A lesson in Forestry

We are now back on our own. We had a great time cruising around with our good friends Dan, Christi, and Grant but alas, it had to come to an end. We have places to go. We ended up spending almost 2 weeks with them and were really grateful to have been able to get that much time with some great friends and tour guides (and really, I was mostly just grateful for the gift they brought us...a months supply of Cheez-its!!! Woo Hoo!!!) We will miss them and we will cherish the Cheez-its.

There is a different dynamic between Brenda and myself when we are on our own. We become much more in tune with each other and our adventure. Don't get me wrong, we loved having Dan and Christi show us around, but it is a different feeling to be exploring all of this without input from someone who has already been here. It becomes a little bit more exciting, a little bit more scary, and a little bit more “ours”. I had become pretty complacent in what we were doing every day. It was kind of like a vacation from our vacation. I knew that there was someone around who knew the ropes so I didn't really have to think about anything...it was easy and it was fun. We saw a lot more than we would have seen on our own, we hiked our brains out, and since Christi and Brenda are amazing cooks, we had incredible food to add to my belly. But it's now time to get back to business. It's time to start making our own decisions again and figuring this out for ourselves.

So we parted ways and went up to the Octopus Islands and while we were there, we went on what could have been our best hike of the trip so far. Not only was the hike beautiful with an amazing warm water lake at the end that was perfect for swimming in, it was also really interesting to notice the difference in the forest. We have been hiking for the most part through a lot of “natural” forests with a mix of different sizes and types of trees. This place was part of a managed forest that has been logged a few times and has recently been purchased by Quadra Island for preservation.

A few years ago, on another sailing adventure, we met a guy who was a logger. Not the guy who actually cuts down the trees, but the guy who owns the logging company. We had dinner with him and his wife and I learned a lot about the forestry industry in that short little visit. He gave me the quick rundown on how he made his fortune with trees. The basic theory is that you cut everything down...I mean everything...nothing left standing. Then you replant the forest with one type of tree. Space the trees close together so they compete for sunlight which makes them grow straight up to the sky as fast as possible and then cut them down again. Wash, rinse, repeat. This cycle takes 38 years. At 38 years old, the trees start to slow their upward progress, so it's the perfect time to cut them down and start over.

This hike that we went on was probably the first time that the logger's theory was noticed by me. We hike a lot and that means that we have been in the woods a lot. I don't know if I have ever noticed his theory in practice before. Maybe it's because we spent most of our time hiking in a lot of National Forests or wilderness conservation areas. Either way, this was pretty interesting to me.

This place had the original old growth stumps still scattered around the forest. These stumps were huge...6-10 feet in diameter and roughly 50-60 feet apart from each other. It was really cool to see these things and imagine what this place would have looked like 200 years ago. In between all of the old growth stumps were the new trees. These trees are all the same type of trees, Douglas Fir's, and they are all planted roughly 6 feet apart. And because they are so close to each other, the canopy is dense. It's pretty dark at ground level. It's so dark that really nothing can grow there but moss and the occasional ferns...there is no under-brush at all. It almost looks as if they hired the best and most efficient gardener in the world to clean up the unwanted shrubbery. It was incredibly beautiful to walk through because it really opened up your field of vision to not have any under-brush. It felt very open and airy even though it was jam-packed with trees.

I won't bore you with how I feel about clear cut logging practices, but this hike through this forest struck me in a way that I can't yet describe. It was beautiful but disappointing to know that 200 years ago no one had the foresight to not cut down everything in their path and preserve at least some of the giant trees. Seeing all of the old stumps really put the forest into perspective. 

Anyway, we are both amazed at how much things can change in just a few miles. In Desolation Sound, we had 80 degree water and really warm days. A few miles up the sea and we have 50 degree water and 55 degree days. A huge change that we weren't quite ready for. We are back to wearing our winter clothes and have put away our swimsuits. We are on the hunt for whales, bears (Brenda made me promise to not get too close the next time we see one), and more adventure.