Freda Mountain
From the Knuckleheads, Sentinel, and Skwim you can see her volcano-like profile, often with a shawl of cloud cloaked around her flanks. The community of Powell River uses a beautiful trail climbing through ancient forests, sensitive sub alpine meadows and tarns to access the summit at 1865 meters year round for hiking and skiing.
Ecologically, wet coastal forests dominated by Cedar and Hemlock are good examples of where natural disturbances are rare and often the whole forest can be much older than their oldest trees. Sometimes 3000 + as an ecosystem. Trees at high elevation grow very slowly. Many tree rings are less than 1 mm wide. 1000 yr old trees can be less than 1 meter in diameter.
The Freda forest could possibly be some of the oldest forests in Canada and apart of the oldest living closed canopy forests in the world.
44 kms as the crow flies to the south from the Freda forests, is the Caran Forest. It is located on the lower Sunshine Coast and has world record holders for the yellow cedar and hemlock. It is in the same subalpine biogeoclimatic zone as the mountain hemlock/ yellow cedar forests here in our qathet backcountry.
Freda Cedar 1200 yrs
Caran Cedar 1824 yrs
Freda Hemlock 800 yrs
Caran Hemlock 1250 yrs
The Freda ages were discovered from taking 14 samples in Block ST-60 after a WFP harvest in October 2021. The Caran ages were reported at the World Forestry Congress
Recommendations from the Old Growth Strategic Review PG 63
Work with a team of inventory and habitat mapping specialists and scientific experts in the management of old forests and classification to develop a new classification system for old forests.
Add new age classes to the current inventory system.
a. Recommend 250-500 years, 500-1,000 years and 1,000 years plus (confirm these new age class definitions with old forest experts).