Porcupine Provincial Forest

By the end of the 19th century, Eastern Canada had essentially run out of marketable timber due to unsustainable logging techniques, land clearing for settlement and agriculture, and an increase in forest fires caused by settlement.

In 1899, the Minister of the Interior Clifford Sifton appointed Elihu Stewart as the chief inspector of timber and forestry for the Dominion of Canada.

Stewart's job was to protect undisturbed federal forests from unsustainable logging and settlement practices, and to revitalize lands that had already been deforested.

[1] In 1905, the province of Saskatchewan was created, and its eastern border cut through the Porcupine Forest.

So even though Saskatchewan owned the land beneath the forest, they could not build infrastructure or settlements, or cut any wood, without permission of the federal government.