Tree Planting Project at Murray Beach Provincial Park (2021)

This Fall (2021), Replant.ca Environmental started a long-term planting project at Murray Beach Provincial Park.  This park is located in southeastern New Brunswick.  This work was made possible thanks to a sponsorship from the Trees For Life organization.  Learn more about Trees For Life at www.treesforlife.ca

Murray Beach Provincial Park is only a 45 minute drive from Moncton, on a very scenic route along part of New Brunswick's Acadian coast.  New Brunswick has a 750km drive called the "Acadian Coastal Drive," and Murray Beach Provincial Park is on this trail (Route 955), near the southern end of the trail, in Murray Corner.  The park is near the Little Shemogue River (pronounced Shim-o-Gui), and overlooks the Northumberland Strait.

The waters of the Northumberland Strait (which is part of the southern Gulf of St. Lawrence, between the mainland and PEI) are known for being some of the warmest Atlantic waters north of Virginia, and are very popular with tourists.  You can see the Northumberland Strait in the background of this photo:

 

Not surprisingly, Murray Beach has a beautiful beach, and the park also has over one hundred camping sites, plus eight cabins.  To make reservations, visit this link.

Here's a graphic (courtesy of Google Earth) showing the location of the park:

The September weather was beautiful when we were at the park.  But there was work to be done, so we couldn't let ourselves get distracted by the beach.

Unfortunately, Murray Beach was hit by Hurricane Dorian in 2019.  Luckily, the damages were not as severe here as in many of the other parks in the region, but there was still a significant loss of mature trees.  Here's a graphic that zooms into part of the park, showing a before (left) and after (right) comparison.

The Replant.ca Environmental team planted 10,590 young seedlings in the park in 2021.  A total of ten species were planted.  Seven of the species were conifers (white pine, Jack pine, red spruce, white spruce, black spruce, eastern larch, and white cedar).  Three of the species were deciduous (red oak, yellow birch, and sugar maple).  This was the first phase of a multi-year program, and the number of hardwoods will be increased significantly in 2022 and 2023.  We plan to eventually provide more than seventeen different species (seven conifers and ten deciduous) to the park.

For 2021, we planted several patches of open ground, and we also planted a number of seedlings along the two thin lines that form either side of the Perimeter Trail corridor (this is a 6.0 kilometer walking trail within the park).  The three segments of the trail which have received seedlings so far account for about a quarter of the trail edges, so there is definitely more work to be done in 2022.  Here's an overview graphic of the park that highlights the areas that received seedlings in 2021:

 

Here are a few photos of the team in action at Murray Beach:

You can see more photos of our 2021 tree planting work in our public 2021 Planting Photos folder on Dropbox.

We'd like to thank Michel (the Park Manager) and his staff for their hospitality and support while we were on site.  We definitely look forward to returning in 2022 to continue the work that Trees For Life is making possible.

Edit:  For information about the follow-up phase to this planting, which took place at Murray Beach in 2022, visit this post:

replant-environmental.blogspot.com/2023/02/tree-planting-project-at-murray-beach.html

Jonathan "Scooter" 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.