4 // COASTWEEKEND.COM
A majestic sentinel of the woods
A stand of Sitka spruce in Clatsop County
The web of life: Ivy vines wrap around an old-
growth tree.
A massive cedar stump
CLOSE TO HOME: THE SECRET LIFE OF TREES
Photos and story by
DAVID CAMPICHE
FOR COAST WEEKEND
T
ree huggers: Here is the new mani-
festo.
Trees do possess instincts, emo-
tions and protective mannerisms. They even
communicate, though at levels that fall below
the range of human hearing.
Who sayeth this? Among others, author
and scientist, Peter Wohlleben, the dedicat-
ed forester who wrote the acclaimed “The
Hidden Life of Trees: What They Feel, How
They Communicate.”
In an earlier column, I confessed to hug-
ging a cedar tree that stands in a path leading
to one of my coveted mushroom patches
— an ent-like sentinel if ever there was one.
I now confess to pressing my back into this
amazing tree and lingering in its presence,
often napping, and making small talk with my
friend. Of course, the cedar never answers, at
least not in human vernacular. Does it com-
municate? I believe so, though I am at some
loss to explain just how.
Wohlleben examines the relationship
among trees, the transfer from mother tree to
younger saplings of sugar, water and miner-
als. They exhibit a confluence of “relation-
ships, alliances and kinship networks.” Those
are the words of Richard Grant, a writer for
the Smithsonian, who prepared the article on
Wohlleben.
In other words, trees are in tune with each
other and possibly us, as well as other crea-
tures from the natural world.
Any serious mushroom hunter is aware of
the symbiotic relationship between fungi and
diverse tree and root systems.
Mushrooms like “chicken of the woods”
suck at the marrow of those massive cedar
stumps, leftovers of the golden logging age.
Porcini gather in pockets of moss under live
Sitka spruce and flourish. Chanterelles prefer
second-growth fir forests. Each mushroom
seems to choose a specific environment.
Fungi absorb minerals and water from the
roots of the mature trees. In turn, they feed
nutrition back into these forest mother ships.
They nourish each other through a lacework
called mycelia.
Kinship with trees
And may it be said that these sentinels
nourish us, you and me. Inspiration comes in
many shapes. Many of us — choosing to live
in the Pacific Northwest, in this Columbia-Pa-
cific cocoon of breathtaking ocean and river
visages and blossoms of natural beauty — find
within the woods an undefinable spirituality.
That relationship is sometimes called panthe-
ism and predicates a meaningful relationship in
the magnificence of wilderness havens.
Recently, driving through the Avenue of
the Giants — that winding Northern Califor-
nia road that puts on a display of magnificent
redwoods — I was refreshed and inspired. At
times, I was struck with the impression that
those ancient trees were looking at me, study-
ing these strange earth creatures who cut and
tear at forest and copse without any sense of
the rights and nobility of this living environ.
Understand, I grew up with and around
hardworking loggers and woodsmen who,
aside from their dutiful commitment to large
timber corporations, felt a definite affinity
to this same environment that inspires us,
day after day. But they had a job to do, and
hungry bodies to feed at home. And the
times were different in the early to mid 20th
century. There simply weren’t a lot of job
opportunities. Men were men, and the virgin
forest represented opportunity and profit.
Old-growth timber came down in droves until
very little remains today.
Nobody would have considered that trees
feel danger or emotions or protective instincts
for their younger kind, or that they can form
clan-like relationships with each other. Or
that younger trees might have some strange
reverence for the old giants, the ancient ones,
their ancestors. And having said that, I have
put myself out on a limb, so to speak.
Wohlleben and others, such as Suzanne
Simard at the University of British Columbia
in Vancouver, make compelling — not defin-
itive — arguments of a hidden reality among
trees communicating with their kin, with
insects and four-legged animals. And perhaps,
with us. And perhaps not, for communication
comes in as many colors as the feathered
cloak of a male peacock and remains hard to
identify.
Many of the Native Peoples felt this sense
of kinship with trees. They used them for
totems, longhouses and canoes. They crafted
masks and clothing and fishhooks and nets.
Cedar trees were woven into their culture.
They respected their tree cousins. They
consulted with the forest around them, before
felling a single tree.
Many of the early Euro-Americans
defined such affinities as a form of lunacy.
Not only did these pioneers and governments
steal Native lands, but had the audacity to hire
many of the Natives along the coast of British
Columbia to cut down their own forests. After
otter and salmon populations had been devas-
tated, there were few economic opportunities
for these proud indigenous people. And if a
toppled tree didn’t kill you, the wages were
good.
Treebeard would approve
We humans see things in our own
perspective. “A man hears what he wants
to hear and disregards the rest,” Simon and
Garfunkel said. Certainly, that applies to
most of us.
What we can’t hear or see or smell flies
beyond the perception of our experiences.
What might an author or woodsman feel
when confronted with one of the remaining
old-growth forests, walking undisturbed
through filtered sunlight (or in the rain)
among the giant Sequoias in California, or
witnessing a tree that spires over 300 feet into
the clear blue sky?
Have you ever wondered how a sapling
that receives but 3 percent of the available
light from the sun survives? According to
this new science, they are nurtured by the
mother trees, fed water and sugars through
networks of nearly invisible root endings
into even smaller tree veins and arteries. And
much is transferred through a host of fungi.
This remains a give-and-take relationship.
As Wohlleben closes on this mystery, he
projects a form of consciousness exhibited
by a tree-like community with keen instincts.
Still, at times, he equivocates: “I don’t think
trees have a conscious life, but we don’t
know. We must at least talk about the rights of
trees. We must manage our forests sustain-
ably and respectfully, and allow some trees
to grow old with dignity, and to die a natural
death.”
Treebeard from Tolkien’s Middle Earth
would approve. CW