Our work in Caribou/Monroes Island 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 Caribou-Munroes Island Provincial Park this past September (of 2020).
This provincial park is located on the north shore of Nova Scotia, near Pictou. Here's an overview graphic of eastern Canada, showing the location of this park:
This project was put together to repair some of the extensive damage done by Hurricane Dorian in 2019.
Here's an aerial photo of the park, taken before the hurricane:
The hurricane hit on September 7th, 2019. Here's another aerial photo, taken after the hurricane:
Damage within the park was extensive. The park staff did an excellent job of cleaning up the mess, but the open spaces then invited some 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 fifteen acres (six hectares) of the core camping area within the park had been hit the hardest, with lesser damages elsewhere. We decided that this project would be approached in two phases. We would plant several thousand trees 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 them:
This photo was taken prior to the devastation by the hurricane.
The first day that we arrived on site was cool and clear, a crisp day in the middle of September. 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 new seedlings.
Our species mix for this project for 2020 included a total of eight species. We had two conifers (red spruce and eastern white pine), and we had six species of deciduous hardwoods (white birch, yellow birch, sugar maple, red maple, mountain ash, and red oak). We had also hoped to be able to plant some eastern hemlock in these areas, but due to a seedling shortage, we decided that the eastern hemlock could be added in a second sweep through the same areas in 2021. When we return in 2021, we also expect that we will probably have some additional hardwood species that were not available to us in 2020. If that's the case, we will be able to sprinkle those trees through the already-planted areas, to enhance the diversity.
Here's a photo showing our tree trailer. We brought five thousand trees to get this project started:
Here's a photo showing one of the sugar maple seedlings (left) and a red maple seedling (right):
The first phase of planting on this project went very smoothly. We're looking forward to returning in 2021 to finish the larger phase of the work that is needed.
If you'd like to learn more about Caribou-Munroes Island Provincial Park, visit their website:
parks.novascotia.ca/park/caribou-munroes-island
Thanks for reading!
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.
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