The Orillia Museum of Art and History Speaker Series hosted Graeme Davis, registered professional forester, County of Simcoe, to speak about The Simcoe County Forest — A Century of Growth and Renewal. He shared what has been done over the last century to restore a landscape once devastated by logging and forest clearing practices to the vibrantly reforested Simcoe County Forest we have today, now Ontario’s largest community forest. Way back, this land was covered in stands of massive, stately white pine. Those who came to log the white pine forests claimed there was enough pine to last at least 700 years. There were over 200 sawmills in the county and railways to ship the pine during the heyday of logging. By the late 1800s [the] white pine forests were gone. The pine had been felled, cut and shipped on boats to England to be used as masts for British Navy ships.
SAN FRANCISCO — When it came time to restore a late-19th century schooner at San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park, the National Park Service placed a call to the U.S. Forest Service. The ship is the C.A. Thayer, a vessel that first launched in 1895… was used to carry lumber from the Puget Sound into San Francisco and Los Angeles, and Australia. The wooden-hulled, three-mast schooner is routinely restored as part of preventive maintenance, but finding the right size and dimensions for lumber can prove challenging and costly. …Through a Federal Free to Use request the Mount Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest was able to donate the trees for the ship’s restoration. …The Cedar and Douglas Fir were felled after it was concluded that the trees were a hazard in the campground due to root rot. Their time on the forest might have been coming to an end, but a second life was waiting.