BLOG about PAINTING

When we were in Olympic National Park, we had the opportunity to see some VERY big trees.

First of all, there was the 'biggest spruce in the world'. And it was immense! Even with experience of big spruce in Carmanah and other big spruce on the trail to this particular tree, it still stopped me dead in my tracks when I saw it. Apparently, it is over 59 feet in circumference. That's one biiigggg tree. It stood near the shore of Lake Quinault, a giant amongst the salmonberries and other, lesser examples of its species.

We saw other big trees on other trails. There was the big cedar, now but a snag, but with a full-grown hemlock growing out of the remains of its trunk. It, too, dwarfed us - as this sketch of Lawrence shows:

Even at that massive size, it wasn't nearly as big as the Spruce we saw earlier that morning.

However, what I want to comment on is not the overall size of individual trees. There are big trees elsewhere, too. The beauty of Olympic National Park is that most of these magnificent specimens are surrounded by other trees that are almost as big as they are. They exist in an intact old growth forest, an ecosystem that was never destroyed by logging. Yes, individual trees had been harvested, probably 150 years or so ago, judging by the stumps. But the forest was never clearcut or even heavily logged. It has continued to thrive until the present day. Unlike BC, where most parks have been created after the land has been clearcut, somebody set aside this huge piece of land and left it alone for posterity. And this in an age when the forests seemed endless. What foresight! Foresight that the BC government still has not achieved in 2016...