Ancient Trees of Vancouver

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The 4th Largest Tree on Earth. This giant sequoia has lived through over 2,000 winters and summers. Today, it reaches a ...
05/03/2026

The 4th Largest Tree on Earth. This giant sequoia has lived through over 2,000 winters and summers. Today, it reaches a height of 78 m (255.8 ft), a diameter at breast height of 8 m (26.3 ft), and a total volume estimated at 1,260 cubic metres (44,471 cubic ft). That’s about the size of 20 city buses or the volume of a 747 jet. You can walk through this giants fire scarred trunk with tunnels shaped by flames over centuries.

One of the World’s Largest Trees on Earth, a Coastal Redwood in the famous Grove of Titans. Growing for close to or more...
04/20/2026

One of the World’s Largest Trees on Earth, a Coastal Redwood in the famous Grove of Titans. Growing for close to or more than 2000 years, this tree ranks in the top 10 of largest coastal redwoods and is one of the largest trees overall. Coastal redwood trees are the second largest tree species on earth, and only the very biggest giant sequoias are slightly larger.

Only about 3% of the original ancient costal redwoods remain due to the short sightedness of humans. Luckily, a few visionary people were able to shift political and public opinion, helping save what’s left for hopefully eternity.

Leaders like Abraham Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt helped lay the foundation for protecting these landscapes. Lincoln signed the 1864 Yosemite Grant, saving 3000 year old giant sequoia trees and it was one of the first times land was set aside for public protection, and Roosevelt later expanded protections dramatically, creating the visionary National Parks, monuments, and forest reserves that helped safeguard ancient forests and all the animals within.

Now, groups like Oregon Wild are raising the alarm about remaining ancient forests at threat today in the USA:

“Forests in western Oregon managed by the BLM include important wildlife habitat, recreation areas, drinking water sources, and some of our last remaining mature and old growth forests on public lands. A new proposal by the Trump administration could sacrifice them for short term profit.”

Trump has no care for these ancient sentinels of California, Oregon, or Washington. Unlike these great leaders of the past, he will be seen as the opposite and could become responsible for 1000 year old trees being turned into short term economic profits, followed by irreplaceable damage to the already fragile last ancient ecosystems and the rare species that rely on them.

These trees are worth more standing. Once abundant, they are now rare and they still need your voice, so please reach out via OregonWild.org to find out how to help and write about why these trees must remain as is! Writing in makes a HUGE difference. nature

The North Shore’s largest Douglas Fir, the Temple Giant. Growing on the slopes of Seymour Valley in North Vancouver, thi...
04/16/2026

The North Shore’s largest Douglas Fir, the Temple Giant. Growing on the slopes of Seymour Valley in North Vancouver, this is the last fully intact fir of this class size in the area, a size which was once abundant in what today is Vancouver and the lowlands where these giants once thrived. This tree is found deep up the valley and on a steep slope. Everything else that was even bigger and more productive down the valley to the ocean has been destroyed. Although the watershed was protected for drinking water as early as 1905, logging resumed in the mid 1900s for resource use and continued until public pressure and conservation efforts brought it to an end in the 1990s. During the 90s people like Will Koop, along with Ralf Kelman who found this tree, raised awareness to stop the completely idiotic concept of logging these 800 to 1000+ year old giant firs. This tree lives within the Lower Seymour Conservation Reserve. The Temple Giant is 3 m wide and 85 m tall. There is only one other known fir of this width in the North Shore mountains, the Hollyburn Fir, which is around 1100 years old. The Hollyburn fir long ago snapped and lost most of its height but once would have been as tall as this harder to reach giant.

03/13/2026

On Japanese TV they featured my Ancient Trees of Vancouver Tour. I run these tours to raise awareness and foster reverence for these ancient landscapes and the trees, which take hundreds of years to reach this size, along with all the animals that call these giants home.

On the tour I show people Vancouver’s last giants, where just 150 years ago the whole city was covered in some of the world’s biggest trees. We visit Vancouver’s last ancient trees and some of the largest remaining, including massive western red cedars around 1,000 years old, Canada’s largest maple tree, and towering Douglas fir giants.

The tour highlights the ongoing fight to protect old growth. Even today, trees over 1,000 years old can still be logged in British Columbia, despite how few remain. I am a member of the BC Big Tree Registry, where we find and document these giants and work to protect them. Anyone can get involved by finding trees, nominating them, and helping to conserve these ancient forests for future generations.

Many thanks to Tourism Japan for covering my company. Tours begin again April 2nd. Book soon before they sell out.

Save all old growth 🌲

A massive western red cedar (Thuja plicata) growing on the shores of Kennedy Lake on Vancouver Island, Canada. Due to we...
03/08/2026

A massive western red cedar (Thuja plicata) growing on the shores of Kennedy Lake on Vancouver Island, Canada. Due to wet soils, the red cedar of the Pacific Northwest grows very shallow roots, usually only 1–2 feet deep. This results in the tree having a flared base to stabilize it. This is one of the most dramatic examples of that flared, buttressed base. The tree flares so much that its diameter when measured at breast height is near a record, but it grows near trees much smaller in diameter that are likely much larger in volume, showing that simply measuring a tree’s diameter is not necessarily the best way to determine the largest tree. But for us ants, these extremely large bases are often the most impressive, since it’s where we roam.

This tree grows in the Clayoquot Beach Recreation Site, where protesters gathered during the Clayoquot Sound protests, often called the “War in the Woods.” Demonstrators blockaded the bridge across Kennedy Lake here to stop logging trucks heading toward the old-growth forests of Clayoquot Sound. The mass arrests here in the 1990s became the largest act of civil disobedience in Canadian history at the time, but the conflict over logging in the region lasted for many more years. It is hard to imagine, over 30 years later, that we are still cutting giant cedar, spruce, fir, and hemlock down on Vancouver Island and elsewhere in British Columbia. These giants can take over 1,000 years to grow and only take a few hours to cut down.

The Stoltmann Cedar. Randy Stoltmann was a visionary conservationist and the godfather of big tree seeking in Canada. Fr...
02/24/2026

The Stoltmann Cedar. Randy Stoltmann was a visionary conservationist and the godfather of big tree seeking in Canada. From an early age, Randy became an expert on big trees and began documenting the last ancient forests in British Columbia. He was instrumental in saving what is now Carmanah Walbran Provincial Park and in protecting Clayoquot Sound, ensuring these ancient forests remain standing today. He also founded BC’s first official Big Tree Registry, now run as the BC Big Tree Registry. He wrote the bibles for big tree seeking in the Pacific Northwest, authoring Hiking Guide to the Big Trees of British Columbia and Hiking the Ancient Forests of British Columbia and Washington. Without Randy Stoltmann, far fewer ancient giants would be standing today. Sadly, at age 32 he died in the wilderness of B.C. doing what he loved most, ending far too early one of the most dedicated and successful battles to save forests ever undertaken by an individual. His legacy continues each year as new big trees are added to the registry.

Even over 30 years after his death, Randy’s work and our ancient forests are under threat. At a recent Council of Forest Industries meeting in Prince George, Minister of Forests Ravi Parmar () suggested that provincial parks and Old Growth Management Areas could be logged for so-called wildfire resilience. This is deception, plain and simple. Old growth forests naturally slow, resist, and in some cases even stop the spread of major wildfires. They manage themselves as they have for thousands of years.

Parks and Old Growth Management Areas are critical. They safeguard the last intact forests, rare species, and important habitats, and they preserve the largest remaining forests in our country. Logging in these areas would destroy irreplaceable ecosystems and undermine the very purpose of their protection.

Severe wildfires today are tied to decades of clearcutting and dense tree farms. Logging old forests under the guise of wildfire prevention is dangerous and a lie.

Take action! Contact:
Minister of Forests Ravi Parmar [email protected]
Also send same message to
Premier David Eby
[email protected]
250‑387‑1715

The Stoltmann Cedar. Randy Stoltmann was a visionary conservationist and the godfather of big tree seeking in Canada. Fr...
02/24/2026

The Stoltmann Cedar. Randy Stoltmann was a visionary conservationist and the godfather of big tree seeking in Canada. From an early age, Randy became an expert on big trees and began documenting the last ancient forests in British Columbia. He was instrumental in saving what is now Carmanah Walbran Provincial Park and in protecting Clayoquot Sound, ensuring these ancient forests remain standing today. He also founded BC’s first official Big Tree Registry, now run as the BC Big Tree Registry. He wrote the bibles for big tree seeking in the Pacific Northwest, authoring Hiking Guide to the Big Trees of British Columbia and Hiking the Ancient Forests of British Columbia and Washington. Without Randy Stoltmann, far fewer ancient giants would be standing today. Sadly, at age 32 he died in the wilderness of B.C. doing what he loved most, ending far too early one of the most dedicated and successful battles to save forests ever undertaken by an individual. His legacy continues each year as new big trees are added to the registry.

Even over 30 years after his death, Randy’s work and our ancient forests are under threat. At a recent Council of Forest Industries meeting in Prince George, Minister of Forests Ravi Parmar suggested that provincial parks and Old Growth Management Areas could be logged for so-called wildfire resilience. This is deception, plain and simple. Old growth forests naturally slow, resist, and in some cases even stop the spread of major wildfires. They manage themselves as they have for thousands of years.

Parks and Old Growth Management Areas are critical. They safeguard the last intact forests, rare species, and important habitats, and they preserve the largest remaining forests in our country. Logging in these areas would destroy irreplaceable ecosystems and undermine the very purpose of their protection.

Severe wildfires today are tied to decades of clearcutting and dense tree farms. Logging old forests under the guise of wildfire prevention is dangerous and a lie.

Take action and contact:
Minister of Forests Ravi Parmar at [email protected]

also send the same message to
Premier David Eby
[email protected]
250‑387‑1715

The Giant Pacific Octopus Tree. Growing deep in the forests of North Vancouver, this ancient western red cedar’s thick r...
02/07/2026

The Giant Pacific Octopus Tree. Growing deep in the forests of North Vancouver, this ancient western red cedar’s thick roots are the size of your average cedar trunk. The roots for centuries have slowly slithered down slope between the jagged boulders it germinated on.

Was this once the world’s largest western red cedar? It most definitely appears visually to be the largest fallen tree I...
02/04/2026

Was this once the world’s largest western red cedar? It most definitely appears visually to be the largest fallen tree I’ve ever seen, and it must have once been near or even beyond the size of today’s largest cedar, the Cheewhat Giant. Are my eyes playing tricks on me? I’ve been contemplating attempting to wrap part of this tree with measuring tape or scanning it with LiDAR to try and get a volume. The complication is that this ancient giant fell so long ago it is now sinking into the moist, luxuriant forest floor. Western red cedar is extremely rot resistant wood, and a fallen tree like this can remain impressive and solid for hundreds of years before slowly but surely turning into a massive pile of soil.

This tree once grew near the shores of Kennedy Lake at Rainbow Beach, where many amazing cedars still grow today. Sadly, the area is small, and some of the largest logged stumps nearby create a stark boundary between the ancient world preserved in this little beach area, known as the Kennedy Rec Site at Rainbow Beach, and what was removed forever to become timber farms logged again and again over time. Unlike the logged giants nearby, this tree was able to live a full life, eventually falling simply due to old age.

These are photos of possibly one of the world’s largest trees and a record breaking sized western red cedar. The man who...
01/27/2026

These are photos of possibly one of the world’s largest trees and a record breaking sized western red cedar. The man who found today’s record sized red cedar claimed to know of an even bigger tree, occasionally showing people in his office a shocking photo of the tree, but the location he said would be a secret that he would take to his grave. Although some thought him to be telling a tall tale, upon his death at age 90 the photos of the mythically sized tree were discovered amongst his belongings, showing a tree larger than any cedar tree known to man. One of the photos is simply labeled, “Tyee Chief, mystery tree, west coast Vancouver island, diameter 26+ ft.” making this one of the largest trees ever photographed, and the biggest cedar tree ever recorded in history. The location of the tree still remains unknown.

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