because of a sparcity of seed sources to begin with; but it was incessant, and now it is obviously well established. Blanket spraying with wide sprayers and aeroplanes are maybe another relatively recent inadvertant control of tree growth in depressions prone to wetness.
Its kind of gone full circle. Now the old farm yard is devoid of tree and they flourish everywhere else.
But the next time some supposed environmentalist tries to impose their ideas of preserving wetlands; or make someone responsible for pre settlement conditions; feel quite confident in telling the SOB that poplars are weeds; and his knowledge of the environment from 125 years ago is based on total ignorance.