Outfitted in rain gear and sturdy boots, my husband and I reach the end of the forest trail on northern Vancouver Island. The woods are silent. The only sound is our breathing and the steady plop of drops from tall branches.

As the mist burns off, shafts of light appear through the canopy like a heavenly revelation. Light catches in the gauzy strands of moss draped from branches.

We stand at the foot of a giant Hemlock that is thought to be 1000 years old. “They say this tree was a seedling when the Vikings tried to settle in North America.” We continue in silence. I try to wrap my head around that many centuries and how much life has changed since then.

The information plaque calls this a “salmon tree”. Scientists have been able to measure isotopes of nitrogen and carbon in this hemlock that were also found in salmon living in the ocean. But we are far inland and at least 100m. from the stream. How is this possible?

Like a conveyor belt, salmon returning to rivers to spawn, bring nutrients from the ocean upstream to areas that would otherwise not benefit. Bears, eagles and other creatures including humans, transport salmon and their remains still further inland . . . right to the base of this tree. Hemlocks are said to grow three times faster when enriched with fish fertilizer.

“Not only that,” my husband says, “the animals leave droppings, the plants decompose and countless tiny creatures add to the mix that helps the tree grow.”

“They become the tree,” I say.
“Part animal, part vegetable,” he adds.
“Part human too. They breathe in our carbon dioxide
and give us oxygen.”

I’m reminded of a Roy Henry Vickers painting in which First Nations ancestors hover faintly in the background. I picture this venerable giant surrounded by ghosts of spawning salmon and the spirits of bears and eagles. I imagine the underground network that connects nearby trees in a web of life. And as always, the lungs of this great tree breathe in and out . . .in and out.

Copyright: Joanna Schwarz