Front Yard Flotsam

This large cedar that washed out of the Sooke River stayed hung up on a sandbar before salvagers came,
cut off the root end, and hauled the log away.

After having one of the driest fall seasons on record on south Vancouver Island, we recently experienced a record-breaking rainfall in a 24 hour period. When winter rainfalls coincide with seasonal high tides, the flotsam factor in my front yard increases dramatically.

It is exciting to see huge logs and whole trees float by during these winter freshets. Some of the debris is dislodged from area beaches by extra high tides, but much of the tree debris is sourced up the Sooke River which enters the harbour along Billing Spit's western shore.

Most of the tree debris gets washed out to sea, or gets hung up on a new beach somewhere. Some middle sized logs get hung up on sandbars in the harbour and stay until the next high tide or heavy rainfall.

Some of the larger logs stay around for years, perhaps decades. When these get stranded on a sandbar in the harbour they are heavily used by wildlife. Eagles perch and eat their prey on the large debris. River otters also love to play on the tree debris in the harbour.

This large Douglas fir log has been on the beach for a decade or more. Only the most extreme
tides and weather will move it off the beach.

Really big logs that get hung up on the sandbars will bring out the salvagers, or beachcombers as they are also called. Using giant chain saws, they remove the root ends of large trees, and use small boats to float the lucrative wood to where they can transfer it to land for milling.

Salvaging Western Red Cedar In Clayoquot Sound

Tofino's Salvage Towing salvaging a red cedar in Clayoquot Sound

Marine salvage of big trees has always been a part of BC's forest industry, and continues to this day. In Clayoquot Sound by Tofino, Salvage Towing wrangles large trees that fall into water, and float them to their small sawmill.

This 'eco-lumber' is environmentally friendly since it replaces cutting trees in the forest.

Salvaged wood from the small mill is used for value-added enterprises such as furniture making. These photos were taken from the Tofino company website Adirondackchaironline.com. They use reclaimed wood to make beautiful eco-furniture.

Sustainably built furniture from reclaimed Western red cedar

Using reclaimed wood is another way to help relieve pressure on our remaining old growth forests.

Driftwood On The Move

This 30 meter long cedar washed up on a local beach after a winter storm

Winter on the west coast means lot of rain, high water flows in rivers, and the highest tides of the year. That means storm tossed driftwood is on the move. Winter beachcombers are pleasantly surprised by the appearance of new woody debris on local beaches.

Often these drift logs, given up by the fury of the ocean goddesses, become the target of salvage operations. While recovered Douglas-fir is may be used for lumber or firewood, more valuable Western red-cedar, or Yellow-cedar, is valued for shakes, shingles, furniture, and structural wood.

30 meters of usable, if somewhat inaccessible, cedar 

Drift logs on beaches may be accessible to water, or land-based wood recovery efforts. I am amazed by the lengths the professionals will go to salvage beautiful chunks of wood from wherever they come to rest.

Shortly after the cedar washed up, the bole was cut and removed from the beach

I have seen some small scale log salvaging operations near my home on Billings Spit. Drift logs often show up in the Sooke River estuary after being washed down the Sooke River during high water flow events that scour the river and wash out fallen debris. Occasionally really big debris washes down to the sea.

Large drift log in the Sooke River estuary

I have watched small boats carrying salvagers with large chain saws approach drift logs in the Sooke River estuary in order to lay claim to prize woody resources. At high tide they move in, and the chain saw is used to cut the root section off so the log cab be slowly hauled away for processing.

Detail - cedar is very rot-resistant, and is highly sought after. Large cedars are becoming rarer.

Some of the drift logs on beaches are large enough to withstand not only the salvagers, but also the onslaught of years of winter weather. These semi permanent drift logs become lasting features on the otherwise ever-changing beach landscape. Until a really BIG storm comes along.

The storms give it up, the storms take it away, unless the beachcombers get to it first.

The biggest log in the background will only be
moved by the mother of all storms

I recently saw the results of a log salvage operation about 3 km up the Sooke River where a large cedar fell partially into the water. The middle section of the log had been sawed out, leaving the root section on the bank, and the top stranded alone in the middle of the river.

The saw operator had to work suspended over the water for both cuts - I would have liked to witness the skill this must have demanded.

Salvaging a red cedar from the Sooke River

The only way to get the log out is to float it down the river during high water, or high tide (preferably both) then wrangle it, tether it to a boat, and haul it somewhere it could be hoisted from the water.

Big trees and big storms mean big drift logs on the move. It is all part of the beauty of a west coast winter.

Beachcombing Big Trees

Drift wood on Sooke's Ella Beach

The beaches of Vancouver Island are fantastic places to see big trees, both those growing on the shore, and the ones washed up on the sand and rocks. Exposed beaches on the outer west coast end up as drift log cemeteries, covered in huge tangled piles of sun-bleached carcasses of rainforest giants.

Van Gogh's Starry Night in driftwood

Throughout the wild and windy coastal winters rain-heavy winds lash the coastline. Huge swells and waves throw ocean borne forest debris up onto beaches everywhere in a swirly maelstrom.





Large drift logs and whole trees may stay a few days, weeks, months or years, depending on the size of the debris and weather conditions. If they stay long enough it will bleach and dry in periods of dry, hot summer weather.

More Ella Beach driftwood showing a tangle of roots

Swollen rivers in winter disgorge large amounts of forest debris that falls into the water from above, or is actively eroded out by the high, raging waters. Huge rainfalls see many of Vancouver Island's rivers transporting big tree debris to the ocean, destined for a beach and final resting place.

Fallen branches on pocket beach, Sooke Basin

Most beaches on the south island will have collected some drift wood. It certainly adds interest to a walk on the beach.











Back when Vancouver Island logging was in its heyday, rafts of huge logs were transported to saw mills on the mainland, up the Fraser River. Over the decades thousands of logs were lost to storms. These logs eventually found their way to local beaches.


This source of driftwood ended with the building of mills on the island, downturns in the economy, whole-log shipments, and the eventual depletion of the Dry Coastal Douglas-fir forest. However, many of the logs that got loose during the period of intense tree harvesting still lay on the hundreds of kilometers of beaches of Vancouver Island's coastline.

The beach at Port Renfrew has collected piles of big tree debris

Beaches open to the full brunt of the Pacific Ocean tend to gather more forest debris. The beach at Port Renfrew shows this nicely. During the winter it gathers massive drift logs for as far as the eye can see. Not only that - the beach is also often littered with much smaller wood debris, small chips of wood sanded smooth by the wave action.

Whole tree, roots and all on the sand, Port Renfrew

This stump on Billings Spit has lay here for many years

Beaches often yield great wood remnants. Often showing the results of chainsaws, naturals also end up here.



And the great thing is you never know what you will find. Each day can bring new treasures, as the beach is built anew every day by the wind and waves.

Beachcombers Struggle To Maintain Coastal Way Of Life

Professional log salvaging began along the B.C. coast in the late 1880's, and beachcombers have been wrangling stray logs ever since. It has always been a tough way to make a living.

Marine log salvaging increases the efficiency of logging operations by eliminating a source of waste. It also makes maritime travel safer by removing dangerous logs from waterways and shipping lanes.

A downturn in the logging industry means a downturn in the amount of logs available for salvage. These are tough times for log wranglers that retrieve logs that come loose from booms during transportation to the mills.

Marine log salvage is closely controlled by the government, salvage log purchasers, and logging companies. The Vancouver log salvage district, extends from Otter Point on southern Vancouver Island, up the Fraser River into Harrison and Stave lakes on the Lower Mainland, and includes the entire Strait of Georgia and Queen Charlotte Strait.

According to civil law, any log that a salver finds belongs to them, unless someone else can show better title. Logging companies show their ownership of logs by stamping or branding them with their registered timber mark, marine log brand, or ownership tag.

When Comox Logging boomed its logs from Vancouver Island across the Strait of Georgia to Fraser Mills up the Fraser River, its logs bore the circle F log stamp. While the logs were still in the forest the chaser (a member of the skidder crew) would wack each end of every log with a heavy branding hammer, denoting ownership.

These log stamps compressed the grain of the tree for a metre or more up the log. This means that if a beachcomber illegally tried to cut the ends off the logs, the brand would still be visible.

Marine log salvaging was immortalized in CBC's TV program The Beachcombers, which ran from 1972 to 1990 and is still the longest-running dramatic series ever made for Canadian television. Nick Adonidus and friends 'lived' in Gibsons Landing on the Sunshine Coast, a place that has seen thousands of log booms pass by.


On my local 1 km stretch of west-facing beach what usually washes up are whole trees that have fallen into the Sooke River and then are washed down into the harbour with winter storms and high water. It wasn't always that way though.

While talking to a neighbour on the beach I heard that decades ago a person could walk this entire length of beach and never touch the ground. That is how log-strewn the beach was back then. Stray logs everywhere.

It just so happened that the day we had this conversation was the day that a large Western red cedar log washed up on shore. Another beach walker joined the conversation and commented that in his opinion the log was worth many thousands of dollars, and that the owners would be scouring the area looking for it.

My neighbours told me that someone up the river is logging old Western red cedars for shakes and shingles. Somehow a few logs and some logging debris (roots and stumps) were swept into the river by high water levels. Not long after the log washed up I noticed a huge stump of equal proportions in the river upstream of the bridge into town.

A couple more heavy rains combined with high tides and the stump was washed out into the harbour where it lodged on a sandbar. Shortly after that I saw a salvor standing on top of the stump with a gigantic chain saw trying to cut off the bottom part of the tree. He eventually gave up, but next high tide he was out there with his boat hauling the valuable stump away.

This incident made me think of the approximately 100 remaining salvors in the Vancouver log salvage district. With the logging industry changing rapidly these independent workers are having a tough time making ends meet. It's not just our forests that are changing on the coast. Out here entire ways of life that were dependent on resource extraction are becoming endangered themselves.

New Forest, Beach, and Waterfront Parks For South Island

CRD, conservation groups buy controversial Jordan River lands

By Judith Lavoie , Times ColonistMarch 5, 2010

The Capital Regional District has negotiated a massive deal with Western Forest Products to buy more than 2,300 hectares of high-profile waterfront and forest land, days before much of the southwest corner of Vancouver Island was set to go up for sale.

The agreement in principle, with a pricetag of $18.8 million, includes more than 3.5 kilometres of shoreline along Sandcut Beach and the Jordan River surfing beach and townsite. It also takes in land beside Sooke Potholes regional park and areas, such as Weeks Lake, that will add to the buffer around the Greater Victoria water supply’s catchment area and complete the Sea-to-Sea Greenbelt.

http://www.timescolonist.com/travel/conservation+groups+controversial+Jordan+River+lands/2642632/story.html

This is such good news for recreational types on the south island, not to mention all the thousands of visitors that come to enjoy everything the wild west coast has to offer. It is an example of our elected officials doing things that will benefit the people for generations. Thank you to everyone involved in this very positive outcome.

One of my favorite big tree areas alongside the upper Sooke River is one of the parcels involved. A few years back while biking up there I saw flagging outlining boundaries and marking trees. The Galloping Goose Trail, which I was riding on, is a linear park and is therefore very narrow and protects a very small bit of land and trees. Ancient trees hundreds of years old that survived the first, second, third and subsequent waves of logging looked like they might finally be coming down. It depressed me.

Now, with this latest acquisition, it looks like a wider area on both sides of the upper Sooke River will be preserved as a park.

There are individual giant trees in the Sooke River valley that will be saved because of this forward thinking decision-making. I look forward to being able to visit them until they fall down, or until I do. I will be devoting future posts to the tree-hunting possibilities within the new parks systems.

See you in our new parks, and don't forget about Muir Creek, still one of the best possibilities for preserving a nice bit of old growth. It would be a shame to gain all of this, and lose Muir Creek.

San Juan Beach Video - Feb. 05/10

While I was on the beach at the Pacheedaht campground looking at big drift wood I took a short video. It is not sharp, but you can see the beauty of the area, and listen to the slap of the waves on the sand. You can also see why the Pacheedaht people are known as the "People of the Sea Foam".

The video starts by looking off toward the town of Port Renfrew, a place that was first established as a logging camp in the early 20th century. As I turn to look up the beach you can see the Red alder fringe bordering the sand with the hemlock/spruce forest rising up behind. Strewn over the beach are the winter's accumulation of drift logs.

The video continues panning to look along the beach toward Harris Cove where the Gordon and San Juan rivers come together before emptying into San Juan Bay. As the camera passes the mouth of Gordon Bay it continues past the trailhead for the West Coast Trail, originally built in 1907 as a life-saving trail for shipwrecked sailors. The video shows where the trail goes up along the coast, and
then continues 77km to Bamfield.



This video was taken at low tide on a calm day. Imagine high tide during a storm in the winter. People who live on the wild west coast of Vancouver Island know the sounds of giant drift logs being smashed over rocky outcrops.



The first commercial logging took place in the San Juan Valley in 1889, and rampant exploitation has continued to this very day. Vast expanses of Western hemlock/Sitka spruce forest have been liquidated and turned into wood products for the world, leaving behind an industrial wasteland. Some notable big trees and small patches of original forest have survived the onslaught and are worth visiting.

I will be visiting some of these places and posting photos and information in the future.

Winter Drift Logs Park On Port Renfrew Beach

I love a good drive even more now since I am doing it less, keeping most of my adventures local and self-propelled. A drive well worth making is the 107km (66mi) trip from Victoria to Port Renfrew. There is enough to keep the tree enthusiast occupied for a day trip, weekend, or lifetime.

The twisty, dangerous, and fun-packed West Coast Road takes you past some of the most beautiful coastline anywhere, and through some impressive second and third growth tree plantations. Small remnant patches of old growth and nice beaches, can be accessed from the highway all along this rugged route. One of my favourite forest/beach areas is at the Pacheedaht campground in Port Renfrew. Bordering San Juan Beach, San Juan River, and Harris Cove, it is also one of the most accessible.

When we pulled up to the beach we were surprised at the changes since our last visit. Winter storms had tossed debris over the entire 2 km stretch of beach, creating a labyrinth of wood sure to swallow the unaware beachcomber.

From end to end the beach is strewn with wood, from large trees with complete root systems, to tiny wood chips ground and polished by the pulsing waves. For 2 km these large trees stretch, all pulled tips-in to the beach at the same angle, looking like cars parked at a drive-in.

A few huge logs, escaped from the log booms of days gone by, lay partially buried further up the beach, thrown by tempests of the past. These columns are being reclaimed by the relentless sands of time.

The Sitka spruce forest behind the beach is a green, misty, mythical place. In the Coastal Western hemlock zone, and right next to the ocean, this rugged spot is all about water. Sitka spruce, the third tallest conifer species (after coastal Redwood and Douglas fir), is tolerant of the constant salt spray in their ocean environment.

On this beach, more exposed to the open Pacific than those further up the Juan de Fuca Strait, the thundering surf can get big. Big enough to throw huge trees and logs around like toys.


The hemlock climatic zone is the wettest zone, on average, in British Columbia. This wonderland of wetness receives major moisture, about 1000 to 4400 mm of rain annually. That explains the dripping fluorescent green mosses hanging from everything creating a magical Tolkienesque landscape. You expect the ancient trees to move, or talk, or scream and shout.



Compare this to the beginning of the drive from Victoria. It sits in Vancouver Island's Coastal Douglas fir zone, in the rain shadow of Washington's Olympic Range. This zone stretches from just past Sooke, around the bottom of the island, and up to Campbell River. 

Because of the influence of the Olympic Range, the Coastal Douglas-fir zone is much dryer with about 647mm of moisture every year. Compare that to Port Renfrew, only 80 km from Sooke. Here a year will bring around 3671mm of precipitation. This is giant Sitka spruce country, and the second largest Sitka, the San Juan Spruce, is only a few kilometers away at the San Juan campground.

Another reason I like the Port Renfrew area is that it marks access to the West Coast and Juan de Fuca Trails. Both pass through areas of old forest and provide glimpses of trees and forests largely pillaged elsewhere on the island. Indeed, hikers are often treated to the chainsaw sounds of similar forests disappearing outside the narrow park boundaries.


Big trees growing next to the ocean or on rivers naturally erode out and fall into water. Wind storms can take out thousands of trees in a single weather event, as in December 2006. It looks like many of those trees end up on San Juan beach. This wild west coast phenomenon shows the enormity and power of this special place. It is the rugged west coast and I love it. Big surf, big trees, big drift logs, big rain.

Well worth taking a leisurely big tree adventure in this awesome location.

Another Grand Beach Stump

Another semi-permanent feature of Billing Spit is this large chunk of tree left over after logging sometime in the distant past. More than likely it was logged from somewhere in the Sooke river watershed, and eventually tumbled down into a winter raging river only to flow out into the harbour and land here. This giant is toward the end of Billings Spit just on the west facing beach.

As far as I know this log does not move with storms or tides. It has been here for at least as long as I have been here, but surely its tenancy is much longer than just 5 years. No doubt it will continue to live here for many years in the future.

Check out the DBH (diameter at breast height) of this tree. I am just shy of six feet. The log tapers quite quickly, though, but I still figure this douglas fir was between 3 and 400 years old when cut. Often old growth trees that are cut or fall in storms, or die of old age continue to lie around for many decades, perhaps a century, or more. They keep giving after getting horizontal, providing habitat and nutrients for hundreds of different species.