What Once Was

When the first European colonists of the United States and Canada arrived on these shores, there was little to make them stay other than the possibility of riches, mostly in furs.  Sure, liberties so far from the mother countries could be taken, but along with freedom came a rugged existence in lands of wild animals, exotic natives, and winters that would severely test the European endurance.  The land was not much more fertile than what they had left behind, at least not on the coasts.  Mineral resources did not lie exposed for easy pickings.  The weather, as noted, left much to be desired, especially in the extremes of winter and summer.  Something did catch the eye almost right away though. and it was something that none of the forests of Europe could then hold a candle to: our trees.

Many trees became valuable export commodities, not merely for the lumber, but for the specimens themselves.  Rich landowners in Europe wanted to get their hands on exotic plants of all sorts from the New World, even as the newcomers brought plants of their own with them.  One tree stood out in particular, making the timber riches of the Baltic nations even pale in comparison.  Botanists came to name it Pinus Strobus, but we know it better as the Eastern White Pine.

All but the last one of these pictures are taken on or near Cedar Lake in Ontario.  

It is one of, if not the, most magnificent trees in the world.  The tallest specimen currently living in the world is the Boogerman Pine, 207 feet tall until it was cut a bit short by a storm in 1995.  It tops out at 186 feet currently, and can be found in all her glory in the Great Smoky Mountains, quite near the southern limit of the White Pine.  She has wonderful conditions in which to grow, namely having a decent growing season and some of the highest rainfall totals (while also being extremely well drained on a slope) in eastern North America.  Still, she is small.

Why do I say this?  Colonists reported trees that would have made her look a bit short.  Early English and French settlers were prone to exaggeration, but they also had to sell their native assets to prospective buyers back across the ocean.  Capitalists could profit off of myth under the right circumstances, but they could also be quick to bust stories if exaggerations got in the way of the bottom line.  Reports of trees rising more than 250 feet into the air were not uncommon, and Eric Rutkow suggests that this made the colonies expand beyond their statuses as mere small-scale social enterprises.  (His book on the matter can be found here.)  Today we have not even a single tree that can boast this size, with the average old growth canopy topping out at 120+ feet.

Still, such trees are reminders of what once was the impressive eastern forests.  Whenever anyone decries the existence of the national parks in our countries, I usually ask them if they have ever experienced one first hand.  The response is typically a firm "no", followed by a claim that while the forests are pretty, they are hardly as impressive as I make them out to be.  The Grand Canyon?  The Rocky Mountains?  Worth saving.  The Cuyahoga Valley?  Acadia?  Shenandoah?  A nice Sunday drive, but little more than undeveloped land, and not worth putting a budget behind, much less worth protecting.  (Yes, people do think this way).  Of course, these people ignore much of the general miracle of nature and life, existence really, that can be found on a front lawn, and tend to want some big, impressive feats of power and growth to be impressed.  I usually have one more question for such people in my arsenal:  Have you ever experienced a supercanopy?

The picture above are shorter examples of what consists of a supercanopy.  More than any other tree in the world, with the exception of the Giant Sequoias and some species of wax palms in South America, the Eastern White Pine is associated with the concept of supercanopy.  These are trees which form an even higher layer of arboreal life above the main treetops, in some ways forming a second forest in the air.  Finding such trees are very difficult these days, but the early colonists would have experienced such forests stretching from Minnesota to Nova Scotia and south along the Appalachians.  While a group of high risers would have been impressive, sometimes a single tree bursting from the forest can illustrate the effect even more.

As noted, we have very few such trees at which to marvel these days.  More often than not, we now appreciate the White Pine for its sweeping, elegant branches and dramatic locations of occurrence  often exposed to the full force of the elements not from above the forest, but at the edge of it, usually along a lake.

Oddly enough, perhaps it is because of its beauty and relatively frequent occurrence as a smaller, shapely tree that we do not take notice of it the same way that our ancestors did.  It remains a popular landscape choice, but all too often is second fiddle to trees which have lovely blossoms or exotic foliage.  Now, perhaps, it is an accent piece rather than the main event of the eastern forests.  Corporate timber interests have yet to disappear, however, and as our trees grow tall enough again, they will surely attract attention, even in a more conservation-minded age.  After all, we tend to want to preserve only the oldest and grandest things, rather than the accent pieces.  We are drawn to immensity as if it had a magnetic attraction to us.  Perhaps we are not so different from our ancestors.

Our second-growth forests may one day then be able to slowly grow up in anonymity while we chase after more easily extracted resources and bigger and better things.  We may one day have our grand colonial forests once more.  In the meantime, stands of pine and notable accent pieces do have the power to attract attention, especially when moving north into the transition zone toward the Boreal world.  White Pines are among the first "northern" tree one comes across when heading toward the northern woods, and like the peacocks of the tree world that they are, they tend to put on quite a show.

This one is from Michigan, probably somewhere in Benzie county, but I can't seem to recall off of which road exactly.