Oldest Inhabitants, part 2
What have the trees witnessed?
Continuing the historical theme, let’s focus on another of the oldest inhabitants of your place, and that is the trees. Obviously, there will be trees in your place that are younger than you are, but for this week try to identify one of the oldest trees in your place, or just one that was here before you and will most likely be here long after. These trees have witnessed history firsthand.
Witness Trees
Here in Niagara, there is an initiative called the Witness Tree Program from an organization called Communities in Bloom. Witness trees are those that have been identified as having significant natural and cultural interest in the Town. The tagline for the project is “Preserving the history of our community one tree at a time.”
“Many of these trees have a story. Whether they witnessed historical events, have environmental significance, or are an integral part of local industry and farms, these trees create a trail that ties our community together. The trees in our neighbourhood have witnessed our past and will witness our future. As a community we created the Witness Tree project to document the location of some trees to preserve and record their story for residents, visitors, and future generations to enjoy." ~ Communities in Bloom
Trees can qualify due to age or their environmental uniqueness and significance because of habitat, climate, native species, or rarity. They could be located where an historical event happened or have provided supplies for farmers, indigenous communities, or industries. They might be a habitat for animals or birds that are rare or unique to the region or be designated in memory of someone or something.
I think it’s an interesting idea to tell the story of a community through its trees. It’s a way to engage the community and help residents to see trees as fellow inhabitants with their own history. Hopefully, it also encourages people to see the value of preserving these trees.
Practice
With the Witness Tree project as inspiration, can you identify one of the oldest trees in your place or one of cultural or historical significance? Spend some time with this tree. Observe its size and determine its age (see link below). What does it smell and feel like? Realize that you are both exchanging oxygen and carbon dioxide in a reciprocal relationship. Imagine what this particular tree has witnessed over the years and what it has survived. What makes it special, historically or even personally? Show us a picture and tell us about your experience with this tree.
At different times, I’ll suggest you use maps to track your findings. If you’re game, print a map of your neighbourhood and record significant and favourite trees on the map over the course of this year.
Resources
Witness Trees of Niagara
Chautauqua Tree Inventory, Niagara-on-the-Lake
There are four sycamore trees along the edge of a property known as “the Wilderness” in my town. I’m constantly in awe of their magnificence every time I walk by, which is often, and have wondered how old they are. I wanted to measure them this week but the snow is too deep to get around them. So, I guesstimated the diameter as 50” which would make them around 200 years old. Seems about right, although I think it might be a little underestimated.
The 5 acre site, where they sit along the edge, is private property that once provided shelter for soldiers and a family in a root cellar during the War of 1812 as the town burned down. The house on the property was built in 1816 and is currently occupied. One mile creek meanders through.
The Wilderness has historical significance. Besides its natural beauty, it was once the home of William Claus, Deputy Superintendent of the Indian Department and one of the three trustees of the Six Nations. This next part makes me grimace a little. It is said that it was given by the Six Nations Indians to Mr. Claus’ wife Nancy Johnson “in token of her many deeds of kindness.” Her father Sir William Johnson negotiated the Treaty of Niagara with 24 Indigenous nations in 1764. The Treaty formed the basis for the original treaty relationship between Indigenous peoples and settlers in Eastern North America. It was considered a high point of colonial relations with Indigenous peoples, a treaty of sharing of the land, not conquest.
Those trees have witnessed a lot.
Trees
Last year I discovered a map that shows the locations of brutalist architecture in Toronto. I know that brutalist architecture is not this week’s topic, but when I found that map, I also discovered the company published a map of ‘Great Trees of New York City.’
https://bluecrowmedia.com/products/great-trees-of-new-york-map#:~:text=The%20Great%20Trees%20of%20New,Camperdown%20elm%20in%20Prospect%20Park
I’m not entirely sure we here in urban Toronto treat trees with the respect they deserve. At least, we haven’t in the past.
When we moved onto the street we live on, about 18 years ago, half the trees on our side of the street were dying, trapped in concrete containers. Many of the trees were replaced in 2009, and are doing considerably better, though the one outside our house bears the initials of a bored young man who was doing house repairs (oh, the irony). Gradually, our canopy is growing, and I hope that decades from now people can tour these venerable trees. Everything starts young.
One of the oldest trees in the city is a red oak, some 250 years of age, and a survivor of logging, clearance for agriculture and the building of a suburban neighbourhood in the early 1960s. The owners of the property on which it resides tried to remove the tree a couple of years ago as it was damaging the house foundation, and the city ended up buying the property to save the tree (a fundraising campaign raised half the money), and created a parkette. Score one for the trees.
Our neighbourhood cemetery, where we often walk in the morning, is home to a diverse collection of trees, presumably added as memorials for loved ones. One of my favourites is near the entrance. I think it’s a beech, and it’s bark reminds me of the skin an elephant. It has a weight, a gravity and a sense of permanence, much like the headstones and memorials at the Necropolis, though far more interesting to view..
https://www.instagram.com/p/CZMi0FOO8XO/
I’ve joked in past that my knowledge of the natural world can be divided into awareness of ‘tree’ and ‘not a tree.’ That’s not entirely true, and through a drawing class I’m taking, I was loaned a 1950s textbook that shows how to draw different species of trees. For me, it’s a different way of paying attention to trees. I think my hand-drawn trees will bring me closer to really appreciating them as individual.