Historical Forest Inventory Maps of Alberta from 1949-1956

Phase 1 (Broad Scale) Forest Inventory maps cover all publicly owned forested lands in Alberta, excluding Indian lands and national parks. The inventory, conducted by the Government of Alberta between 1949 and 1956, classified land as productive, potentially productive, or non-productive based on aerial photo interpretation. It was used to define agricultural suitability and plan timber harvest and industrial development.

Use Cases

• Analyze historical land classification (productive, potentially productive, non-productive) to model mid-20th century forest cover.
• Study the distribution of 'cover types' including crown density, height, and tree species for baseline ecological comparisons.
• Identify areas of burned, harvested, or cultivated land labeled as potentially productive for land reclamation history studies.
• Map non-productive land features like organic soils, barren rock, and lakes from the 1950s for historical landscape analysis.

Strengths

• Inventory spans a 7-year period from 1949 to 1956, providing a consistent historical snapshot.
• Covers all publicly owned forested lands in the province of Alberta.
• Land classification includes three distinct productivity categories and detailed cover type attributes.

Limitations

• No ages or site classes are associated with the map polygons.
• Minimum polygon size is 65 hectares, limiting fine-grained spatial analysis.
• Maps are not available as geo-referenced rectified images or GIS-ready data, requiring significant manual processing.

Provenance

Source

Government of Alberta

Collection Method

Aerial photo interpretation

Time Range

1949 to 1956

Freshness

Data reflects the 1949-1956 survey period; metadata was last updated in 2026.

Geography

Publicly owned forested lands in Alberta, Canada, excluding Indian lands, national parks, and the Rocky Mountains Forest Reserve.