Overview

In 1801 and 1802, 3 years before the Lewis and Clark expedition, a remarkable Nova Scotian undertook an exhaustive tour of the wilderness of Nova Scotia in order to catalog its natural resources. Titus Smith (I think there are no pictures from life) (1768-1850) was commissioned by Lieutanant Governor John Wentworth “to visit the most unfrequented parts, particularly the banks and the borders of the different rivers, lakes and swamps, and the richest uplands, for the purpose of discovering such spots as are best calculated for producing hemp, and furnishing other Naval Stores.“
Smith’s pacifist family came to Nova Scotia in 1783 and they farmed in Dutch Village near Halifax. Titus was educated first at home by his father and then at a private school in New Haven, Conn. A precocious student, at age four he was able to read with ease. Titus Smith Jr earned his living as a farmer and as an occasional land surveyor, a training he acquired in his twenties.
Although the suspicion was growing that most of the interior was a rocky, lake-strewn wilderness, “hope remained strong that large stretches of good land, and more certainly of good merchantable timber, might still be found.”
A particular need was to assess the colony’s suitability for providing material important to the Royal Navy. A committee of the Council, appointed by Wentworth to consider the growing of hemp in Nova Scotia, reported that “Government should be put in possession of facts, and no longer rely on vague reports which, on one hand, have often depressed the worth of this country below its real value; – whilst others, especially the French writers, have given flattering descriptions above the truth.”
Smith spent more than 150 days in the woods equipped with only his instructions, a compass, writing material, the best available map, “which was probably as much hindrance as help,” and whatever he could wear and carry to sustain travel by foot over some of the roughest terrain on the continent.
Smith submitted the results of his explorations in the form of journals, ink drawings of plants, floral lists and descriptions, and a map, which remained the only general one of the province for some 30 years. His report provides a highly detailed account of Nova Scotia’s forests, rivers, geological features, and wildlife. In addition to noting the growing scarcity of moose, caribou, and beaver (“I have not seen more than half a dozen inhabited Beaver houses in the whole course of my tour”) and its effect on the native population (“the internal parts of the Province are but little frequented by the Indians in the Winter”), he listed most of the 33 species of forest trees native to the province’s mainland, 50 shrubs, 20 species of grasses, sedges, and rushes, 20 other species in a catch-all category, and approximately 100 kinds of medicinal plants.
Smith’s journals reveal “insight into the pattern and process of vegetation development far in advance of his time,” and that they “may well be the first major contribution to plant ecology in North America.”

The complete diaries are on this map in the 'Map and Text' tab.