Replant.ca Environmental

Replant.ca Environmental is a Canadian organization whose vision is to help our global environment through planting trees. We build demonstration forests that are accessible to the public. We also plant in public parks, and we build carbon capture plantations that help mitigate climate change. Our operations are funded by NGO's, corporations, and numerous small donations from global citizens who know that their individual actions will help make a difference.

Tuesday, December 19, 2023

Tree Planting in Gros Morne National Park (2023)

Edit: You can see an updated post for similar (and more recent) work in 2024 at this link:

www.replant-environmental.blogspot.com/2024/11/tree-planting-project-in-gros-morne.html

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This past Fall (2023), Replant.ca Environmental was able to assist with some tree planting work in Gros Morne National Park. Gros Morne is located on the west coast of Newfoundland, near Rocky Harbour. If you're trying to drive there, it's about an hour north of Corner Brook (or four hours of driving north of the ferry terminal in Port Aux Basques).

Here's a graphic (courtesy of Google Earth) showing the approximate location of our planting sites:

Gros Morne is characterized predominantly by black spruce trees, with pockets of balsam fir, mountain ash (dogberry), tamarack (eastern larch), mountain maple, white birch, and some other deciduous species.

Some of Gros Morne consists of rolling hills covered with forests. Visitors will also discover exposed rock faces, bogs, ponds, and wetlands. Gros Morne unfortunately has a number of previously forested areas which were devastated by the spruce budworm several decades ago, and which have failed to re-establish. These significant gaps in the forest canopy become more apparent when flying over the Park at low altitudes.

Here are a few photos of our team in action:

The work was quite challenging. There was a lot of brush and vegetation to work through, and a lot of fallen tree trunks to walk over which were hidden in the vegetation. Also, the blocks required helicopters for access, which led to significant downtime since the helicopter often couldn't fly in Newfoundland's frequent foggy weather. However, our team loved the experience of getting to visit Newfoundland and getting some exposure to the local culture.

All in all, this project was a very rewarding experience!

You can see more photos of our 2023 tree planting work on this site by visiting our public Planting Photos folder on Dropbox. Go into the 2023 sub-folder, then go into the "Gros Morne National Park" sub-folder.

We'd especially like to thank Darroch Whitaker and the rest of the staff at Gros Morne for their hospitality and logistical support while we were on site.

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 NGO's, 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!

Tree Planting Project in Cape Breton Highlands National Park (2023)

This past Fall (2023), Replant.ca Environmental was able to assist with some tree planting work in Cape Breton Highlands National Park. Cape Breton Highlands National Park (CBHNP) is located within the northern half of Cape Breton, which is the northeast end of the province of Nova Scotia. If you're trying to drive there, it's about an four hour drive from Halifax.

This project was designed and implemented under the direction of One Tree Planted.

Here's a graphic (courtesy of Google Earth) showing the approximate location of our planting sites:

CBHNP is characterized predominantly by balsam fir and white spruce trees, with pockets of mountain ash (dogberry), tamarack (eastern larch), red maple, white birch, and some other deciduous species.

Most of CBHNP consists of rolling hills covered with forests. However, the Park also has a number of previously forested areas which were devastated by the spruce budworm a few decades ago, and which have failed to re-establish due to the large moose population. At the moment, the moose population is down quite a bit from historical averages, which presents an opportunity to re-establish more forest cover.

Here are a few photos of our team in action:

The work was quite challenging. There was a lot of brush and vegetation to work through, and a lot of fallen tree trunks to walk over which were hidden in the vegetation. Also, access is quite challenging, and most of the remaining work will need to be done using the assistance of helicopters.

We were very pleased to act as a supply partner to One Tree Planted on this project, doing the boots-on-the-ground tree planting work while they approved the project design and provided the financial support.

All in all, despite the challenges, this project was a very rewarding experience!

You can see more photos of our 2023 tree planting work on this site by visiting our public Planting Photos folder on Dropbox. Go into the 2023 sub-folder, then go into the "Cape Breton Highlands National Park" sub-folder.

We'd especially like to thank Anne-Claude and Peter and the rest of the staff at CBHNP for their hospitality and logistical support while we were on site.

Jonathan "Scooter" Clark

www.replant-environmental.ca

Monday, December 18, 2023

Tree Planting Project at Fort Folly First Nation (2023)

In September of 2023, Replant.ca Environmental was once again able to connect with the Mi'kmaq First Nation at Fort Folly. The Nation is located near Dorchester in Westmorland County, New Brunswick. This area, as well as the rest of what is now referred to as the Maritime provinces and parts of the Gaspé peninsula, are part of the Peace and Friendship region of Turtle Island. It was an honour and privilege to support reforestation on this land. It allowed us the opportunity to appreciate the unique role and relationship that Indigenous people have with the land, both historically and in the present time.

This project was designed and implemented under the direction of the One Tree Planted organization.

Fort Folly First Nation is one of nine Mi'kmaq First Nations (and it is one of fifteen First Nations in New Brunswick). Tantramar (formerly known as Sackville), the central base of operations for Replant.ca Environmental, is also located very close to Fort Folly First Nation.

Fort Folly First Nation (FFFN) has an old decommissioned transmission corridor running through the Nation. NB Power does not use this line anymore, and the transmission towers have been removed. The Nation is hoping to return this strip of land to a mature forest ecosystem. There is some natural regeneration occurring along the corridor now that the utility has stopped doing vegetation encroachment prevention, but we added some more seedlings to help accelerate the process of becoming a full forest again (to augment the work that we started in 2022).

The Nation also has a beautiful circular 3km Medicine Trail. We were privileged to walk the entirety of the trail, and to enjoy the time to reflect and meditate on the natural environment surrounding us. Some of the forest adjoining the trail is patchy and we were invited to augment those areas too. We ended up adding young trees around many parts of the Medicine Trail.

We had done some initial work at Fort Folly in 2022. You can read this post to learn about our previous work that year. Our 2023 project allowed us to expand greatly upon our previous efforts.

Here are a few photos of our work at Fort Folly in 2023:

In total, we planted 15,628 seedlings in 2023. This was in addition to the 6,319 seedlings that we planted during the first phase of this project in 2022. Again, we want to thank the Nation for allowing us to help contribute to the land. You can learn more about Fort Folly First Nation by visiting this link:

https://fortfolly.ca/about-us

You can see several dozen additional photos of our work on this planting site by visiting our public Planting Photos folder on Dropbox. Go into the 2023 sub-folder, then go into the "Fort Folly First Nation" sub-folder.

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!

Tree Planting at the Poucette Carbon Plantation (2023)

Here's a post to share some info about another carbon sequestration project that we completed recently. The tree planting work on this site in southeastern New Brunswick was done in the Fall of 2023. The site is located on the Poucette Road, near Cormier Village. This site is also very close to Route 15. This project was designed and implemented under the direction of One Tree Planted.

This site was formerly owned privately by a third party, and that landowner harvested the wood a few years ago. We were able to acquire the property after it was harvested, then we designed a plan to turn it into a carbon capture plantation to help mitigate climate change. We will never allow it to be harvested again. Here's a map showing where the property is located:

The GPS coordinates at the entrance to this site are: 46.12806, -64.31236

The primary purpose of this project was to support climate stability through carbon sequestration. As a side benefit, this site will support biodiversity and wildlife habitat.

In total, the planting team added 83,879 seedlings on this site (four species). In addition to our planted trees, this site already shows evidence of some natural regeneration of white birch, red maple, yellow birch, sugar maple, and balsam fir. Diverse forests are healthy forests.

Here are a few more photos taken during the planting of this project, which took place during multiple visits in August, September, and October of 2023. As the site had been harvested two years ago, a bit of low-value brush was present, which added to the challenges for the planting team:

We look forward to studying this site in the coming years. We will be doing periodic surveys to assess the carbon capture progress of the new forest.

You can see several dozen additional photos of the work on this planting site by visiting our public Planting Photos folder on Dropbox. Go into the 2023 sub-folder, and then into the "Poucette Carbon Plantation" sub-folder.

Thanks for reading!

- Jonathan Clark

www.replant-environmental.ca

Tree Planting Project at Haliburton House Museum (2023)

For the past few years, our organization has provided Haliburton House Museum with several dozen tree seedlings each year, which the Site Manager and the museum staff have planted. This year, we were able to provide a larger quantity of a few thousand trees, and our own planting team did the majority of the planting work.

Haliburton House was constructed around 1830 as the home of Thomas Chandler Haliburton, a famous Canadian author and politician. Haliburton is a somewhat controversial figure to celebrate, as his writings reflect the outdated and offensive racial and cultural views of his era. So even though his literary contributions and role in Canada's cultural history are significant, that history is problematic for the Nova Scotia Museum organization. Not surprisingly, they are altering the way that Haliburton's legacy is portrayed.

In 1844, one of Haliburton's books ("Sam Slick in England") mentioned boys playing "hurley on the ice" in Windsor. Indirectly related to that reference, there is a former pond drainage on the museum grounds which is referred to locally as the birthplace of hockey. While there is some controversy surrounding this claim, the Windsor area is quite proud of this heritage.

Here's an overview graphic of part of central Nova Scotia (courtesy of Google Earth), showing the location of Haliburton House:

Michael, the Site Manager, has been very interested in our environmental work for the past several years, and as already noted, we were originally able to connect with him a few years ago by supplying some deciduous and conifer seedlings for the museum grounds. This year, we were able to supply a much larger quantity of seedlings, so our team visited the site for a day to tackle the planting work. We planted trees in half a dozen select locations around the museum grounds, in order to help diversify and thicken some of the existing tree stands and drainages.

Here are a few photos from our work in 2023:

You can see more photos of our tree planting work at this site by visiting our public Planting Photos folder on Dropbox. Go into the 2023 sub-folder, then go into the "Haliburton House" sub-folder.

We'd like to thank Michael for having us, and for taking the time to share some of the history of this very interesting site!

If you'd like to learn more about Windsor's Haliburton House Museum, visit their website:

Haliburton House Museum

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, corporations, and NGO's 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!

Tree Planting Project at Fishing Cove, Cape Breton Highlands (2023)

This past Fall (2023), Replant.ca Environmental tackled a small environmental restoration project in Cape Breton, near Fishing Cove.

This project took place close to the Cabot Trail, on the northwest side of Cape Breton (just slightly south of Pleasant Bay). There are a couple of gravel pits in this area which have been used as a source for aggregates for road construction and repair. One of these pits has been completely decommissioned, and the other has been partly decommissioned. Our goal was to plant trees in the parts of the pits which are no longer being used to supply construction material.

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

These two borrow pits fall within the confines of Cape Breton Highlands National Park. We also did a separate project within the Park (on North Mountain) which was a much larger project.

The weather was very cold and rainy when we were completing this project, but that didn't dampen the spirits of the planting team.

Here are a few photos of the seedlings and of the team in action at Fishing Cove:

You can see many more photos of our tree planting work on this site by visiting our public Planting Photos folder on Dropbox. Go into the 2023 sub-folder, then go into the "Fishing Cove" sub-folder.

We'd like to thank Anne-Claude and her staff for their hospitality and support while we were on site, and to the project sponsor One Tree Planted for providing the financial resources that helped make this project happen.

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, corporations, and NGO's 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!

Thursday, February 23, 2023

The Douglas Fir tree (Pseudotsuga menziesii)

Today's post will be about the Douglas Fir tree. The Latin name for this species is Pseudotsuga menziesii. What a mouthful. Thankfully, everyone [in Canada] seems to agree on just one name, Douglas fir, even though this tree is a pretender. But we'll get into that below. First, a photo of a Douglas fir.

This particular tree is called Big Lonely Doug. It was featured in a book called Big Lonely Doug by Harley Rustad. It's a good read, should you choose to pick up a copy.

Here's a range map, courtesy of Wikipedia:

The interesting thing is that this map suggests that Douglas fir only grows naturally within BC and southwestern Alberta (within Canada). However, although Douglas fir is planted very commonly in BC, we've also planted small amounts of this species on select projects in the Maritimes! Of course, it's not suitable for all projects on the east coast, since it's not a naturalized tree. But some of the east coast nurseries grow it. While I was digging around to find any history of Douglas fir in the Maritimes, I discovered that there was a plantation made near Stanhope (PEI) that was still healthy in the 1960's, and even today there may be other stands on PEI in Melville and Brookdale.

Douglas fir has a rich history in western Canada, and has been a critical part of the forest industry due to its value as lumber. While the tree was essentially unknown throughout most of North America in the 1800's, by the mid-20th century it had become known as "the world's premier industrial tree," taking the place of Eastern White Pine after all the old growth pine on the east coast had been decimated.

Douglas fir likes direct sunlight, but it is also shade-tolerant. Because of this, it can be found in pure even-aged stands (usually after a wildfire or a commercial harvest), in uneven-age stands, and also in mixwood forests. It is happy to co-exist among other species, especially hemlock, cedar, pine, larch, and even aspen. It doesn't like to grow up with spruce trees though. Maybe they get jealous of each other because of how straight and clean the trunks grow.

Douglas fir is considered to be a false fir. The real firs are species in BC such as Amabilis, Subalpine, and Grand Fir (or Balsam fir in Alberta and central/eastern Canada). Douglas fir is not a type of pine, spruce or hemlock either. Douglas fir is its own thing. The Latin family name (Pseudotsuga) means "false hemlock."

Being a conifer, the Douglas fir has needles instead of leaves. Here's a photo of the needles on a bundle of seedlings:

Some people have problems differentiating between Douglas fir, true firs, and spruce trees. That's not surprising. At a quick glance, anyone who hasn't studied trees could easily be fooled. But luckily, Nature has given Douglas fir a unique identifying feature for inexperienced silviculturalists: Pointy buds! The buds of the Douglas fir have a very distinct sharp point at the tip. Here's a close-up photo, from Step By Step:

Here are a few Fun Facts about the Douglas fir:

1. The Latin name for this tree (Pseudotsuga menziesii) is a nod to its "discoverer," Alexander Menzies (although of course the indigenous peoples lived with it for millennia before that). And Douglas refers to David Douglas, a Scottish botanist who introduced the tree to Europe.

2. Douglas fir is a deep-rooted species. However, the taproot usually achieves more than 50% of its final depth within just the first five years of growth!

3. The US Navy still has eight wooden ships in the active fleet (Avenger-class minesweepers) made out of ... you guessed it! Douglas fir.

4. An enormous Douglas fir was cut in Washington State in 1897 which measured 465 feet. After it was cut, the New York Times called its destruction a "truly pitiable tale." Indeed. This tree was called the Nooksack Giant, if you'd like to dig into that bit of history.

The Douglas fir is a very noble tree. The world needs more of them.

Thanks for reading!

- 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!

Teachers are welcome to use content from this post for their classes. If you know a teacher who might like to use this information, please share it with them! The more that people learn about trees, the better our world will be.

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.

The Silver Maple tree (Acer Saccharinum)

Today's post will be about the Silver Maple tree. The Latin name for this species is Acer saccharinum. Unfortunately, this tree can also be referred to by a lot of other names, including creek maple, water maple, soft maple, white maple, and silverleaf maple. We like to stick to just silver maple. Unfortunately, the Latin name for silver maple is very close to the Latin name for sugar maple (Acer saccharum), which can be very confusing for budding botantists (pardon the pun).

Here's a photo of a very large silver maple in Lincoln Park, Nebraska. No, not Linkin Park.

You can see that this tree doesn't necessarily need to grow beside creeks or water. There's a large silver maple in Mactaquac provincial park that I should have taken a photo of. There are actually a lot of silver maples in Mactaquac, but I'm thinking of one in particular by the new skating trails.

Within Canada, the range of the silver maple has a moderate overlap with the range of red maple, although red maple grows both further north and further south. Here's a map for silver maple, courtesy of Wikipedia. You'll notice that it doesn't extend too far into the Maritimes, but that's changing as the climate warms. Residents of southern Ontario are quite familiar with this tree though.

Perhaps the most unique thing about the silver maple, in my eyes, is how deep the notches are between the lobes on the leaves (especially the two notches on either side of the central notch). The leaves are very visually distinct from other maples.

The seeds of the silver maple come in paired samaras, like other maple trees. However, quite commonly, only one seed of the pair will develop fully. The shape of the seeds is also slightly different than some other types of maple. Here's a beautiful photo, which came from a very nice blog post by the Michigan Nature Guy, which you should check out. Lots of good info there!

Here are a few Fun Facts about silver maples:

1. Silver maples are one of the first trees to wake up in the spring. They are also important for bees, because they are one of the first trees to produce pollen in the spring.

2. Silver maples can be "variably dioecious," which means that the trees can be male or female, or they can also be monoecious, which means that a single tree has both male and female flowers.

3. Silver maple is a very fast-growing tree, often adding two feet per year. But if you're planting it near your house, we recommend that you be careful. It has a very large strong root system that might seek water and compromise your foundation. Try to keep it at least 15-20 meters away from your house.

Silver maple is a fun tree to plant, when seedlings are available. We've included silver maples on several of our projects. It's a great species for restoration projects, especially when moist soils are available.

Thanks for reading!

- 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!