Have you ever wandered small in the shadow of Douglas Firs and Red Cedars? Humbled and inspired, my head was full after visiting, just a few days ago, the Cathedral Grove in MacMillan Provincial Park on the eastern flanks of Vancouver Island. The grove is part of a wilderness area created to protect the temperate rainforest old-growth trees and the ecosystems of which they are an intricate part. This Coastal Douglas Fir Ecosystem hosts a great diversity of species and extends fragmented along the coast of the island.
Mosses dominate surfaces both on the ground and at great height; both horizontal and vertical. The world is green with them deep into the wood and over bark and branch. Trees grow wild and strong and play as scaffold to the moss, lichen, and even other trees as stumps of old ancients yield nutrients to new trees sprouting on the fallen. Nothing is wasted or ignored, and the ecosystem inhales and exhales, as we do, in the cold air.
Ferns throw fronds a meter long into the damp air, competing for the speckled light that filters through the dense canopy. Mosses cover branches and trunks and rocks and earth indiscriminately making the world seem soft and rounded in contrast with the spiky fronds. There are worlds within worlds here spiraling in dendritic patterns and the trees are massive and ancient. These are not the oldest trees in the world, but some saw the days of the crusaders and the Magna Carta, and in our fast-paced world, this constancy and link to past and future makes my head spin. I assure you: pictures do not do justice to Fir trees over 9 meters in diameter.
As we wandered the trails, the heavy trees filtered the low-angled winter sun, birds chirped, and a woodpecker whacked a series of small holes in pleasing patterns. Snow had fallen earlier that morning in a surprise event, and in light gaps, confections of feather mosses sparkled their tiny wings. The place was magic and I feel lucky to have seen it. As we drove home, one of the many bald eagles we saw on the trip swooped low and we looked into its eyes as it angled low to our windshield and veered off into the forest. It was a fine way to leave the trees. I hope to be back.
