In the distance, the 100-year forest. In the foreground, what’s left when a strip of that forest is felled, yarded, hauled, and most of what’s left is heaped into 4-metre high piles. All of that happened less than 12 months ago. In the next season the forest’s renewal will become evident. In the meantime, there’s a scar. And my memories of stillness, deer, bear, and big Douglas Firs.

#Pnw #vancouverisland #bxw #photography #foto #forest #nature #summer #fall #autumn #trees #forestry #logging #douglasfir #worthmorestanding #secondgrowth

The 100-year wood is a place of constant change. After logging, and without a mono-crop replanting regime (more or less the norm in the coastal Douglas Fir zone here on the North Georgia Plain), a wide range of species and ages fill the spaces left by the approximately 250-year forest that colonizers clearcut. And, a diversity of mishaps and misadventures. In this picture one of the largest Douglas Firs is leaning through the standing timber. It’s likely a victim of “root rot,” a naturally occurring soil-borne agent that “rots” Douglas Fir roots. Its roothold weakened, a spring storm blew it into the arms of Black Cottonwood. The latter is a quick-growing, short-lived species. Over the next few years I’ll watch: which disintegrates first? The Fir (still alive and seemingly healthy, though only moored by half its roots)? Or the Cottonwood, bending under the Fir’s weight? Change.

#vancouverisland #bxw #forest #forestphotography #foto #nature #tree #secondgrowth

In the 100-year woods.
Two large second growth Douglas Firs stand on the edge of a younger stand of Firs. The younger stand may have grown in a clearing (for a field for livestock grazing, or extensive gardens, it’s not clear) made by settlers in the early part of the 20th century. This once-cleared area is lined by these large second growth Firs.

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A massive second growth Douglas Fir, remnant of the 100-year wood tucked inside a “pocket park” on the edge of farm fields and the 30-year third growth forest. “Tombstones” from the original forest, logged by settlers approximately 100 years ago. That forest was relatively young 300-400 years, a “new” forest after the great fire that burned much of the region in the 1600s. The eastern plain of Vancouver Island, north of the Malahat and into the great Sayward Valley, has always been a relatively dry Douglas Fir zone, featuring droughts and massive fires every 250-400 years.

🌲 🌲 #vancouverisland #foto #photography #bxw #forest #forestphotography #nature #naturephotography #tree #fouglasfir #secondgrowth #forestry

In the 100-year wood.
A Broadleaf Maple, flanked by two second growth Douglas Firs.
Maples are an important, often under-appreciated, part of the coastal forest here on Vancouver Island.

#bxw #photography #foto #forest #trees #vancouverisland #secondgrowth #douglasfir #maples #forestry

A trail, a bridge, ferns, and a (mostly dry) creek… in the 100-year woods.

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Another maturing second growth Douglas Fir in the 100-year wood that is the Comox Valley.
Notice the beginnings of the “butt swell.”
For more forest industry related pics please see http://j.mp/ForestPics

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A year ago there was a narrow but beautiful and well-grown strip of second-growth Douglas Fir. 100+ year old trees. When they’re gone, they’re gone.
I miss that those trees.

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🌲 Massive second growth Douglas Fir in the Vancouver Island forest.

#Forest #trees #douglasfir #photography #vancouverisland #secondgrowth @vi @trees @photography

🌲 Second growth giant in the Vancouver Island Douglas Fir forest.

#vancouverisland #secondgrowth #douglasfir #trees #forest #bxw #silentsunday #photography
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