Sooke River Bridge Candelabra Tree Now Gone

When some trees lose their tops they will grow multiple stems in a candelabra effect.

A reader of Vancouver Island Big Trees sent me an email recently. It reminded me of all the big trees that have been (and will be) sentenced to death for the crime of being in the way of progress.

Unless you live on the prairies, any kind of new development means trees and forests need to be cleared out of the way.

Ever since Europeans arrived in this part of the world "progress" has the ring of axes, chainsaws, and big trees hitting the dirt.

One such example was when the Sooke River Bridge was replaced in 1967. An interesting tree, it looks like it had been pruned or lost its top. The candelabra that results can be seen in a variety of tree species.

The email I received contained the short message that follows, and the photo shown above.

"Your pencil sketch of the Sooke River Bridge on your Vancouver Island Big Trees blog reminded me of a unique tree that was removed to make way for the building of that bridge. 

The bridge was built around 1965 to replace a wooden one that was a few feet downstream. The tree was on the east bank of the river, right in the way of  the project, and had to go. 

I don't know who owned the house in the photo but I suspect the tree artist lived there. Or maybe BC Hydro was responsible! 

Not sure what species of tree it was, maybe a true fir (Abies) of some kind. Photo taken by me in December, 1964."

Thank you, Art, for sharing your historical big tree photo with us.

War In The Walbran

Black bear in the Upper Walbran Valley stand to lose more old growth habitat if Teal Jones has its way.
Photo: TJ Watt, Ancient Forest Alliance

For Immediate Release - June 8, 2015

Wilderness Committee Discovers Logging Maps for Walbran
War in the Woods could return as logging company targets Walbran Valley

by Wilderness Committee

Some of Canada's most ecologically significant old-growth cedar threatened by Teal Jones


VICTORIA – One of Canada's most important old-growth rainforests is under direct threat of clearcut logging. New maps obtained by the Wilderness Committee show logging company Teal Jones has laid out eight new cutblocks in the central Walbran Valley on Vancouver Island, a focal point of the War in the Woods for decades.

In recent years, Teal Jones' logging operations have been targeting old-growth and edging closer to the iconic Castle Grove, the finest stand of monumental cedar trees in the Walbran Valley. The new proposed cutblocks surround Castle Grove in an unprotected area on the north side of the Walbran River, near the boundary of Carmanah-Walbran Provincial Park.

"Intact old-growth forests of this size are incredibly rare and endangered – so much has been cut, and we have a moral responsibility to protect the little that's left," said Torrance Coste, Vancouver Island Campaigner with the Wilderness Committee.

"The north side of the Walbran River should be completely off-limits to industrial logging.
This area has been ground zero for the War in the Woods in the past, and that's exactly the level of conflict Teal Jones is choosing by moving into this area now," Coste added.

The Wilderness Committee contacted Teal Jones last fall, after finding new surveying tape in the Walbran Valley. The environmental group highlighted the importance and scarcity of old-growth forests of this type, and asked Teal Jones to shift its operations into less contentious areas elsewhere in its large forest tenure (TFL 46).

"Teal Jones disregarded our request and set its proposed cutblocks in the worst possible locations," Coste explained.

"This company has proven it cares about nothing but its profits. It's time for the provincial government to step in before Teal Jones does more damage in the Walbran Valley."

Intact old-growth forests provide habitat for endangered species, act as a storage sink for climate-changing carbon and possess irreplaceable cultural and recreational values. These values far surpass the forests' value as wood products.

The central Walbran Valley is in unceded Nuu-chah-nulth territories. The Wilderness Committee is calling for a solution that protects the extremely rare old-growth ecosystems and ensures First Nations' access to traditional resources.

                                                                     
For more information, contact:

Torrance Coste | Vancouver Island Campaigner, Wilderness Committee
(250) 516-9900, [torrance@wildernesscommittee.org]

Additional resources:

Central Walbran Valley map showing proposed logging - June 2015 [https://www.wildernesscommittee.org/sites/all/files/CentralWalbran_Map_June2015_0.pdf]

Walbran Valley photos from unprotected areas [https://www.wildernesscommittee.org/victoria/walbran_valley_photos_2015]

Old-growth logging photos from Walbran Valley - March 2013 [https://www.wildernesscommittee.org/victoria/walbran_valley_old_growth_logging_photos_march_2013]

The Wilderness Committee is Canada's largest membership-based, citizen-funded wilderness preservation organization. We work for the preservation of Canadian and international wilderness through research and grassroots education. The Wilderness Committee works on the ground to achieve ecologically sustainable communities.

Wisdom Of The Trees

Visiting an increasingly rare 1000+ year old Western Red Cedar along West Coast Road
between Sooke and Port Renfrew.

"Because they are primeval, because they outlive us, because they are fixed, trees seem to emanate a sense of permanence.  And though rooted in earth, they seem to touch the sky.  

For these reasons it is natural to feel we might learn wisdom from them, to haunt about them with the idea that if we could only read their silent riddle rightly we should learn some secret vital to our own lives." 

- Kim Taplin

Find out more about the tree shown above, and how to get to it, on my post about the Chin Beach trail cedar. Enjoy the big trees while they last.

BC Exporting Record Amount Of Raw Logs (And Jobs)

“Growing up in small-town Vancouver Island, I never met anyone who agreed with raw log exports. Even my most conservative, pro-extraction relatives froth with anger at the mere mention of this practice.”  

- Torrance Coste

The following is from Northern Insight/Perceptivity - March 14, 2012

In the last year, the Pacific Northwest (BC, WA, OR) exported well more than $1 billion worth of raw softwood logs to China. Shipments for 2011 were more than in the preceding five years combined. 

Increased demand for logs might be great for the logging industry, but it results in closures and layoffs at sawmills and other wood processing facilities. 

A few corporations do well harvesting logs in British Columbia but, without subsequent processing, many service and supply businesses that serve the industry are starving. We are not merely shipping logs to China; we are exporting jobs that ensured our own prosperity. 

BC government policy once allowed only for export of logs surplus to local needs. They still make the claim but, from the time Gordon Campbell's Liberals took power in 2001, raw log exports soared. 

Political and economic pressures prevent BC mills from interfering with overseas shipments. One of the province's largest sawmill operators told a public meeting that he was pressured to NOT bid on logs slated for export even though his mills were critically short of fibre. 

BC sends trade missions to China to sell more unprocessed logs while people in small communities all over the province witness the closure of sawmills and other wood manufacturers. 

When the last BC mill closes, will we be able to afford finished lumber to build our homes? Actually, the plutocracy has an answer for that: "Home ownership is an unrealistic dream of today's young people." 

See much more on raw log exports (and many other things of interest to British Columbians and other concerned Canadians) at the Northern Insight/Perceptivity Blog lovingly researched and written by super-citizen Norm Farrell.

Read Terrance Coste's recent article concerning BC's troubling raw log export addiction on the Tyee website.

Al Carder: Big Tree Defender Honoured By AFA

Al Carder - big tree lover and protector.

When it comes to promoting the beauty of big trees, there are few humans as influential as Al Carder.
It was great to see this big tree hero honoured recently. Al Carder, long a big tree lover and protector, was acknowledged for his work by The Ancient Forest Alliance. Call it an early Christmas present.

Al, author of "Forest Giants of The World: Past and Present" and "Giant Trees of Western America and The World" is as old and wise as some of the trees he has written about.

After personally discovering his books he became one of my big tree heroes. I mean, how many people do you know that go on global tree tours in their retirement, then write books about the experience upon arriving home? Who knows how many trees he has brought attention to, and thus saved for future generations to see?

Mr. Carder was largely responsible for the preservation of Port Renfrew's Red Creek Fir (largest known Douglas fir in the world) after it was discovered by timber industry workers in 1976. If not for him I, and many others, may never have seen this majestic tree.

If you haven't caught the tree bug yet, I urge you to go to the nearest public library and check out Al's books. If you aren't a convert afterwards perhaps clear cuts are more to your liking, because that is what happens when we forget to love the trees.

Thank you Mr. Carder for sharing your love and passion for our primal trees and forests with all the world.

Congratulations on your AFA Sustainability Award.

Canada #1 In Ancient Forest Destruction

Industrial liquidation clear cut on Vancouver Island.
Photo: Garth Lenz

Move over Brazil, Canada leads world in forest decline says a new report. The world’s virgin forests are being lost at an increasing rate and the largest portion of the degradation is in Canada, according to the report.

No longer is Brazil the main villain in the struggle to stop forest destruction. We are the global leaders when it comes to driving entire forest ecosystems to extinction, such as the Douglas fir ecozone. That primal forest, which once produced some of the largest trees on the planet, has been reduced to a fraction of 1% remaining. 

And the cutting of ancient trees continues unabated.

“Canada is the number one in the world for the total area of the loss of intact forest landscapes since 2000,” Peter Lee, of Forest Watch Canada, said in an interview.


“There is no political will at federal or provincial levels for conserving primary forests,” he said. “Most logging done in Canada is still to this day done in virgin forests.”

This is not news to those that have witnessed first hand the last grand old forests of Vancouver Island be liquidated for short term profit. But it is not just here that forests are being degraded and destroyed - it is everywhere in Canada where there are trees to be exploited by the greedy grabbers.

It is way past time to stop the destruction wreaked on our forests by callous and calculating pinheads in government and business that just don't know when to stop. The forest can not defend itself against the onslaught - that task is up to us.


“Business as usual will lead to the destruction of most remaining intact forests this century.” 

- Dr. Nigel Sizer, World Resources Institute

West Coast Big Trees - Spectacular, Unique and Disappearing

There are not many places in the world that have trees as spectacular as those on BC's west coast.
This photo from the local museum supposedly depicts Sooke's Grant Road in the 1940's.

There are a lot of trees between Sooke, BC and the Anappolis Valley of Nova Scotia. A lot. All of them are beautiful in their own way, but few are as spectacular as those in the Pacific temperate rain forest that I just left behind.

Whether we are talking historically or present day, the Pacific rainforest is unique and spectacular. While I look forward to exploring and learning about my new NS forest, I miss the biggest trees in Canada already.

Too bad British Columbia has no idea of what they've got, and what they are currently losing at an alarming rate. If they did, they would be out in the streets, up logging roads, and chained to the last ancient giants before rapacious profiteers carry the last trees and profits away.

So many big trees have been taken already that people can hardly believe the size of the trees in historical photographs. While they may be gone from places like Grant Road, such trees exist in isolated pockets all along the coast.

There are lots of trees in Canada, but surely we should be saving the biggest and rarest of these that call the rainforest home.

Trembling Aspen

A small grove of trembling aspen.

Trembling aspen are the most widely distributed trees in North America. They live up to their name. Even the slightest breeze makes them do their thing. They tremble.

This aspen tree has my favourite scientific designation that reflects this behaviour - Populus tremuloides.

I think the leaves are susceptible to moving and shaking because the "petiole is distally flattened at right angle to plane of blade".

That makes sense to me.

Older trees sport distinctive bark patterns like hard won woody tattoos.

Trembling aspen grow to 35 meters, but height is not their most spectacular feature. What makes these trees special is that they can form large groves through root suckers, making them clones and therefore a single, huge organism.

There is an aspen grove in Utah that has a root system estimated to be 80,000 years old, and some say that is a conservative number. While none of the trees in the grove is overly tall, the entire clone is 106 acres in size.

The Utah grove is known as Pando, or The Trembling Giant.

The grove I photographed in central British Columbia along the Crowsnest Highway is considerably smaller, but just as amazing and beautiful.

Ponderosa Pine Of Central BC

Vancouver Island Big Trees is on the road. Yes, 'The Tree People' have left the Pacific Temperate Rainforest, and are on the way to getting established in the Acadian Forest of Nova Scotia.

In the meantime, we will be posting on big trees that we encounter along our 6500 km cross-Canada journey.

The trees featured in this post are the glorious red-barked ponderosa pines, the tallest pine species in North America. These inhabitants of the dry interior of BC are in some respects more admirable than the big trees on the coast. Why? Because these trees don't have the benefits of ample rainfall, or rich soils.

And yet, the pines manage to grow quite huge, as shown by these photos of an impressive trio at the Bromely Rock Rest Area along scenic Highway 3, also known as the Crowsnest Highway.

While the coast forest includes the stunted and twisted shore pines, you need to travel  few hundred kilometres east before you can see pines of the size of the stately but threatened ponderosa.

Ponderoas pines are susceptible to attacks by the pine beetle. Indeed, many old growth sites have been decimated by the tiny attacker.

With the dual threats of bark beetles and climate change hanging heavily over the entire ponderosa range, it is not known if these trees will survive the upcoming decades of potential turmoil.

Don't wait, visit these trees now before they are gone.

You will know them when you see them, but if not this series of pictures will help you
identify these amazing trees that can grow for up to 500 years or more.

In January 2011, a Pacific ponderosa pine in the Siskiyou National Forest in Oregon was measured with a laser to be 81.79 m (268.35 ft)  tall. The measurement was performed by Michael Taylor and Mario Vaden, a professional arborist from Oregon.

The tree was climbed on October 13, 2011, by Ascending The Giants (a tree climbing company in Portland, Oregon) and directly measured with tape-line at 268.29 ft (81.77 m) high. This is now the tallest known pine.

The tallest known ponderosa pine in BC is listed in the BC Big Tree Registry. It is 49.9 m (164 ft) tall and is found on the Coldstream Ranch southeast of Vernon. 

Big Lonely Doug A Big Climb

Tree climbers on the first ascent of Big Lonely Doug near Port Renfrew.

How do you climb the 66 meters (216 ft) of the recently discovered second largest (known) Douglas fir tree in Canada?

Very carefully.

Tiny people give scale to the enormity of this amazing tree.

Why do you climb a tree like Big Lonely Doug?

To raise awareness of Vancouver Island's vanishing old growth trees and forests.

Climbers descended with samples of soil and moss from the tree's canopy. It is possible
that the samples may contain insects completely new to science.

British Columbia’s threatened old-growth forests are being logged to extinction by industrial logging aided by lax government regulation. But many people, including those in the former logging town of Port Renfrew, realize that trees like the Red Creek Fir and Big Lonely Doug are more valuable standing than cut down.

On Vancouver Island about 75% of the original productive old-growth forests have already been logged, including 90% of the valley bottoms where the richest biodiversity and biggest trees are found.

Once gone, the big trees and primal forests will never be seen again. What a wasted opportunity.

Read more about the first ascent of Big Doug here.

Join the fight to preserve these unique trees by writing a letter here.