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Sustaining the urban forest - The Maple Leaf Forever By Richard Ubbens, R.P.F. City Forester, Toronto, Ontario, Canada The Maple Leaf Forever – Canada’s first national anthem in the late 1860’s. The story is that Alexander Muir, while walking down Lange Street in Toronto, was inspired when a leaf fell upon his shoulder from a silver maple. This tree was around long before cars. Perhaps you can imagine what this tree has been through standing in a busy city for over a hundred and 50 years. While once a robust, fast growing specimen in an open lawn, it is now geriatric and needs constant pampering and extra care to make sure it does not drop a limb and inspire a different song. Many people become very upset when a large mature tree needs to be removed. In fact, many folks support repeated and more frequent maintenance of trees when trees decline in health and vigour. This particular tree, now designated the Maple Leaf Forever tree under the Ontario Heritage Act, has been a protected specimen for decades. My first dealing with this tree was when I received a call to remove the tree in the summer of 1987. This call arrived not long after Toronto Urban Forestry Services received calls to remove declining crack willows along the famous boardwalk in Toronto’s eastern beaches. On inspecting those trees, a forestry supervisor was approached by an elderly gentleman. He stood next to the supervisor, looked up and declared that he had courted his wife under those willows close to 60 years back. The supervisor wrote out a work order, reviewed it with his manager to make sure his opinion would be supported legally and the willows where essentially “headed back” or severely pruned. Most of them are still there today. The plight of the Maple Leaf Forever silver maple was determined shortly after that call. Retain the tree. It is important to Canada. About seven years later, a staff member came to me and said that while forestry had made a good call on maintaining the Maple Leaf Forever tree, the follow through was lacking. Specifically, she felt that urban forest management was missing from the decision. You can’t just maintain the forest, you have to replenish it constantly. Prodigy from the Maple Leaf Forever tree was needed - not a clone but actual offspring. Seed was collected by forestry staff who climbed the tree to pick the seed from the branches just to be sure the seed was actually from this designated tree. New silver maples were grown. Several actual offspring are now located in Maple Cottage park within a few metres of the parent tree and in Alexander Muir Gardens in North Toronto. The tale of this heritage tree and its prodigy was reported in a June 1998 Globe and Mail article. Well, every tree has a story and this one kept growing. Not long after the article was published, Christy Keyes of The Maple Leaf Forever, a non profit tree planting organization in Gananoque Ontario, called me. She had started this organization after the Eastern Canadian ice storm disaster. Her group’s idea was to start replanting trees in Eastern Ontario. We spoke on the phone and she asked me if, when she launched her program in Gananoque that summer, she could plant one of the now famous silver maple offspring. A wonderful way to start the new organization off! But, a tree planting organization named after the first national anthem of Canada deserved a good start. Tree Plan Canada came to the plate for The Maple Leaf Forever with “seed money” of $70,000. And the Prime Minister of Canada, the Right Hon. Jean Cretien, as well as two members of parliament and other distinguished dignitaries, came to plant this little famous tree from Toronto in front of a huge scrum of cameras. As City Forester for Toronto, I was privileged to address the crowd gathered for the launch of this urban reforestation effort on August 10, 1998:
In travelling to Gananoque, I thought it prudent to bring an extra sapling. One never knows what might come up. As it turns out, Prime Minister Jean Cretien was flying from Gananoque by helicopter to Shawinigan Quebec that afternoon. Guess where the extra tree went and how it got there - in the seat next to the PM with RCMP escorts. Not every tree will have a history of such importance and photographic evidence from the early 1900’s of its existence as a large tree in the city. But the stories that urban foresters hear of why a tree is important to people and why they should be saved at all cost are certainly interesting and often moving. Indeed, much effort must be put into nurturing trees and the very soil they grow in to keep them healthy and safe. The soil is their foundation and utility system. The benefits trees provide range from contributing to wonderful relationships, binding a country together in song, creating beautiful neighbourhoods and homes to providing healthy air to breath. So often lost in discussions to preserve trees
is the need to provide new ones. This needs to be more than just a practice.
It is a duty. It is patriotic. It is unselfish to invest a moment doing
something positive for the environment that future generations of city
dwellers will live in.
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