Tree Planting Project in Victoria Park, Truro NS (2021)

Our organization did quite a bit of tree planting work in Truro's Victoria Park this past September (2021).  This work was funded by the One Tree Planted organization.  You can learn more about them from their website at:  www.onetreeplanted.org

 

Truro is located in central Nova Scotia, and is often referred to as "the hub of Nova Scotia."  From Truro, highways branch out in all directions to other points within the province.  Truro is a small town which has an official population of only about twelve thousand people, but when you count everyone within a fifteen minute drive of the town, the number is probably closer to fifty thousand.  That may not sound like much to anyone who lives elsewhere in a dense urban area.  But Truro also has something else rather special.  It has a municipal park, called Victoria Park.  And that park is over three thousand acres in size!  The people of Truro are extremely lucky to have access to such a large and beautiful park, located right inside the town limits.

But exactly how big is three thousand acres?  Well, to put it into perspective, New York City's famed Central Park is less than a thousand acres.  And Central Park has its own police precinct (the 22nd) which polices the 58km of pedestrian trails found there.  Victoria Park doesn't have its own precinct, but it definitely has an extensive trail network.

Here's an overview graphic of eastern Canada (courtesy of Google Earth), showing the location of Victoria Park:

When we originally contacted Victoria Park in 2020 to discuss the possibility of planting some trees there, we learned that there were several areas which could definitely benefit.  There were a few sections where trees had been removed after being killed by insects.  Also, the former municipal landfill (now decommissioned) was relatively barren.  Although some parts of the topsoil cap over the landfill had already been replanted several years ago by the Scouts and other organizations, there was still a great deal of work to be done.

We started our work within the park that year, initially funded by public donations.  We got off to a very good start to the project in 2020, planting approximately fifteen thousand trees.  However, the project really started to have a major impact in 2021 thanks to the strong support from One Tree Planted.

Our initial review in 2020 had indicated that there could be as many as fifty to sixty acres of open ground that were suitable for afforestation efforts.  That fall, we did our initial work around the trail heads up at the top of the park, for the first phase of what would obviously need to be a multi-year project.

The support that we received from One Tree Planted allowed us to more than double our impact in 2021, planting an additional 35,000 trees!!

The shaded areas in the graphic below illustrate the ground that was covered in the fall of 2021:

To date, we've been able to plant six types of conifers (red spruce, eastern white pine, black spruce, white spruce, Jack pine, and a small number of eastern larch) plus six deciduous species (white birch, yellow birch, sugar maple, red maple, mountain ash, and red oak).

Phase Three of this project (in 2022) is intended to further increase the species diversity.  We plan to do some in-fill work, adding at least six more species of hardwoods to the areas that have already been planted.  In addition, we have additional areas that need to be tackled, including some work in the Gorge and other sensitive areas of the park that need to be fortified with additional young seedlings.

Here are a couple of photos from our work in 2021:

 

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

 

If you'd like to learn more about Truro's Victoria Park, visit their website:

www.victoriaparktruro.ca

Victoria Park is the #1 rated attraction in Truro, and has over fifteen hundred very positive reviews on Google.

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.

 

Tree Planting Project in Terra Nova National Park (2021)

This summer (2021), Replant.ca Environmental was able to assist with some tree planting work in Terra Nova National Park.  Terra Nova is located on the east coast of Newfoundland, covering several of the inlets along Bonavista Bay.  If you're trying to drive there, it's just over an hour south of Gander International Airport, or slightly over two hours north of St. John's.  Think about the name.  Terra means "land" in Latin, and "Nova" means "new."  So basically, it's very close to being a Latin version of the name of the province.

Newfoundland officially became Canada's tenth province in 1949.  Up to that point, it was usually under colonial rule (with one twenty-six year period as a Dominion).  An interesting bit of trivia is that up until 1947, Newfoundland was still issuing its own coinage, obviously distinct from Canadian coins.  After Newfoundland joined Canada, it was only eight more years before Terra Nova was created, in 1957.  Terra Nova covers almost 400 square kilometers, so it's larger than most of Canada's provincial or municipal parks.

Newfoundland eventually became known as the province of Newfoundland & Labrador, after this name change was added to the Canadian constitution in 1981.

As noted by Wikipedia, Terra Nova protects the Eastern Island Boreal Forest natural region.  This region covers most of the island of Newfoundland (east of Deer Lake), and is characterized predominantly by black spruce trees, with pockets of balsam fir, white pine, mountain ash, tamarack, maple, and some other deciduous species.

Most of Terra Nova consists of rolling hills covered with forests.  Visitors will also discover exposed rock faces, bogs, ponds, and wetlands.  Here's a photo showing part of the park which is in the process of regenerating.  You can see some juvenile spruce among older trunks of dead trees, and a ground layer covered with moss and Labrador tea vegetation:

 

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

  

Terra Nova has two campgrounds at Newman Sound and Malady Head.  In addition, there are also tons of back-country camping options, accessible by hiking, kayaking, or canoeing.  If you'd like some further information about reserving camping sites, start here:

www.pc.gc.ca/en/pn-np/nl/terranova/activ

 

Our Regional Director of [Newfoundland] Operations, John Moran, was able to send us a couple photos of the work done in TNNP in 2021:

 

This year (2021) was the first year that our organization did any work in this beautiful national park.  We hope and expect that we will be able to make further contributions in the future.  We're truly excited about this project, being one of our most unique and beautiful project sites to date!

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

We'd especially like to thank John Gosse (the Nature Legacy Ecologist) and his staff for their hospitality and support while we were on site.  We definitely look forward to returning in 2022 to continue any additional work that can be arranged.

Edit:  We were able to continue our work at Terra Nova in 2022.  If you'd like to learn more about that work, visit this link:

replant-environmental.blogspot.com/2023/02/tree-planting-at-terra-nova-national.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.

 

Tree Planting Project at Mactaquac Provincial Park (2021)

This fall, Replant.ca Environmental started a long-term planting project at Mactaquac Provincial Park.  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

Mactaquac Provincial Park is only a 30 minute drive from Fredericton, over to the west through either Keswick or French Village.  The park is situated on the St. John River, across from the Mactaquac Dam and power generating station.  This station generates one eighth of the electricity for the entire province of New Brunswick.

 

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

 

Mactaquac has a golf course, campground, two beaches, hiking trails, and [in the winter] it also has cross-country skiing trails.  The camping options are excellent, with around four hundred camping sites and several rustic cabins.  The washrooms and showers were extremely clean, and the entire project was a wonderful experience.  Here's a link for anyone who wants to make reservations:

https://www.parcsnbparks.info/en/parks/10/mactaquac-provincial-park

In 2014, the first named hurricane of the season was Hurricane Arthur.  It was a very early hurricane, hitting North America in early July.  It swept up the east coast and over the Maritime provinces.  The winds did a tremendous amount of damage to trees and infrastructure, especially in the Fredericton area.  Mactaquac was hit quite hard, and lost a lot of trees.  Our goal was to start the slow process of replanting some of the areas that had blown down during that storm several years earlier, and also to begin creating new wooded areas in other sections of the park.

The Replant.ca Environmental team planted 48,564 young seedlings within the park in 2021.  A total of seven species were planted:  Red spruce, white spruce, eastern white pine, eastern larch, eastern white cedar, northern (red) oak, and sugar maple.  This was the first phase of a multi-year program, and both the species diversity and the number of hardwoods will be increased significantly in 2022 and 2023.  We plan to eventually provide more than sixteen different species (six conifers and ten deciduous) to the park.

The team covered a number of different planting areas within the park.  The next three images show the approximate locations of newly planted seedlings (shaded in cyan).  Please note that these two photos are not perfectly oriented with north to the top, as is common in cartography.  However, they fit better in the blog post this way:

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

 

   

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 Kevin (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:  If you'd like to read about the continuation of our work on this site in 2022, visit this link:

https://replant-environmental.blogspot.com/2023/02/tree-planting-project-at-mactaquac.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.

 

Tree Planting Project at Hopewell Rocks Provincial Park (2021)

This fall, Replant.ca Environmental started a long-term planting project at Hopewell Rocks 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

Hopewell Rocks Provincial Park is only a 35 minute drive from Moncton, down to the south through Riverview.  The park is situated on the world-famous Bay of Fundy.  The park itself doesn't have camping sites, although there are private campgrounds open to the public only a few minutes away, such as Ponderosa Pines.  Incidentally, ponderosa pine is not a native species to New Brunswick.  Now I'm curious to know whether there are any imported ponderosa pines growing at the campground.  But let's get back to the topic of the day.  Here's a photo of Mattea, planting a sugar maple seedling:

 

 

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

 

Hopewell Rocks is famous due to its iconic beach rocks, which tell a story interwoven by time, tides, and the intricacies of nature.  Located on what is officially known as the Hopewell Rocks Ocean Tidal Exploration Site, these rocks (also known as the Flowerpot Rocks) are composed of sandstone and sedimentary conglomerate rock.  The rock formations were originally part of the shoreline, but over time, water eroded cracks in the cliffs and eventually caused some parts to appear to have become "separated" from the main cliffs.  As tides come in and out, the water gradually erodes the base of the rocks underneath the high tide line, causing the unique shape.  In 2016, part of the Elephant Rock sheared off, as was noted in this CBC article:

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/new-brunswick/hopewell-rocks-new-brunswick-collapse-1.3491431

That article has some good photos, including a photo at the bottom that illustrates the enormous difference in water level between low tide and high tide.  The Bay of Fundy has some of the world's largest tides.

If you'd like to learn more about the park, their website is a great resource:

www.parcsnbparks.info/en/parks/33/hopewell-rocks-provincial-park

The Replant.ca Environmental team planted 10,960 young seedlings within the park in 2021.  A total of four species were planted:  Red spruce, eastern white pine, northern (red) oak, and sugar maple.  This was the first phase of a multi-year program, and both the species diversity and the number of hardwoods will be increased significantly in the future.  We plan to eventually provide more than sixteen different species (six conifers and ten deciduous) to the park.

The team covered a number of different planting areas within the park.  Here are a few photos of the team in action at Hopewell Rocks:

 

  

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 Erika (the Park Manager) and her 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.

 

Update:  Here's the post describing the work that we did at Hopewell Rocks in 2022!

replant-environmental.blogspot.com/2023/02/tree-planting-project-at-hopewell-rocks.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.

 

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.