Conservationists with the Ancient Forest Alliance have identified what may very well be Canada’s most impressive tree. This gargantuan redcedar measures over 17 feet (5 metres) wide near its base and 151 feet (46 metres) tall. However, unlike most other trees, its trunk becomes wider as it rises, culminating in a sprawling, fortress-like crown of wooden spires akin to the massive wooden wall of an ancient castle.
This giant could have the largest or near the largest wood volume of any tree in Canada for about the first 50 feet of its trunk – the part you see and experience from the ground. This would make it, experientially, perhaps the most impressive tree in Canada despite other cedars being taller or ranking higher overall. See a video of the immense tree.
It grows in a remote region of Flores Island, in Ahousaht territory, within Clayoquot Sound, BC. It has been referred to as ‘The Wall,’ or ‘ʔiiḥaq ḥumiis,’ meaning ‘big redcedar’ in the Nuu-chah-nulth language.
AFA photographer and campaigner TJ Watt first located and photographed the tree in 2022 before returning in the spring of 2023 with Tyson Atleo, Hereditary Representative of the Ahousaht Nation and the Natural Climate Solutions Program Director of Nature United, along with members of the Maaqutusiis Hahoutlhee Stewardship Society.
Later, in 2024, 760 km² – or over half of Clayoquot Sound’s forests – were protected through a series of 10 new Conservancies announced by the Ahousaht and Tla-o-qui-aht First Nations and the BC NDP government. Most of the lands committed for protection comprise some of the grandest and most intact coastal old-growth temperate rainforests on Earth, including the forest where this tree grows.
Victories like these serve as an inspiring model for what’s possible throughout BC.
Please speak up! Help us call for greater old-growth protection by sending an instant message to the BC government today.
