Time Travel

[athabascae]

Nice! I love big trees. Those ones in the middle photo are huge white pine.

[athabascae]

For research purposes, I used to climb up to the crown of those giants (to set up equipment and whatnot), and it was a super cool experience to sit up in the crown of those big supercanopy pines, look down upon the crown of hardwoods, and just watch whats happening above the forest for a while.

[MikeK]

Wow - I couldn't do that. Freaks me out thinking of being up in one of those trees.

I plan on going back to this stand soon. I'll try to get some better shot of the real big ones. I don't think that one I'm next to was the biggest. There were probably 4 or 5 in that diameter range.

[athabascae]

It was at times a bit nerve wracking, but I was always on a climbing rope with a spotter below, so quite safe.

If you do get back, it would be cool the diameter at breast height (~1.3-1.4 m above ground level) of the big ones.

[MikeK]

I know a guy who catalogs these trees. He always measures the circumference. I bet he has a record of these ones. I know they aren't the biggest in the region though. I'll see if I can get some info from him.

[athabascae]

I have this book, and it is great if you want to see big trees in the Pacific Northwest - Getting to some of these trees is an adventure in-and-of itself.

This book seems to do the same for the northeastern U.S.A - But, I've not seen this one. Or this one, which covers less sites -

I'm sure visiting some of these trees in New England could involve a real interesting BC ski to get to in winter, perhaps with snowshoes strapped to your pack for exploring the stands, once you get there.

Tom

[MikeK]

Good stuff - I think I'll pick up the first eastern ref and the one cliffy mentioned. Looks like I can get used paperbacks for cheap.

I'd prefer it on my kindle, but they want $36 for the Mary Byrd Davis book.

[Woodserson]

If you really want to dork out in NH.... http://kevinmartin.wcha.org/bigtrees.php Book with maps

[lilcliffy]

Been meaning to catch up with this discussion…though not specifically about skiing- I get it.

I never did follow up on my original post regarding “why the telemark”- but this is ultimately at the root of what it is about for me. I backcountry ski not only for the love of skiing- but as much for accessing ultimate wilderness experiences.

In the east, even at high-elevation, wilderness experiences are inherently forest-based- for the most part.

Mike- you are correct, the high elevations of the east were not actively managed by First Nations people- though they certainly hunted and trapped in them.

White pine.

Where and why one finds white pine depends on a lot of factors- some of which Tom and I have already spoken to.

The first fundamental factor is climate, and the natural disturbance regimes associated with regional and local climate.

White pine grows in a wide range of ecological conditions in the east- from the southern boreal forest; to the cool wet forests of the Maritimes and Maine; to the hot-humid forests of central Ontario, southern Quebec and the northern Great Lakes; to the high-elevations of the Northeast- and south through the Appalachians.

The forests of the extreme northeast (eastern Quebec, Newfoundland, the Maritimes, and Maine) have historically grown in a cool-cold-wet climate- natural fire was historically very infrequent and when it occurred- it was high-severity, completely replacing the stands that burned. The high-elevation forests of the northeast (and south through the highest Appalachian-elevations) share this historical wet climate and fire regime (and some of the ecoregions within these ecozones are so wet they are rainforests). In between these very infrequent fire events were long periods of forest growth and development, mixed with occasional less-severe disturbance events (e.g. wind, insects, disease). In these wet forests, white pine regenerates in two contexts. The first is by old trees, with thick bark, surviving the fire and dispersing their seed- these conditions often produced white pine-dominated stands- and were, and still are, most common on poor soils. White pine is also long-lived and moderately-shade tolerant- therefore it can maintain itself in very old stands by regenerating in large gaps. Only the occasional white pine needs to make it in a canopy gap, in order for it to maintain itself in the stand. Again, white pine has more success regenerating in gaps on poor soils- but it is amazing how you find even the occasional big white pine in a rich hardwood forest.

Regardless, in these wet climates white pine cannot dominate a stand without a disturbance creating that opportunity (i.e. either fire or abandoned field).

The other climate (that Tom spoke of) is the drier, continental climate of southern QC, central ON, and the northern Great Lake States. Here the summers are dry enough that fire was more frequent- and as a result- pines in general were historically more common- both in pine-dominated stands and in mixedwood stands. In this climate (as Tom stated) frequent, low-severity surface fires occurred on dry sites, maintaining white pine-dominated stands.

Much more can be said about white pine ecology, but in general, white pine-dominated stands are either the product of a single disturbance (i.e. high-severity fire or abandoned field), or are maintained by constant disturbance (i.e. frequent low-severity fire).

The successful suppression of fire in the twentieth century has greatly contributed to a decline in white pine regeneration.

Selective logging over the last 200+ years has also led to a decline in white pine. The "best" and biggest white pine grows on productive soils, typically in mixture with other trees, especially hardwoods. When white pine is selectively cut from these mixed stands, the other trees take over the growing space- and the white pine seed trees are gone. At least in the wet climates of the east- the once legendary white pines are long cut- with white pine reduced to growing on very poor soils were it has less competition (and less growth potential).

At least in the Canadian-context- the biggest decline in white pine occurred during the “square timber trade” of the early to mid-19th Century (a direct result of Napoleon’s blockade of the Baltic and alliance with the US). By 1860, large, accessible white pine were exhausted from Newfoundland, south to the Saint John watershed, and west to the Ottawa and Gatineau. Square-timber harvesting continued in the Great Lakes region for a few decades, before the pine ran out…and then the big timber cutters moved out to the Pacific Northwest.

In general, truly “selective” or “uneven-age” management does not work with white pine forests (except on very poor sites) because white pine cannot compete with all the other more aggressive and shade-tolerant species.

In general, most of the white pine "groves", or stands, that are left, are either on poor sites, or are abandoned farm land.

Tom- your past of field research in old forests resonates with me- it would be great to be able to hear more of your experiences.

Great pics Mike- it might surprise you to discover how “young” those trees are. They don’t look very old to me- less than a century- my guess is no more than 80 years old. Very old white pines have very distinctive and deeply furrowed bark. Those trees still have residual dead branches on their trunks- this indicates that they grew very rapidly early in life, and had minimal competition.

Back to your neck of the woods Mike- the elevations of the Adirondacks produce a relatively cool-cold, wet climate (much colder and wetter than the surrounding lowlands). There is even red spruce in the Adirondacks. (Red spruce is the archetypal tree of the very wet, cool climate of the Maritimes and parts of Maine. Research suggests that red spruce that far west is a remnant of a past cooling period that allowed red spruce to spread west from the coast.) I doubt very much that white pine was ever common in the Adirondacks- certainly not a dominant component of the forest landscape. White pine would have been dominant on specific, poor and fire-prone sites- scattered throughout the rest of the forest. Just like the Maritimes- selective logging caused an almost complete loss of white pine in mixed stands. I would think that the old, late-successional forests of the Adirondacks are not extremely different than they are throughout the rest of the cool-cold-wet regions of the northeast: spruce and spruce-fir forests on the poor soils; northern hardwood forests on the rich soils; and mixtures of hardwood-spruce-fir on the nutrient-medium soils. Without selective removal- white pine would be a minor component of all of these forests.

[MikeK]

Interesting stuff...

Those trees in my picture are quite famous. I'm not sure if all of them are very old though, they may all be different ages. They are mostly the same height from what you can see from the ground but have different diameters.

If you look at that first picture and to the upper right of the tree that is not in the picture, but my wife is leaning against has that furled bark you're talking about, then there were maybe 4 or 5 in that grove like that.

I seem to recall reading that there were trees in this particular stand between 200 and 250 years old. The other claim is the diameters are up to or in excess of 6'. I think that may be a little bit of stretch, I seem to recall guessing around 5' but there was one that was quite big at the 3-4' height range... it might have been 6' in diameter. I didn't photo that one. It was a terrible, overcast cloudy day when I was there and the light was horrible. It's also hard to photograph those trees and show their scale.

I have no real idea about this whole white pine mythology in the Adirondacks but they do seem more widespread there than the rest of the state, and many have been logged.

I don't think they ever dominated the landscape but they may have been even more prevelant than they are now. Areas like the Oswegatchie river basin are famous for their white pines:





There are probably more big whites along this 10 mile stretch of river than I've ever seen on any hike.

There's also a lot of other coniferous species as well. The farther you head away from the river, the more hardwood dominant it becomes, but there's still a fair deal of whites per square acre I'd guess.

Again fall time is the best time (for me) to survey the forest from a lookout. As you can see here, a fair deal of whites easily picked out from the view point.



This is all protected wilderness now, but it was heavily, heavily logged at one time. Not sure on the date, but IIRC late 1800's maybe?

I have other pictures but the resolution is not good enough to be able to discern what the green trees are.

Also it may just be that people do a lot observing from the water in lake country, so maybe Algonquin has as many white pine as the Adirondacks? I tend to notice higher concentrations near the shores in the canoe (probably wind disturbance creating pockets for them to thrive?). You can pick out quite a few here, not particularly old ones I don't think though:





And then the familiar scraggly crowns of some larger ones poking up back in the hw mix here: