Biggest Trees

The temperate rainforests of British Columbia are home to some of the largest and oldest trees on Earth. Due to the high annual rainfall and 12-month growing season, old-growth Sitka spruce, Douglas-fir, and western redcedar trees can grow to be as wide as a living room, as tall as a downtown skyscraper, and live to be more than a thousand years old. They inspire wonder and awe in people around the globe.

On Vancouver Island, grow the world’s largest-known Douglas-fir, the Red Creek Fir, the world’s largest-known redcedar, the Cheewhat Giant, and Canada’s largest spruce, San Jo’s Smiley. The town of Port Renfrew on southern Vancouver Island, known as the “Tall Trees Capital of Canada,” is where you can find burly redcedars at the famed Avatar Grove, the magnificent San Juan Spruce, as well as Big Lonely Doug, Canada’s second-largest Douglas-fir tree. The tallest known tree in Canada is a 315 ft (96 m) Sitka spruce dubbed the Carmanah Giant in the Carmanah Valley. The widest is a redcedar at Cheewhat Lake, which is nearly 20 ft (6 m) in diameter. The very “biggest” overall, though, for each species are crowned as such based on their volume in cubic meters. See the BC Big Tree Registry for more lists of record-sized trees and how to measure them.

Evolving over centuries, these big trees are part of larger old forest ecosystems that, with their varied canopies and lush flora, provide unique habitat, carbon storage, tourism, and cultural and spiritual values.

We hope you enjoy this gallery of photos taken by AFA campaigner and photographer TJ Watt. To visit some of the trees yourself, check out this Big Tree Map of the Port Renfrew area or the Big Tree Registry Map.

Though a few of these towering trees are protected from logging, many are not. We encourage you to speak up for big trees and ancient forests in BC by sending an instant message to the BC government today.