Uploaded April 2011 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
Hauling the toboggan out, I stop in a pure, fire-origin stand of jack pine and black spruce in its prime, and explain its life history: It was all born in one big fire about 80-90 years ago. All the trees are the same age. This is classic, pure, even-aged conifer boreal forest, remarkable in how open it is underneath, and it's the finest type of forest for the winter camper because there is lots of dead standing dry wood that is the die off of all the 10's of thousands of smaller trees per hectare that never made it in the competition for light, space and nutrients over the past decades after the big fire. Its getting old now, the boreal is a short-lived forest type, and it will start to blow down over the next decade or two. But now, at its peak, I never get tired of being in forest like this.
Hauling the toboggan out, I stop in a pure, fire-origin stand of jack pine and black spruce in its prime, and explain its life history: It was all born in one big fire about 80-90 years ago. All the trees are the same age. This is classic, pure, even-aged conifer boreal forest, remarkable in how open it is underneath, and it's the finest type of forest for the winter camper because there is lots of dead standing dry wood that is the die off of all the 10's of thousands of smaller trees per hectare that never made it in the competition for light, space and nutrients over the past decades after the big fire. Its getting old now, the boreal is a short-lived forest type, and it will start to blow down over the next decade or two. But now, at its peak, I never get tired of being in forest like this.
