A Word or Two (editorial comment) November 2010
Not ordinary times
No matter how bad the wood business gets one can always take heart from the beauty of the forest at this time of the year. To re-work a quotation (and borrow a sentiment) from American nature writer and conservationist Aldo Leopold: there are two kinds of walks – ordinary walks or a walk in the woods. There are two times to take a walk in the woods – ordinary times or when the leaves have been painted by Group of Seven painters gone wild. There are two places to take a walk – ordinary places or along a Sugar maple ridge the first week of October when the orange, red, and yellow leaves still cling to the trees but also pile up delightfully on the forest floor.
It was in just such a woodlot in North Tay, 30 km north of Fredericton, New Brunswick, at just the right time that co-worker Matt and I had the pleasure of “assessing” as part of our job. Ancient maple blotted out the sky, while young and middle-aged trees struggled for space, and thousands of tiny, two-year-old Sugar maple seedlings carpeted the forest floor with hope. Our walk was slow, as is that of any good forester, with increasingly frequent stops to stand and look in awe as the spirit of the forest crept in. By mid-afternoon we were back at the office, calmed, refreshed, and rejuvenated by the hours in the woods.
I didn’t know it then, but a week later, writing in the Globe and Mail, Marq de Villiers described the experience of stress reduction as a result of being in natural surroundings as “forest bathing,” or shinrin-yoku, as it is known by the Japanese. De Villiers traveled to Nova Scotia and experienced shinrin-yoku first-hand in the Acadian Forest on the Tusket River, which adjoins the Tobeatic Wilderness area, which in turn is contiguous to Kejimkujik National Park (shortened to Keji locally), a large area of wilderness lakes and streams set in pristine Acadian Forest.
The benefits of forest immersion may extend well beyond the psychological and the spiritual, according to one Japanese study. Researchers observed a 50-percent increase in the production of tumor-fighting cells among men who participated in a three-day hike through cedar, beech, and oak trees. It is thought that certain chemicals emitted by the trees may be a factor. Is this what they mean when they talk about aromatherapy?
At about the same time, the Globe and Mail changed its format and inserted several glossy and semi-gloss pages in its newspaper. Yet the use of gloss, (or calendered paper as it is known in the industry) was not consistent. The front pages of the Sports and Cover sections were high-gloss, while the cover pages of the Travel and Business sections were the same old newsprint. The inside pages of the Cover section used a third grade of paper, midway between the gloss and the regular newsprint. It seemed a bit weird but Margaret Wente, a regular Globe columnist, said in a CBC media panel that readers are simply raving about the new paper. My wife says the cover pages are slippery and the mid-sections keep sliding out.
FOREST TRAVEL TOURS
Two Scandinavians recently paid us a visit. Jan Ekborg, who has ties with Melanskorg, the largest of Sweden’s five forest owner groups, had been introduced to us through contacts. His partner, Oystein Ramberg, is in the travel tour business. Together, they have been arranging forest tours for landowners from Sweden and Norway. They have taken groups to Russia, Brazil, and most recently to the western United States. Now they want to come to the Maritimes, and are looking for some tips on where to visit and a host for part of the tour. These aren’t just forest tours though – they plan to combine regular sight-seeing with the forestry business. That way they appeal to a wider, and potentially more gender-balanced clientele, and that makes for a more interesting trip.
They plan to start the 10- to 12-day tour at the height of fall foliage season next year in Halifax, and wrap it up in New York. So much to see – so little time to take it all in. Where to begin? We suggest Cape Breton with its Celtic Colors Festival, ceilidhs, budworm battles, and Balsam fir forests, Fortress of Louisbourg, and NewPage lumbering operations. We propose the Miramichi with its salmon museum at Doaktown, Woodsmen’s Museum at Boiestown, horse logging, White pine sawmill, and wonderful forest diversity. We mention the Fundy Shore with its world-famous tides, chocolate-colored rivers, covered bridges, and magnificent Red spruce and Yellow birch forests. We insist upon a visit to a private woodlot with Christmas tree plantations, sugar-bush operations, and a tree-census challenge – see who can identify all 27 of New Brunswick’s commercial tree species. Compared to Sweden’s three, that in itself is a major draw.
Following the 2011 Maritime fall tour, the company hopes to organize and recruit woodlot owners from Atlantic Canada for a similar Scandinavian tour in 2012.
PELLETS ON THE MARCH
It’s inexorable and largely undocumented. Like global warming or autumn’s relentless painted march across our glorious region, the conversion of one residence after another from oil to pellets, electric to pellets, and even wood to pellets, marches on. Through the oil price horrors of 2007, the sold-out pellet warehouses of 2008, and the supply flood of 2009, people keep buying pellet stoves. The guy from the local specialty stove store tells me they are selling one stove a day, while they are going out the door at the neighborhood Home Hardware outlet at the rate of two a week, and every incoming load of pellets has been pre-sold. The driver of the transport truck just in with a 24-pallet load of pellets from Shaw’s Shubenacadie plant remarked that last week when he was there, there were more than 1,000 pallets of pellets in the yard – this week there are none.
Through the ups and downs of surfeit and shortage, the consumer seems to have decided to take the pellet vow. For better or for worse, through sickness or health, these pellets are good for me. The industry has certainly had its fair share of growing pains, including production setbacks, market surprises, raw material shortages, financing nightmares, and not much help or encouragement from government. The lack of support is hard to understand, but maybe the new crowd will have a different attitude. After all, heating with pellets is good for the environment, the pocket-book, employment, private woodlots, the hardwood pulp mills (a hardwood tree not cut for firewood is now available to the pulp mill), and even the utilities (every electric heater eliminated by a pellet heater takes a bit of winter demand off the grid which means a little less expensive peak capacity that the utility has to maintain). The only ones the pellet business isn’t so good for are the oil companies and the firewood producers.
David Palmer
Correction
In the photo caption on page 29 of AFR September 2010 we misspelled Robin Barrett’s name.
We apologize.
