Enchanted by the tall trees of Cathedral Grove on Vancouver Island

 by Keith and Heather Nicol

This Douglas Fir is over 800 years old

Vancouver Island is known for its tall trees and Cathedral Grove in MacMillian Provincial Park is one of the easily accessible and most visited areas to see some of these giants up close. We stopped into see Cathedral Grove on Thursday, December 4 and although it was cool and raining lightly we still were enchanted by this magical setting. Cathedral Grove is located just over 20 kilometers west on highway 4 from the main island highway.  Highway 4 is also the route to Port Alberni and Tofino and so it is well marked. 

 Cathedral Grove is especially known for its tall stands of douglas fir located on the south side of the road. One massive douglas fir is 76 meters tall, 9 meters around at the base and is over 800 years old! There are also impressive stands of ancient Western red cedar on the north side of road. Our only regret is that we didn’t bring a tripod since the trails that wind through the large stands of trees are quite dark even during the day. We ended up having to balance to the camera on some of the wooden fencing to get these pictures.For more information see: http://www.env.gov.bc.ca/bcparks/explore/parkpgs/macmillan/

The vegetation is lush and comes in numerous shades of green

Heather looking up toward the tree tops