Canada’s second largest Douglas Fir is a living testament to surviving isolation.
Down a winding, dusty, bumpy, dirt and gravel logging road outside of Port Renfrew, British Columbia, is an inspirational symbol of resilience in the face of adversity, and a living testament to surviving isolation. Past a timber mill, barren patches where hulking old growth forests once stood, across the fast-moving Gordon River, and up steep grades lives a legend in a world of solitude. Lot 7190 as it is known to the logging company that clear cut this area in 2011 is where Big Lonely Doug calls home, just as he has for over 1000 years.
As best as anyone can estimate, Doug began his life sometime in the 11th century as a pinecone falling to the forest floor. He patiently waited for a gap in the canopy to let in enough light so he could sprout into a seedling and begin stretching towards the sun. Surrounded by older trees that provided shelter from the strong winds of Vancouver Island, he grew slowly.
Over a thousand years, millions of events had to line up perfectly for Doug to survive. Old trees had to die and fall to the ground, creating space to grow. Their rotting trunks decomposed into nutrient rich hummus, feeding a new generation of Douglas Firs.
In his early days, Doug had to survive hungry chipmunks and squirrels looking for a delicious pinecone appetizer. Later it was bears who have been known to scrape off trees’ bark and gorge themselves on the sweet sap. Droughts, floods, disease, forest fires—you pick a challenge to survival and Doug faced it, reaching higher and higher, planting his roots deeper into the forest floor.
This area of Vancouver Island is known to be hammered by the Qualicum wind system, named after the nearby beach community. By the time loggers clearcut lot 7190, Doug stood taller than the rest of the forest by far. This suggests that around 500 years ago, all the trees that began growing at the same time as him were flattened by gale force winds. All but Doug.
Fast forward to 2011. A longtime logger and forest engineer named Dennis Cronin, employed by Teal-Jones Group was sent to lot 7190. His job was to find and mark the best location to build an access road to extract the logged trees from the area.
He walked the forest, marking the boundaries with logging tape tied around the trunks of trees, making sure it was set back far enough from rivers, trying to spare bear dens from the buzz-saws that would follow him.
Eventually he found a tree that he knew was special. Cronin was a decades long veteran of logging, who had walked some of the most pristine old growth forests on Vancouver Island—and then cut them down.
This tree impressed even him. Cronin reached into his toolbelt and tied a green logger’s tape around the Douglas Fir’s nearly 12-meter circumference. Along the tape were printed the words, “Leave Tree.”
Not long after, heavy equipment came crashing into the previously untouched old growth forest. Trees were felled with mechanical saws, trunks splintered like toothpicks, massive root systems were upended, the air was thick with sawdust and the unnatural smell of gasoline fumes. Trees were delimbed and hauled by cable systems onto waiting truck beds to be carted off to sawmills scattered around Vancouver Island.
Only one single tree survived this carnage, Big Lonely Doug. He bears a scar along the base of his trunk where a thick metal cable wrapped around him. The cable was used to drag out the trunks of trees he had grown beside for centuries. The scar serves as a memorial to an ancient forest destroyed by forces outside of their own control.
Doug has continued to endure long after the loggers left his home devastated. He stands alone in a clear-cut lot, towering over his surroundings at a staggering 70.2 meters (230 feet) tall. Despite being all alone, he has withstood windstorms, and increased exposure to the elements.
During this time of self-isolation, I took a trip to visit Doug. Leaving my car in a pullout after the road became a little too rutted out, we hiked the short remaining distance to his home. Turning a bend, there he was, set back in a valley below the level of the road, but dominating the landscape.
Hiking down to stand next to Doug, I couldn’t help but notice that even here, amid the incredible destruction left behind by clear-cut logging practices, there were signs of new life. All around Doug were saplings growing. Many were probably Big Lonely Doug’s offspring who had fallen to the ground and survived long enough to plant roots.
Although not in my lifetime, in a few hundred years, this barren lot will be transformed back into a dense temperate rainforest again, returning to normalcy. Doug will have survived his second stint in isolation, and he won’t be so lonely anymore.
The SS Maheno has been slowly rotting away here since 1935 when it washed up during a cyclone. I asked Maren’s father why no one swims on this beautiful beach. Ron says it’s full of sharks. Cool, cool cool cool cool.
Pier in Hervey Bay. Coincidentally I heard on the radio about shark sightings here too.
Spent the weekend in a Queenslander house on this property. It also took me the whole weekend to figure out that the Hinterland was referring to the region, not a specific place. Sometime’s I just go with the flow, and figure the details will work themselves out one way or another.
