The Inexhaustible Frontier

This flow traces the recurring belief that North American forests are limitless, and the repeated evidence that abundance can be exhausted.

increasingBearing stren­gth in each eventdecreasing

A Forest Without End

A Forest Without End The Infinite Image Claude Trépagny describes the forest as endless, giving newcomers a sense that its scale defeats human limits. A Foundational Belief The image becomes a rationale for clearing, settling, and taking resources without restraint.

Duquet’s Lesson Ignored

Duquet’s Lesson Ignored China’s Diminished Woods Wuqua explains how a populous civilization has reduced forests through farming, fuel, and industry. North American Exceptionalism Duquet assumes the forests of New France are different and effectively inexhaustible.

Michigan’s Great Pine

Michigan’s Great Pine Vastness Reassures Investors Lennart and James encounter seemingly endless white pine and plan rapid acquisition and extraction. The Surveyor’s Unease Armenius recognizes that the company’s ambition exceeds any reasonable idea of stewardship.

Empty Land After Cutting

Empty Land After Cutting Evidence Accumulates New England, Maine, and Michigan lose large stands of old-growth timber, while soil erodes and rivers fill with debris. The Myth Persists Companies and settlers move west rather than accept that abundance has limits.

The Last Great Forests

The Last Great Forests Alarm Over Scale Sapatisia and her colleagues confront boreal and tropical forests under pressure from fire, logging, and development. No Place Too Vast Dieter’s warning returns: even immense forests can fall when enough people arrive to take them.

René’s first journey into New France

During Duquet’s Guangzhou trading years

During Duke & Sons’ Michigan expedition

As eastern forests are depleted

Near the ending, during Sapatisia’s work