This is a tree that has grown around a bicycle on Vashon island, Washington. The bike belonged to an 8 year old Don Puz who forgot it in the forest in 1954. Because he felt he was too old for the bike, he did not worry too much about finding it.
[T]he Broadback Forest has never been logged or known the incursion of roads. The forest floor is coated in moss, with scarves of lichen draped over tree branches. The Broadback River, full of fish, bends through the forest as it jogs toward Rupert Bay, at the south end of James Bay. The forest is a sanctuary for wildlife such as migratory songbirds and at-risk woodland caribou, and it provides sustenance and meaning for the Cree. “In the Cree identity when you say Cree you say Eeyou. And then when you speak about the Cree territory you say Eeyou Istchee,” says Gull […]. But the Cree say logging could expand into the southern portion of the Broadback forest this year [2020], under a five-year forestry plan that proposes a harvest of six million cubic metres of wood in Waswanipi territory
To reach the Cree community of Waswanipi, […] you drive north from Montreal for eight hours on a trip […] “not for the faint-hearted,” especially in winter. You can’t miss Waswanipi; you’ll cross a long green bridge over the Waswanipi River and the community of 1,700 will be on your right, ringed by the boreal forest and further away, like the expanding ripples from a skimmed stone, by logging cut blocks.In Cree, Waswanipi means ‘light on the water,’ a reminder of the days when torches were lit with pine tar and sturgeon several metres long were […] caught at the river’s dark mouth. […] Whapmagoostui [is] on the Great Whale River at the shore of Hudson Bay. Great Whale, as the town is often called, is the most northern community in James Bay Cree territory, accessible only by boat or plane. Waswanipi, more than 600 kilometres away as the crow flies, is the most southern […]. In between the two communities […] lies a dense forest of mature spruce and pine called the Broadback. […]
Like many Cree, most of Gull’s diet consists of country foods […]. In Chibougamau, she’s been out picking wild blueberries. She brews medicinal tea from Labrador tea bushes, often found in swamps and bogs, and from pink fireweed plants. […]
For almost 20 years, the Cree have been working to protect the primary forest in the Broadback watershed from logging and other development such as mining and road-building. The Broadback — with its carbon cache and abundant wildlife — is one of the few remaining areas on Waswanipi Cree territory untouched by industry. Ninety per cent of the territory has been impacted by industrial development, Gull says, and close to 30,000 kilometres of forestry roads criss-cross through her homeland. […] “The Broadback is a big part of that connectivity because it spans right across the territory,” Gull says.
The Broadback Forest is one of the few remaining large tracts of intact boreal forest left in Quebec. It stretches over more than 1.3 million hectares, an area considerably larger than Cape Breton Island.
The Cree call the Broadback watershed Misigamish, meaning a large body of water. Almost two decades ago, following extensive consultations, they developed a Broadback Watershed Conservation Plan to protect key areas for culture, carbon storage, clean water and biodiversity. […] But the Broadback’s remaining rare primary forest, which includes white birch and trembling aspen, is open to industrial development such as logging and mining. Among other values, the unprotected Broadback Forest connects the Assinica and Nottaway caribou herds […]..
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Text, photos, captions: Sarah Cox. “’It’s like paradise’: The Cree Nation’s fight to save the Broadback Forest.” The Narwhal. 22 August 2020.
you’d think we’d commit by now to the idea that destroying forests is destroying the planet (especially at this stage of damage from carbon release) but the machines of capitalist extraction give no fucks
Today is National Arbor Day! The last Friday of April is traditionally set aside as a day for planting and caring for trees.
First celebrated in Nebraska in 1872, the original Arbor Day was the brainchild of journalist and politician J. Sterling Morton, who wanted to encourage tree-planting as a community benefit to the prairie pioneers. On April 10, 1872, Sterling held a contest to see which counties and individuals could plant the most trees on the day. More than a million trees were planted that day as a result.
Artist’s Temporary Decaying Art Brings Enchantment To The Forest
British sculptor Andy Goldsworthy is known for his phenomenal and temporary, installations which involve using natural elements, ranging from sticks, stones, leaves and twigs and anything that grows out of the earth. Sharing a special connection with the land ,which he celebrates in all his sculptures, Goldsworthy shows the world that nature cannot be contained, but only its beauty can be held on a canvas for precious few moments before the land recalls what it once grew.
Nearly a year has passed since Sierra and I took a trip to Ketchum, Idaho and I reported on some of thesnagswe encounteredthere. After months without a break, we finally had the chance to get away for a few days, and since we were desperate for some time off and a change of scenery, we couldn’t turn it down. Plus, we were heading back to Ketchum, so I knew I’d get to check out a few more…
