The Life Of The Red Cedar As We Live And Breathe

Post on 3rd January 2022

We covered in the last blog how the Red Cedar Tree plays such a huge part of the native lifestyle in Coast Salish and parts of Northwest America – providing everything from gigantic lengths of timber for canoes and totem poles, to soft and fluffy towels made from the trees inner bark.

But we barely scratched the surface of what the magnificent Red Cedar offers – and forgive the very intentional pun, as it isnt just the internal timber that gives The Tree of Life its sacred name&

A Red Cedar Forest Is More Than The Sum Of The Trees

The Red Cedars home is the temperate rainforest of Northwest America – one of the rarest ecosystems in the world. The old-growth trees of the rainforest guzzle the air around them and thanks to their slow rate of decay, store so much more carbon in their biomass than any other plants, that they hold the richest sources of carbon than any other environment on the planet. 

Just one tree can store several metric tonnes of carbon which makes the importance of keeping ancient rainforests with large trees as intact as possible as they are our greatest shields against climate change. The sheer density of the trees and forest make it less vulnerable to natural disturbances like floods and fires, protecting the precious biodiversity of the wildlife around it.

Thats before you mention the critical role the Red Cedar plays in purifying the surrounding water and air too.

Wanted – Dead Or Alive

Whats even more interesting to note is how valuable the Red Cedar is both alive as a growing tree, reaching for the sky and playing its part in the air filtration and growth around it, as well as how fallen trees become hosts for the rich biodiversity they house.

Weve covered in other blogs how the natural anti-rot properties of the Red Cedar are one of the many reasons it is so popular as a fencing timber. But despite the live trees living for over 1000 years, these anti-rot qualities mean a dead Red Cedar can take hundreds of years to decompose. Standing upright but void of their new growth these snags can stand for centuries before being downed by the elements.

To the surrounding wildlife, the timber and bark of the snags and grounded trees can then become home to lichen, seedlings and insects, and will often be hollowed out as hibernation dens for the forests resident Black Bears too.

Red Cedar – The Original And Wisest Mammoth

Its easy to read the word ancient and just think of it as meaning old. Its not the same. Old implies something is aged and past its prime. Ancient brings forth the wisdom of the era in which something was created – it has evolved and survived and in the case of The Red Cedar – despite being around for over 50 million years, it is still well and truly thriving. 

The beauty of the trees wisdom deepens when you understand the relationship between the fledgling trees and the ancient Red Cedars within the rainforest. Like the elders of the terrain, the supersized Red Cedars stand tall and strong as examples that the smaller Western Hemlock, Douglas Firs and Sitka Spruce trees could only aspire to.

Its capacity to reproduce asexually holds it apart from the others too. Where other plants rely on the creatures around them to disperse their seeds, the Red Cedar has a process of its own called layering. The foliage or branches of the tree which come in contact with the damp ground can sprout their own roots and become saplings in their own right. 

This is where the richness of the ancient forest really comes into play. Like a bonded family or a close-knit circle of friends, the rich earthy ground surrounding a strong Red Cedar will often become host to a cluster of three to five trees, rooted in the old-growth of the original trees.

Cheewhat Giant – Canadas Largest Tree

Weve already covered how the Red Cedar is one of the earliest mammoths on our planet but we havent quite explored that fully. Second only in size to its cousin The Giant Sequoia, the Red Cedar really is an absolute giant. Records show that some trees stand 20 storeys high, have volumes of 450 cubic metres and possess girths of 20 metres around.

That just defies belief, but one tree steals the show. Stacking five buses vertically would give you a better idea of what youre looking at here with the Cheewhat Giant, the king of the British Columbian forest.

Located in Canadas Pacific Rim National Park Reserve on Vancouver Island in British Columbia, Cheewhat Giant – which is also known as the Cheewhat Lake Cedar – is Canadas largest known living tree as well as one of the largest in the world.

The tree was named after the nearby Cheewhat Lake when it was discovered in 1988 and when the Quinault Lake Cedar died in 2016 (17,650 cu ft (500 m3), the Cheewhat Lake tree earned the title of the world’s largest living Western redcedar.

What A Wonderful Web Of Wisdom

They say that the roots of a forest are like an internet – an intricately woven network of information being passed through the undergrowth, sharing precious knowledge down through the ages, from ancient trees centuries-old to saplings freshly born to the safety of the old-growth canopy.

It certainly brings home the power of the phrase about something being a chip off the old block. We can now grasp how precious the secrets of just a tiny carbon-rich slither of Red Cedar would be to the generations of trees yet to come.

It may seem strange sharing how precious the Red Cedars are when were a company that offers the timber of felled trees to our customers. Its for this very reason that we want to share the richness of what these trees bring to the world.

As a fencing and timber company, we could easily have chosen to provide wood and timber that is cheap and mass-produced and valued profit over sustainability. We didnt. We bring you the story of the Red Cedar because it aligns perfectly with our own values. We know the carbon footprint of our products, the (European) forests that our timber comes from, and we thoroughly vet all of our suppliers to ensure they adhere to the strict eco values we operate from. 

If anything, the story of the Red Cedar and its rich heritage is even more reason to ensure the old-growth forests remain protected and the timber we secure is only sourced from forests where the wood is being responsibly and sustainably harvested,

Well share the third and final blog soon on The Life of the Red Cedar, but if youd like to discuss anything from this mini-series, or would love to know more about our products and timber, get in touch and our team will happily help.