Review: Barkskins

Advances in agriculture in the mid-17th century led to a marked growth in the population of Europe, creating an increased demand for resources. Forests fell under the axe, providing timber for everything from construction to fuel, while the newly cleared land was used for agriculture, which in turn fed the expanding population and the cycle.

Demand for timber soon outstripped supply, and poverty, though always present, became rife. Meanwhile, the almost untouched and seemingly infinite forests of North America lay only an ocean away. France was among the countries that realised it could simultaneously exploit both this vast reserve of untapped resources and its poor, by sending them as indentured labourers to fell the forests of New France (later Canada).