Avatar Grove

Avatar Grove, British Columbia

Tonight I heard Rebecca say to her friend Gillian on the telephone, “I was going to send Glen, Janet and Arta off on their own this morning and then I thought, what a loser I am -- staying home when I could be going with them?”

I didn’t know any of the above was going on when I woke this morning.

I only saw Glen and Rebecca pouring over the same computer screen and I heard Rebecca say to me, “One half hour before we leave for the Avatar Grove for those who can make it.”

I can get ready to pack for any kind of trip in ½ hour.

View from one-lane bridge on logging road

Glen was getting his hiking boots ready, a full rain jacket with a hat, a sweater, a lighter coat – mostly the plan was to keep dry in wet weather.

He called out to the rest of us that we would be doing serious hiking.

I tried to gather similar gear and Rebecca, Glen, Janet and I drove off to see a tree I had wanted to see on a previous visit.

My first thought was that to miss seeing a tree was no tragedy to me.  I had seen plenty of trees earlier this year when Moiya, Dave and I had did a full circle of up one side of Vancouver Island, and over to Duncan and down the other side.

But I had wanted to see a tree that had been described in tourist books as “well worth the drive”.  It is just that on my first try at getting there, we just hadn’t taken the right road.  Today was the chance to see it.

So today we drove past Sooke, Jordon River, and when we got close to Port Renfrew we turned down a logging road, or what seemed like a logging road.

Typical of Murrelet habitat

The signage on the road turned from sophisticated Government of British Columbia signs to a large wooden board on which was painted an arrow, and the words Avatar Grove, done with free hand and a can of blue forestry boundary marking paint, then nailed to a tree.

Glen had just learned about this grove when he was doing a Forestry Practises Board investigation.

Someone had asked every one in the crowd, who had been to Avatar Grove and few could say yes. Glen could only say, “No, but I intend to go.”

Thank goodness for his declaration of intent, because it meant Rebecca, Janet and I were also going to see Avatar Grove.

Highway 14 turned from paved a beautiful paved road to a gravel one and the bridges were one-lane with signs at both ends of the bridge saying, Yield to Oncoming Traffic.

Glen convinced us that the bridges were safe – made for logging trucks he said.

A few times I thought about boundless privilege that is mine – going on a trip to Avatar Grove with a forester.

Along the way Glen described the habitat of the Marbled Murrelet to us. “I am probably not going to see this bird on our trip.

But I may be able to find its habitat and even show it to you,” he said. “At least that is what I will be looking for as we drive,” he said.

Glen is on the right.
The tree on his right has grown on a nurse log
which you can see at the bottom of its bole.
Note the size of the tree compared to Glen.

Glen did make the suggestion to Janet that when someone asks her tonight at his 25th year dinner at Government House for working for the government that long, that when some one asks her today what she did, that she should say, “We were out looking at the habitat of the marbled murrelet.”

That really made me laugh.

How to read the forest?

That is what I was learning today.

As Rebecca said, “This is a literary question.  If I know how to read hieroglyphics, I can read them.  If I see art and I have art literacy, I can read that art."

So, today when I was driving Glen was talking to us about what he could see in the forest.

... beauty in texture ...

The forest has a language that speaks to him. Not everyone sees the forest in the same way; but today, we got to hear how a forester sees it.

We were on a gravel road.

Not just a gravel road. But the kind of road where people forewarn you, you should have a spare tire.
There is no cell service.

Be prepared, there could be a change in the kind of weather that you aren’t expecting and you could have snow.

As we were discussing these warnings, it was at that point that Rebecca said, “I have no spare tire.”

Glen said, “No spare tire? Oh my God!”

..

... Rebecca in an ancient growth forest ...

“Just so you won’t worry,”Rebecca said to Glen, “I did bring extra blankets in case my tire blows out, we have no cell service, and we get caught in extreme weather conditions.  I also have a case of diet coke, and some seaweed snacks!”

So much happened in the forest today that I am still overwhelmed by it.

The forest was a lesson in caring.

Everywhere we looked there were small plants being fed from other plants: nurse logs.

There would be a massive oak tree, and then a cedar tree growing out of one of its branches and reaching upward.

Glen talked a lot about forest biodiversity, how foresters have to leave certain kinds of trees, for they will have within them the power to let other plants regenerate,

I was intrigued by the moss on this tree
which is broken and leans to the left.

Going back to the murrelet, it is a sea bird, related to the duck family. The species don’t build nests.

They fly in from the sea and land on that tops of trees in old growth forests and build a nest on the moss that hangs from the forked upper branches of trees that ready to hold the bird while it lays eggs.

If foresters take away those trees, they will destroy a whole bird species.

Now these facts are not unknown to the foresters and on a new initiative the government is protecting about 50 such trees with about a hectare of land around each of them.

A number of times Glen assured us that forestry is science, a science that has been around a long time and that it is insulting when environmentalists think that the foresters have not been thinking about these things.

Glen was patient on the walk through Avatar grove, showing us candelabra trees where we could see none; pointing out second growth forests, and stumps from ancient forests that still had the boards in them that were placed there because the trees were just too big to cut at the bottom of their boles.

Janet and Rebecca looking at how tall the trees are.

He talked about the life of plants and animals in sacred riparian areas.

Oh yes, and we all used the word boles today.

Only elephants have trunks. 

Trees have boles.

I learned many new words about old growth forests which if I share here will make this post too long.

I kept thinking about land trips I had taken from cruise ships and comparing them with the rich knowledge that was passed from Glen to us today.

A gift.

Standing in that ancient forest and thinking of how the world once was.

And how it is. And how it will be.

Arta