AFR: Hats off to the young people who do planting, PCT (pre-commercial thinning), crop tree release, and pruning, and to your article that tells all about it (“Youthful exuberance, anyone?” AFR Nov. 2020, page 6). There is such a great need to bring back forests from the mess made by all those men working the joysticks in the huge harvesters, in air-conditioned cabs. We could use a few more articles about all this hard work and restorative forestry. What a great way to self-distance during this COVID period. Maybe some of our foresters could gain some insight into the work by coming out of the office and having a go with a thinning saw. There is certainly enough work for all.

Charles Jess
Yarmouth, N.S.

AFR: Your thoughtful exploration of climate change, and its likely impacts on forest composition and range shifts among Atlantic Canada’s trees, was engrossing (“Planning for resilience,” AFR Jan. 2021, page 6).
One minor aspect that intrigued me was that of side effects, especially for White pine and the two aspens. As you know, White pine hereabouts is often plagued by blister rust fungus and Pine shoot weevil, causing dieback and forked crowns respectively. Since the rust’s alternate host is Ribes spp. (wild currants and gooseberries), removing those within a 300-metre radius is prudent.
As for the weevil, a standard practice – since the insect likes to work low, shunning shade and wind – is to provide a light deciduous overstory to shade your pine regen or plantings till they’re five to six metres tall. Aspen being deep-rooted, with non-acidic leaf-fall, competition isn’t a problem, considering the benefit. At that height, it’s either harvested (for spoolwood or coffee stir sticks?) or felled and junked for compost/carbon storage. Should warming conditions preclude semi-boreal Trembling aspen, our more temperate Large-toothed aspen may be the better choice.
Congrats on tackling such a ticklish topic, and handling it so well.

Gary Saunders
Clifton, N.S.

One of N.B.’s royal woodspeople, D.C. Butterfield.
AFR: Forestry/woodlands – a part of the history of the Atlantic provinces, with sustainability the key, paralleled with diversity and conservation. Some history: In the May 19, 1994 Tobique Times, I wrote an article titled “Museum Researched Tobique Wildlife,” which dealt predominantly with the fact that “… the prestigious American Museum of Natural History, New York, N.Y., sent expeditions to the Tobique River region of New Brunswick in 1893 and 1894 … for the purpose of securing proper items for their ‘moose group’ at the museum.” (I had contacted them.) Surprisingly, perhaps, they noted that, “The forest is wholly second-growth, the original having been long since removed by lumbermen.” (They successfully got their moose, and they returned in 1894!) Mr. Johnson Rowley Jr., chief of the Department of Taxidermy, led the expeditions in both ’93 and ’94. A full century past. Perhaps they weren’t as understanding of the issues, other maybe than economic, that are equivalized in today’s modern, mechanized forest harvesting. For myself, particularly in this COVID year, I really enjoy the recreational aspects provided by our woodlands, especially snowshoeing, in this, my 75th year. Some of my trails I have travelled for more than four decades. And still, I find great relief from the stresses and vicissitudes of daily life. So calm, so quiet, so peaceful. Fresh air, fresh snow, fresh tracks. Recently, however, a major windstorm put many blowdowns and “benders” across my trails. So, I took up my three-foot bucksaw and my double-bitted axe (given to me by two great men shortly after I arrived here, when they saw – no pun intended! – that I had a need and could use them). I’m sometimes reminded of my cousin hollering, “The woodsman’s the king!” Actually, the woodsman’s still the king. Woodsman is used here as a generic term, while realizing, recognizing, and fully respecting that all genders are, and must be so treated, equal in our woodlands!

D.C. Butterfield
Kilburn, N.B.