Tree Planting Project in Cape Breton Highlands National Park (2025)

This past Fall (2025), Replant.ca Environmental was able to do more work on a long-term tree planting project in Cape Breton Highlands National Park.  This work was part of a ongoing project on North Mountain that we're committed to for the next several years.

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.  North Mountain is located between Cheticamp and Cape North.

This multi-year project was designed and implemented under the direction of Nova Scotia's Clean Foundation, with financial assistance from the Province of Nova Scotia.

 

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, eastern white pine, 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 this year's team in action:

 

The work was quite challenging.  There was a lot of brush and vegetation to work through, and we had to climb over a lot of fallen tree trunks which were hidden in the vegetation.  Also, access is quite remote, requiring helicopters to get the crew and the trees into the planting sites each day.  This is quite tricky, because the weather is very unpredictable on North Mountain, and helicopters can't fly in fog or low clouds.

We were very pleased to act as a supply partner to the Clean Foundation on this project, doing the boots-on-the-ground tree planting work while they managed the project concept and provided financial backing and logistical support.

The 2025 project was especially challenging due to the heat wave and extreme drought that Nova Scotia experienced in the summer, lasting until just a few weeks before we started to plant.  At one point, the public was prohibited from all activities on crown land throughout the province, and our helicopters were off fighting wildfire (thankfully helping to protect lives and property).  We were quite happy when it started to rain shortly before we were scheduled to begin the project. 

All in all, despite the challenges, this project was a very rewarding experience!  We planted 217,889 trees in the Park in 2025.

You can see more photos of our tree planting work at this site by visiting our Planting Photos folder on Dropbox, then going into the "2025 Planting Photos" folder, then into the "Cape Breton Highlands National Park" sub-folder.  Start here:

    www.replant-environmental.ca/photos

 

We'd especially like to thank everyone for their hospitality and logistical support while we were on site.  Special shout-outs to Anne-Claude and Peter from Parks Canada, Cayla and Hannah from the Department of Natural Resources, Sean & Don from Strathlorne, and Beth and the other staff at Clean Foundation.

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 at the Fundy Trail Parkway, New Brunswick (2022)

Edit:  The post on this page refers to work in Fundy Provincial Park in 2022.  To learn more about the subsequent 2024 phase of planting in this park, visit:

    www.replant-environmental.blogspot.com/2024/11/tree-planting-at-fundy-trail-provincial.html

 ---

 

Our organization did some tree planting work in the Fundy Trail Parkway this past September (2022).  This work was funded entirely by the Trees For Life organization as the Project Sponsor.

 

The Fundy Trail Parkway is a 30 kilometer long drive through a 2500+ hectare park, hugging the coastal cliffs along southern New Brunswick.  It has stunning views of the Bay of Fundy, and the area encompasses two separate UNESCO designated sites (the Fundy Biosphere Reserve and the Stanhammer Global GeoPark).  The area is also home to the start of the "Fundy Footpath" hiking path, which is rated as one of the top fifty hiking trails in the world!  Fundy National Park is very close.

The Parkway is a not-for-profit and charitable park (not part of Fundy National Park) run by a skills-based board of directors, who are appointed for three-year terms by New Brunswick's Minister of Tourism, Culture, and Heritage.

Here's a graphic showing the approximate region where we were working:

 

The approximate GPS coordinates at the Info Centre (close to where we started) are:  45.490804, -65.308758

 

The Parkway was built very recently.  Sections of it opened in 2020, and the remaining connector from Alma opened in June of 2022.  A number of gravel and borrow pits were needed during the construction phase, and our work involved the remediation of several of these areas, adding trees so the leveled pits will be eventually be covered with forest again.  In addition to the visual value of obscuring the landscape scars, there are also the obvious benefits of increasing carbon sequestration and providing additional habitat for birds and other animals.  Basically, several goals aligned with the work that we carried out.  The following graphic shows the approximate locations for the new seedlings that we've planted so far:

 

Altogether, our planting team added 20,199 trees to the Parkway with this first phase of the project!  Some of the gravel pits were still in operation when we were planting, but we'll be able to revisit those additional areas in the future, as they get decommissioned.

Here are a few photos of the planting team in action:

 

 

 

This project went very smoothly, despite heavy rains when we were planting.  We were able to complete the planned planting on a significant number of the targeted areas within this park.  We are scheduled to complete the remainder of the openings in 2023 or 2024.  We also expect to return at some point in the near future to add some additional hardwood seedlings to the same areas.  Naturally, we will also be making regular visits back to monitor the long-term growth and health of the planted trees.

We'd like to thank the staff at NB Parks (especially Josh & Devin) for helping make this project work, and again want to thank the Trees For Life organization for being the sponsor that made this work possible.

You can see more photos of our 2022 tree planting work on this site by going to our public 2022 Planting Photos folder on Dropbox, then going into the "Fundy Trail Parkway" sub-folder.

If you'd like to learn more about the Fundy Trail Parkway, visit their web page:

www.fundytrailparkway.com

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 Blomidon Provincial Park, Nova Scotia

Our organization did some more tree planting work in Blomidon Provincial Park this past September (2021).  This work was funded by the Trees For Life organization.  You can learn more about them from their website at:  www.treesforlife.ca

This provincial park is located slightly west of central Nova Scotia, in a very picturesque part of the province.  It overlooks the waters of the Minas Basin, which is part of the Bay of Fundy.  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 in 2020 to repair some of the extensive damage done by Hurricane Dorian in 2019.  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 multiple phases.  We would start by planting several thousand seedlings in the fall of 2020, and follow that up with a second larger phase in the fall of 2021.

The first phase of the project was completed successfully in the fall of 2020, thanks to public donations.  However, the project really began to have a major impact in 2021 thanks to the support from the Trees For Life organization.  The support that we received from them this year funded the planting of 8,487 more trees in 2021.  Amazing.

 

During the planning phase in 2020, 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.

To date, our teams have planted a total of eight species in the park.  We've planted five types of conifers so far:  Red spruce, white spruce, eastern larch, white pine, and a handful of black spruce.  We've also planted three species of deciduous hardwoods:  red oak, sugar maple, and yellow birch.  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.  These young understory trees will help to ensure the long-term health of the stand surrounding the camp sites.  Incidentally, we'll be adding additional hardwood species to the project in the future.

In addition to prioritizing the camping areas, we've also planted 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.

Here's a graphic showing all of the areas that we've worked in to date:

 

Here are a few photos of the team in action in the park:

 

 

 

The second phase of planting on this project went very smoothly.  We're looking forward to returning next fall to wrap up the final phase of the restoration work.  The project is getting close to completion now, and the addition of several more hardwood species will finish this project in 2022.

We'd like to thank the staff at the Nova Scotia Department of Lands and Forestry for helping organize this project, and again to the Trees For Life organization for making this work possible.

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 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.

 

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.