Blomidon Provincial Park, Environmental Tree Planting Project

Our work at Blomidon provincial park has been a multi-year project.  This blog post was written as a review of our efforts in 2020.  We have an updated blog post about our 2021 work at this link.  However, if you're curious about the work that we did in 2020, please read on ...

 

Our organization did some tree planting work in Blomidon Provincial Park this past September (2020).  Here's a photo taken from the front end of the park, overlooking the waters of the Minas Basin in the Bay of Fundy:

 

 

 This provincial park is located slightly west of central Nova Scotia, in a very picturesque part of the province.  The park is located just north of Canning, and just 20km from the town of Wolfville (home to Acadia University).  It overlooks the highest tides in the world.  Here's an overview graphic showing the location of the park:

This project was initiated to repair some of the extensive damage done by Hurricane Dorian in 2019.

Here's a photo, taken coming into the park:

Dorian hit central Nova Scotia on September 7th, 2019.  Eighty percent of the residents of the province lost power, and in the aftermath, Dorian turned out to be tied for being the strongest hurricane in recorded history to have ever hit Atlantic Canada.  The destruction was widespread.

Damage within Blomidon Park was extensive.  The park staff did an excellent job of cleaning up the mess, but the open spaces that resulted invited some further restoration work.  We discussed our desire to assist with this work, and the park staff were very happy to accommodate.

The park foresters estimated that approximately five acres (two hectares) of the core camping area within the park had been hit the hardest.  In addition, there was another five acre section in front of the camping area that had been cleaned out several years earlier (due to an insect problem) and that area could also use more trees.  Beyond that, there were some other isolated areas that would also benefit from reforestation work.  We decided that this project would be approached in two phases.  We would start by planting several thousand seedlings in the fall of 2020, and follow that up with a second phase of planting in the fall of 2021 to complete the project.

Before our team arrived on site, we were given some maps outlining the approximate area that the foresters recommended we focus upon.  For context, here is one of those maps:

This photo shows two areas highlighted in red.  The section on the left is the older area that was damaged by insects.  Some trees had been planted in that area several years ago, but the coverage was sporadic and there was certainly room for more.  The section circled in red on the right side of that photo shows the main camping area, prior to the devastation by the hurricane.

The day that we arrived on site was sunny yet humid.  We were given a tour of the area, and we spent some time doing a final review of the areas which should be targeted as the highest priority for our seedlings.

Our species mix on the first phase of this project was very basic.  We only brought in two types of trees, red spruce and white pine, in order to start planting a base layer throughout the main camping area within the park.  Some of these trees were planted in open ground where the previous mature trees had been completely destroyed and removed.  Other seedlings were planted in partial understory adjacent to camp sites, which again had suffered some wind damage.  Red spruce and eastern white pine are both fairly shade tolerant, and represented a very suitable choice for phase one.

Here's a photo showing our tree trailer.  We brought a full load of five thousand trees to get the project started:

We prioritized the camping area, as already noted, to ensure that our base layer of red spruce and eastern white pine could be completed in 2020.  Once those areas were finished, we still had some trees left over, so we were able to plant part of the area that was damaged by insects several years ago.  That area has started to regenerate partially.  Some of the trees in that area had been planted, and others are the result of natural regeneration.  The trees and brush in this area were quite patchy.  In some parts, the trees were looking quite healthy and were taller than we were.  In many other places, we only found consistent brush up to our waist.  You can see some of the area that I'm referring to in the background of this photo:

The first phase of planting on this project went very smoothly.  We're looking forward to returning in 2021 to finish the work.  We expect to bring several deciduous (hardwood) species when we return.

If you'd like to learn more about Blomidon Provincial Park, visit their website:

parks.novascotia.ca/park/blomidon

 

Thanks for reading!

Jonathan Clark

www.replant-environmental.ca

 

Replant.ca Environmental is a Canadian company that plants trees for carbon capture and builds community forests.  We also plant trees in national, provincial, and municipal public parks to mitigate damage from wildfires, storms, insects, and forest diseases.  We operate thanks to numerous small contributions from the general public, in addition to larger project sponsorships from businesses and corporations around the world.  If you'd like to learn how to show your support, visit our donations page.  Even if you aren't able to make a contribution, we very much appreciate when people are able to share our posts or our website link on social media, to help spread the word about the work that we're doing!

To learn more about the various species that we plant, visit the conifers page or the deciduous (hardwoods) page on our website.  Thanks so much for your interest!

Incidentally, our organization is often seeking additional land for our carbon capture projects.  Please visit this link if you might know of a recently-harvested property that we could rebuild into a permanent legacy forest.