FOSBA Bulletin June 2025

This bulletin is dedicated to Joni Mitchel:

“They took all the trees and put 'em in a tree museum” – Big Yellow Taxi

This past week Monique, Frida and I have been out in a clear cut, picking wild blackberries (Rubus ursinus). One doesn’t normally equate intelligence with blackberries, but these plants, along with many others, can be very surprising and leave a foraging biped quite befuddled.

Now these vines normally have the odd berry promising an amazingly rich taste sensation, if one is lucky enough get to it before Mr. Robin. Unfortunately, in most places there never seem to be quite enough to fill a tart, let alone a pie. But out in the clear cuts the berries have formed a dense mat and are so numerous in places that a serious picker can easily pick a couple of liters an hour.

Why in Heaven’s name did these plants in the clear cuts suddenly decide to produce berries by the millions? Like little capitalists did they sense some amazing opportunity after all the trees magically disappeared? Or did they think the world was coming to an end and so decided on mass to multiply in a fruitful attempt to save it? Who knows?

But I digress. Amongst those blackberry vines, if one looks carefully, one can see recently planted Douglas fir trees. They are very small and difficult to spot, but in every direction there is one every three meters or so, and in just a few years they will stand above the blackberries, the thimble berries, and the salmon berries to form what will appear to be a gigantic Christmas tree farm.

This will be a forest of the future, but its only similarity to the mixed forests of the past will be that it is green… albeit a singular shade of green.

There may come a day, many years from now, when forester folks might begin to realize that the old-fashioned, natural way of being a forest had some distinct advantages. Mixing in groves of deciduous trees, such as alder, maple and arbutus, with their trunks and branches containing up to 66% water, can significantly slow a determined forest fire. But when fire gets into the Douglas fir plantations, all those needles and resinous trunks and branches growing at precisely the same level, burn hotter that the devil’s toenails, incinerating not only the trees, but also the topsoil full with nutrients and berry seeds, carefully distributed over time by the song birds.

When we wish to see how life was lived in the past, we might visit a museum. It might be a museum of art or culture or automobiles or even war. Why not a natural forest museum?

Stillwater Bluffs actually is such a museum. It can teach us and our descendants how a natural forest looks, and how it works seamlessly to support its multitude of inhabitants. It is after all a “natural” forest with over a 100-year head start. At the rate our forests are being harvested and monetized and re-planted with clones, there are precious few areas of truly natural forest left.

It's one more reason to save and protect our precious 120 acres.

Today is June 28^th and if you come to Willingdon Beach this afternoon to hear the beautiful free concert performed by the 2025 Prisma orchestra you will find our table under the bright yellow and green banner.  Come by!  Bring a friend.   We will be signing up new members hopefully by the dozens.  It opens at 5:00 pm and the music begins at 6.

If you are new to FOSBA and wish to learn more about our organization and the Bluffs you can go to our website, https://www.fosba.org.

and hit “MENU” in the top left hand corner and then choose “Monthly Bulletins”.

Looking for a gift for a friend or family member. How about a FOSBA T-shirt, available at the Gear Attic in the Townsite Mall (or at our table today)

Happy trails everyone,

Lauritz