The Giants of Cathedral Grove (BC)

The location is Vancouver Island in British Columbia and specifically MacMillan Provincial Park. It’s a little east of Port Alberni and this spot home to an amazing stand of massive trees many centuries old. These are the giants of Cathedral Grove and we’re happy to show you around.

Today’s subject matter is a little different than what we typically babble on about (at the same time we’ll document anything), yet no less interesting. That they tower so far above and are so old makes them easy fodder. The intricacies of a folding lawn chair wow us, so imagine how it went down here.

Cathedral Grove is part of a nature preserve and the stand an attraction for well over a century. As soon as a wagon road was put through the area, curious folks came out to look and it’s been a popular stop ever since.

Among giants at Cathedral Grove on Vancouver Island – ahead Rob & Arturo.

Back then the land was unprotected but about seventy five years ago the property got set aside and made into a park. That it was never logged is in itself something incredible, as the timber must be worth a fortune, so we should all be thankful it never happened. It’s a treasure to enjoy and learn from.

For someone used to the (mostly) stick trees of Alberta, they’re jawdroppingly massive here and you’ll get a sore neck from always gazing upwards. Look up…look way, way, waaaaaay up. Even for folks from the west coast familiar with forests on this grand scale, they’re gargantuan.

Even the “smaller” trees, like the one showing Chris looking up, are something else. Photos do them no justice.

This stand is predominantly Douglas Fir along with a mix of Western Red Cedar and Western Hemlock. Large Big Leaf Maples are also found and given our visit happened in the fall, they were alive with colour. Where as it was already winter back home, autumn had just announced its arrival here. Mushrooms grow in abundance, smaller ones in particular, as do ferns, nasty Devil’s Club in wetter places, and moss covers everything.

Most of the trees here have stood for a few centuries but the oldest date back more than double that. Let that sink in. Think of the change that has happened in that time. Think of any historic event the world over or even locally, of the time, and some or all of these trees would have been standing then. Old growth forest changes ever so slowly.

Think back many generations of your family and these trees were here. Go back generations more and they were here. That they started out as tiny saplings is mind blowing but that they have lived this long, even more incredible.

The tallest tree here rises up about seventy five metres (so the height of a twenty-ish story building) and with a base circumference of about nine metres. There’s enough wood in it alone to build many homes, perish the thought.

Trees can be viewed via fenced trails and raised boardwalks. These were put in to help keep people contained and preserve the fragile environment. Still, there’s one or two places one can go off trail by Cameron River.

The trees grow thick but in one place, where a boardwalk gets close to Cameron Lake, they open up and afford one a view of rugged Wesley Ridge. That’s it and otherwise they’re so thick that the outside world can not be seen (nor heard), and the understory is in an almost perpetual twilight.

The highway bisects the park and there’s trails opposite each other on both sides. Be careful crossing on foot from one to the other. There’s lots of big logging trucks and such on the highway and while it’s a slow zone, a moment of inattention could be costly. There’s also parking on both sides but not a huge amount.

Both trails have outer loops each of about a click long and there’s shortcuts if needed. Information plaques can be found at strategic locations and cover such topics as nurse trees (dead timber on which grows new saplings) and strange living stumps. These are the base of fallen trees that are kept alive via another tree to which they’re connected. Over time the roots can intertwine and graft in places, so that in a way, two became one. If one falls, the stump can still keep alive thanks to this, yet have no greenery.

The biggest tree here is marked accordingly, but to be honest there’s a number of notable giants that appear sorta close in size. How the heck did they find a tape measure that long?

MacMillan Provincial Park, home to Cathedral Grove, dates back to the late 1940s and came to be thanks to public pressure. Prior, the trees here were often under threat of harvest, in spite of it being a popular tourist stop for decades.

The park is named after H MacMillan, noted forester and industrialist (of MacMillan Bloedel Sawmills fame). His firm owned the timber rights here at the time and after much convincing, finally donated for use as a park.

In the distant past, the area here was used as a ceremonial ground by First Nation’s folks.

The name Cathedral Grove first makes mention in the 1920s and coined by the then Governor General of Canada on a visit.

Cathedral Grove comprises some one hundred and fifty-ish hectares (reports differ) and in recent years has seen some several hundred thousand visitors per year. It makes up about half of MacMillan Park but the rest has limited public access.

Summers are the busiest, naturally, but by the time the cooler days of October roll around (when we were there), it’s relatively quiet. Still, we passed a lot of people on the trails, but at the same time had long stretches where we saw no one and that’s magic. It was misty on our visit (cool too) and this made for an ethereal experience.

Wildlife known to frequent the park in include deer, elk, cougar and black bear. We think we saw one of the latter, but it could have been a poodle. The pink collar gave it away. A passer-by told us to keep an eye open for owls but we saw none.

This forest is transitional between the drier east coast and wetter west coast halves of Vancouver Island. It’s all relative and even the lesser rained on sections around here are still are pretty wet.

The park has has been witness to it’s share of natural and man made problems, including the Cameron River flooding its banks (exacerbated by logging upstream) and blowdown from strong winds. Thank goodness no one was around when the big ones fell. Fallen trees provide nutrients for the next generation, but are so big they take forever to fully decompose. But nothing here at Cathedral Grove is in much of a hurry. Heavy use and the resultant traffic are also mentioned as concerns.

The valley last saw a fire three hundreds years ago and it’s said most of the trees here present day, are from just after that event. Still, some older ones survived and the elders here (all Douglas Firs).

There’s tiny things too.

Team BIGDoer joined with art photographers Rob Pohl (regular readers know him well) and Arturo Pianzola on this trip and we had a blast. This motley group visited all kinds of historic and natural sites up and down the island from Nanaimo to Campbell River.

Courtney on Comox Bay acted as base camp and while we had to cancel a lot of planned locations due to time constraints, there was no shortage of subjects to document. We kept busy, so stay tuned for more from the Island and now enjoy the photos and mother nature’s majesty.

Know more: (new window): Cathedral Grove Vancouver Island BC.

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Odds and ends…
BC Inland Ferries – Columbia and Arrow Park III.
Calgary Stampede 2020: Cancelled!.
Shoulder Season @ Dino Provincial Park.

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Date of adventure: October, 2023.
Location: Cathedral Grove, Vancouver Island BC.
Article references and thanks: Rob & Arturo, BC Parks, and the A Brief History OF Cathedral Grove, MacMillan Provincial Park by Kerry Joy

A pathway takes one about the property.

At a rare break in the trees.

Dead timber brings new life.

A big one that’s fallen.

It’s a defined route of pathways and boardwalks.

In one area you can go off trail – look up…look waaaay up.

It was a cool and misty kind of day.

Moss, moss, everywhere.

A younger tree out of an old stump.

It’s been a park since the 1940s.

There’s many large maples here.

Nurse log: a dead tree that becomes a base for saplings.

This strange living stump.

Split wide open.

Thinking of fairies.

Bathed in a perpetual twilight.

Comox Bay the following morning.