Winter Solstice 2024: The Sacred Tree
Trees have always been part of our family. My father was a sawyer as well as a farmer. My mother grew up on the “Dust Bowl” prairies of the 1930s and for all her adult life planted and nurtured trees wherever she could. We still have a “quarter section” of boreal forest in the family. Though as a child I often tired of tree duties—watering, weeding, hoeing, not to mention filling the wood box for our stove (my daily chore at four years old)—trees are in my blood.
Trees are considered holy in many cultures: rowan (Irish), oak (English), spruce (German), cedar (Coast Salish), ceiba (Mayan), bodhi (Buddhist), and kauri (M?ori), to name a few. Many outlive people, provide layers of habitat to birds, small and large animals. Provide shade, shelter and fruit to humans. Provide medicines. We still see the survivals of this reverence in the Western traditions of the Maypole and the Christmas evergreen. The Christian church tried to replicate the heights and majesty of ancient old growth forests in its European medieval cathedrals. The same feeling, I propose, that city planners and architects today attempt to reconstruct with skyscrapers.
When I walk along the North Saskatchewan River kisiskâciwani-sîpiy or “swift-flowing river” in nêhiyawêwin (Cree); Omaka-ty or “the big river” in Niitsitapi (Blackfoot), I am always listening and watching for other creatures: the chickadees, woodpeckers, and nuthatches; the wind; the coyotes, hares, and squirrels; the grasses, the light; the bees, mosquitos, and butterflies; the bushes, the trees, the water; among others. I ponder. Perhaps that’s how I started thinking about the Manitoba maple (acer negundo) growing all along the river edge in Dawson Park (which crosses over the old River Lot 20 where I live today.) Their pretty winged seed pods, pink-edged in fall, tan in winter. Their gnarly trunks and wizardly branches. Manitoba Maples are drought and flood tolerant, adaptable to any soil, form clumps (read: grow in community), have a tendency to find their footing on riverbanks and floodplains. Manitoba Maples have an average lifespan of 60 years, but it seems that some well exceed that. How did they get here? They’re not native.
The notes on the 1882 survey of the Edmonton Settlement list four types of vegetation starting from the river flats to the heights: “prairie,” “brush,” “swamp” and “poplar timber.” That’s pretty much the description both sides of the river in all directions, with minor changes to the order. Good habitat for beaver, aka Beaver Hills House or amiskwacîwâskahikan (one of Edmonton’s earliest names). Also good habitat for Indigenous peoples for whom the prairie fed bison; brush and swamp meant berries, medicines, large and small game. We also know before settlement that Indigenous peoples practiced cultural burns to renew and replenish the land for these creatures.
I have a theory that the Manitoba Maple were introduced by the Métis and others with a connection to the original Red River Settlement. And even though eye witness accounts say that the forests were practically gone from the Red River Valley by the 1870s, paintings and photographs from that time still show the odd shade tree in yards. What kind is not clear. But fossil records for the same period show that the Métis people still burned local Manitoba maples in their fireplaces at least some of the time. I wonder if the Métis chose the Manitoba maple as a testament to their survival and resilience? Both as a memory and a dream: a place they once loved, a place that held a vision of a different kind of Canada and the experience of a different kind of community?
Métis Laurent Garneau migrated to Edmonton from St. Andrews Parish on the Red River and planted a single Manitoba maple behind his house on River Lot 7 on the southside of the river in 1874, where it presided until 2017. Richard Charles Hardisty, Chief Factor of the Hudson’s Bay Company, first Métis Senator and advocate for Métis rights, planted a circle of maples around his garden at 106 Street and 97 Avenue in 1875, just outside the walls of Fort Edmonton. Mr. Hardisty grew up in the Red River Settlement. In 1906 David Latta planted the same tree on a corner of his riverside property at Jasper Avenue and 90th Street within the old confines of River Lot 20. Here he built a new house for his second wife, a Métis woman named Emily Decoteau, whose father fought in the Riel Resistance. Other settlers planted them too, but these were some of the earliest.
These days the kisiskâciwani-sîpiy valley near where I live is a cacophony of flora from many other places and even continents, very much reflecting the people who live here. Domestic gardens and fields run feral, including the Manitoba maple: pine, mountain ash (rowan), green and black ash, elm, oak, false holly, lilac, caragana, goji berry from the Himalayas, buckthorn, Canada thistle, and burdock, grow alongside their native fellows: poplar, trembling aspen, birch, spruce, chokecherry, cranberry, gooseberry, saskatoon, wild rose, red willow, sage, wild onion, yarrow, and wild grasses. Their multiplicity, a lesson in human relations. To quote a Beaver Bundle carrier, Ryan First Diver, we are here to learn from plants and animals so we can mature as a species. Some dominate and destroy. Others work alongside their fellows. Together they’re holding this space for us. And this light.
12 Comments
M.J.Thibodeau - art in clay name is jano
December 21, 2024AUDREY – wow – praise praise praise to you WO/man – I want to write of your knowledge, of your deep sense of BEING from BEGINNINGS – the only way to reveal YOU is to copy your WINTER SOSLTICE LETTER 2024 to my children and friends.
I have been going through a life changing illness – during the INTENSE HEAT of the SUN during the months of June and July 2024 – I suffered mini hidden strokes.
Through medical tests of blood and urine a diagnose was made. Now 5 months later I am felling better but the effects are in my cellular body – I am in the process of moving into a senior housing on February 1.2025.
my email will be the same but my phone numbers will be changed –
Aurevoir Audrey dearest beauty, life is mystery ~ j. born 1935 10 10.
– because of being born in this Religion of sex by men-made God, the priest registered my birth by baptized birth on the 11 of October – absolutely insane belief to hurry to get baby me just a day old to church to get baptized – plus the name my maman had give me Jeanne d’Arc – the priest renamed me Marie – and wrote Jeanne – so I became Marie Jeanne born 1935 10 11.
Then more problems when to get married in 1957 I needed my birth certificate – so I wrote to the Parish town where I was born and no where in the birth book of the parish I did not exist –
Audrey
December 23, 2024Joan of Arc! That explains everything:) You have been true to your intended birth name, Jano. All peace as you make your way through this transition time of your life.
Betty Jane Hegerat
December 21, 2024Thank you, Audrey. A surprising variety of trees in this small neighbourhood. I stopped many times on my walk this afternoon to pay homage.
Audrey
December 23, 2024Yes, we have many trees all around us, insiders and outsiders; thanks paying homage 🙂 Audrey
Janice Pelletier
December 21, 2024As always, Audrey – beautifully said!
Thanks for your gift – and for sharing it with us.
Warmest thoughts and biggest hugs – Janice
Audrey
December 23, 2024Thanks Janice, Merry Christmas!
aw
Mark S
December 23, 2024Very interesting reflection on the Manitoba maple, Audrey! I had assumed they were native to central Alberta, but on looking into it I see their range is usually considered to extend from eastern North America only to Saskatchewan or so. Your theory about how they got to Edmonton seems highly plausible. I suppose the seeds of this tree would be easy to transport and plant, and it would promise some shade within a decade. Most people now think of it as weedy (at best “scrappy”), but maybe that would have been an attraction to Garneau and other Metis settlers in these parts. I am fascinated by the box elder bugs associated with the tree (its English name, box elder), which get into most houses in the Parkdale area and which my kids have called “Harlequin bugs” all along. I saw an online defence of the box elder by an ecologist from Milwaukee who claims that the caterpillars of 285 different moths and butterflies depend on the box elder (or its fruit and seeds) to survive through the winter.
Audrey
December 23, 2024Thanks Mark for your reading and reflections. I’ve had those bugs in my place too! But yes, there’s a whole ecosystem involved isn’t there. Thanks for delving, Audrey
Pearl Gregor
December 23, 2024Such an insightful lovely story of trees, maple trees at least 70 years old grace the west side of the farm and many more planted in-the 70s and 90s. The seeds are very prolific and many were given away to friends and neighbours in the past two years! I left my long time home after 51 years on September 6, 2024! The trees are in good hands. The farm sold to a young couple who love it as I did.
Thanks for the history lesson of trees!
Audrey
December 23, 2024Dear Pearl, Thanks for sharing about your maples. I’ve wondered how things were on the farm. To everything there is a season and it sounds like you have passed on something good there. Happy Christmas, Audrey
Henny Flinterman Vroege
December 31, 2024Thank you, dear Audrey. Beautifully said, so well researched. Much appreciated! Blessings to you, and sending love.
Audrey
January 1, 2025Thanks for reading, Henny. Warm wishes for a Happy New Year!