First Forestry Station 1908

Photo by Alan L Brown - Posted August, 2004

Photo by contributor Wayne Adam - Posted November, 2010

Plaque Location

The County of Norfolk
At the Forestry Station just off Road 24
just west of Road 16, 25.7 km west of Port Dover via Roads 6 and 24

Coordinates: N 42 41.781 W 80 26.659

Plaque Text

Here, on 40 ha of wind-eroded sandy land, the Ontario government established Canada's first provincial forestry station. That father of reforestation in Ontario, Edmund John Zavitz, was born July 9, 1875, graduated from McMaster, Yale and the University of Michigan and taught forestry at the Ontario Agricultural College. He entered this province's public service in 1905, was Deputy Minister of the Department of Lands and Forests 1925-34 and served thereafter as Chief Forester until his retirement 1953. Through his leadership, large areas of waste land have been restored to productivity.

Related Ontario plaque
Ontario Agricultural College

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Here are the visitors' comments for this page.

Posted September 23, 2011
The plaque at St. Williams is part of a wonderful shrine to the history of conservation in Ontario. The lands around it which now appear to be a healthy old growth forest were planted under the supervision of Edmund Zavitz, then a Lecturer at the Ontario Agricultural College, in 1908. This was a major step in his lifelong effort which ended in 1968, to rescue the province from the ravages of spreading deserts, uncontrolled fires and floods which were a consequence of deforestation.

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