Forests
Caught this incredible Bald eagle soaring over the ancient forests of the unprotected Upper Walbran Valley last weekend on Southern Vancouver Island. Such a powerful bird and majestic valley yet helpless against the constant onslaught of new clearcuts in the thousand-year-old forests.
Fast moving clouds and a bright full moon made for a magical view above old oak trees on a Metchosin farm last night.
On a recent bushwhack through some second-growth forest along Lens Creek in the San Juan Valley, I stumbled upon this giant cedar snag. Originally, the San Juan Valley would have been home to some of the most impressive stands of old-growth forest on Vancouver Island but sadly, very little remains. Within the last remaining fragments however, you still have the world's largest Douglas-fir as well as Canada's largest spruce tree. One can only imagine what other giants might have grown there in the past.
A determined hemlock tree pushes its way through the wall of cedar peppered with woodpecker holes.
Location of the tree: 48.59369, -124.23470
Yesterday I dropped by Goldstream Park to shoot some photos during a beautiful morning visit. With 500+ year old redcedar and Douglas-fir trees, towering waterfalls, and a salmon spawning river, Goldstream is a natural gem.
The delicate river is however still recovering from a fuel spill that leaked 40,000 litres of gasoline and diesel into the water after a tanker crashed on the nearby Malahat Highway.
A raven soars through the bigleaf maples with a chunk of meat in its beak.
Giant old-growth redcedars all in a row.
On the weekend I paid a visit to Metchosin's largest tree - a massive old-growth Douglas-fir measuring 28.5ft in circumference (9ft in diameter) growing near Matheson Lake. It's an incredible reminder of the forest giants that once covered most of Vancouver Island. In the woods and hills of the CRD you can still find a few "veteran trees" like this one that escaped the saw's for one reason or another.
Afterwards I wandered further along the foggy mountainside and marveled at the old lichen covered forests that remain mostly intact around the lake.
I took this shot of an old-growth clearcut in the Gordon River Valley on southern Vancouver Island in 2010. It serves as a haunting reminder of the continued threat these forests face. 75% of Vancouver Island's original productive old-growth forests have been logged including 90% of the valley bottoms where the biggest trees grow and richest biodiversity is found.
Without legislated protection from the BC government, the last of our globally rare ancient temperate rainforests will continue to be logged off and replaced with second-growth tree plantations. These tree plantations do not adequately replicate the former old-growth ecosystem that was lost and are typically re-logged within 50-70 years.
With so little of our original old-growth forests left it only makes sense to transition to sustainable logging in second-growth forests instead which now constitute the vast majority of the landscape. By doing so we will help protect our air, water, climate and wildlife, as well as our jobs, into the future.
To help save BC's endangered old-growth forests please sign and share this online petition.
Canada's largest tree, the Cheewhat Giant, grows protected in the Pacific Rim National Park Reserve on southern Vancouver Island in the territory of the Ditidaht First Nation. This massive western redcedar measures 182 feet (55 m) tall and 20 feet (6 m) wide. It’s also the largest known western redcedar tree in the world, a true wonder to behold.
The record-sized tree was first identified by Maywell Wickham in 1988, and nearly 40 years later, a larger one has yet to be found (despite the best efforts of big tree hunters like myself). Maywell wouldn’t have been the first person to see this tree, however. The Ditidaht people have lived amongst these lands for thousands of years, and evidence of their cultural use of the prized cedar trees found in this forest abound. When visiting this tree, take a moment to contemplate the immense scales of time in front of you, both in the form of ancient trees and rich cultural history.
If you’d like to bring the Cheewhat Giant into your home, I offer fine art prints below.
The trail leading to the Cheewhat passes by some other redcedar trees of epic proportions as well.
A massive fallen cedar tree dwarfs hikers as they enter the old-growth. Everything in this forest is super-sized!
The enormous, alien-like “Bulbous Cedar”. This tree appears about halfway along the trail to the Cheewhat Giant.
The surrounding old-growth forest is also among the richest and most vibrant I have ever visited. A must-see place for any big tree hunter.
