Pacific Pando: Hunting For Pacific Spirit's Lost Aspen Grove and Why We Should Save It
- Ryan Regier
- May 29
- 6 min read
I was looking through the 1991 Management Plan for Pacific Spirit Park (still the most current Management Plan for the Park!) and was shocked when I found came across a reference to Pacific Spirit having an Aspen Grove.
Aspens are fascinating because they are a clonal tree. This means that an entire forest of Aspen can be just one single tree that has spread by growing stems from roots. A famous example of this is Utah's Pando. Pando is single aspen clone that has grown into a forest of 106 acres. That is the same size as Vancouver's Jericho Beach Park, which includes the forest, pond, and beach. Pando is massive! It is believed to be the world's largest organism (by weight) and perhaps also the oldest. It's next to impossible to date, because old stems/trunks die and new ones grow. The best estimates put it at about 10,000 years old. Meaning it started growing after the last Ice Age! Isn't that incredible? It could be both the biggest and oldest creature ever to exist.
Does Pacific Spirit Park have it's own forgotten Pando sitting right under our noses? Pacific Pando was a mystery I had to solve.
I knew there was a small collection of Aspens in front of the entrance to Camosun Bog, but there weren't enough of those to classify as a grove.
The 1991 Management Plan turned out to be most recent documentation of Pacific Pando, I couldn't find anything more current then that. I knew from the Plan that it was somewhere on Top Trail. However after walking back and forth on Top Trail a few times, I could not find it.
Top Trail is an extremely disturbed area of Pacific Spirit Park. It was heavily decimated by the giant 1919 fire and then regularly visited by Dunbar residents as a place to dump garden waste and harvest fire wood. Today, Top Trail is full of non-native plants and is a hotspot for wildlife viewing. Barred Owls and Coyotes are regular visitors because of all the rodents.
The large amount of non-native deciduous trees made it very hard to find Aspen leaves! I had a few false calls where I thought I had found it but it turned out to be a birch, cottonwood, poplar, apple, alder, or cherry.
Not willing to give up just yet. I looked into pre-1991 publications about Pacific Spirit, back when it was the UBC Endowment Lands. I found this 1973 map in a newspaper that made me very excited. Was the Grove this big?!
In Klassen and Teversham's classic 1977 text, Exploring the UBC Endowment Lands, they had a bit more of detailed map, that made me feel that the above newspaper article had maybe exaggerated the size.
Klassen and Teversham give directions to the Grove by noting that it is at a Fork between Top Trail another shorter trail that runs North-South and ends suddenly at the North end. Another clue!
I went back to Top Trail and tried to find this intersection, but that smaller trail must have fully grown in. Klassen and Teversham also reference that the Grove is right beside an old concrete foundation of a radio antenna building there that was last used in 1971. I also had no luck finding this, everything was overgrown and bushy. After a coyote spooked me, I decided that was enough bushwhacking! The map shows it is right beside Top Trail, so I should be able to see it from the trail.
I went back to the 1991 Management Plan to look a bit closer at it. This paragraph I had overlooked suddenly jumped out at me:
Since aspen is an early successional species it will, in the long term, be shaded out and taken over by later successional species, unless managed. In 1983, a pilot project to manage the grove was implemented. Some competing red alder was removed and a few aspen trees were cut down to encourage vigorous root suckers to sprout.
Perhaps the Aspen Grove was now gone? Forgotten and then grown-over by Red Alder. I went back to Top Trail with a new plan, no longer looking for a flourishing Aspen Grove, I was looking for a dying one. I began looking down at the ground rather than up in the tree canopy.
And it worked! I found the Grove!
I noticed a small plant no higher then my shoulder with unmistakable Aspen leaves.
Aspen is often called 'Trembling Aspen' because it's leaf steams are flat not rounded, meaning the leaves are constantly fluttering in the lightest breeze. Stories and Myths came from this fact, because it often seemed like Aspen leaves would move when there was no wind at all.
We have ancient stories that say Aspens are actually ghosts. Dead people forced to live, shaking and suffering because of heir sins. There are also ancient Christian legends that Jesus Christ was crucified on an Aspen, and it's trembling is a curse put upon it because of this. There is evidence of early Christians refusing to live in houses built of Aspen.
The 'trembling' is actually what helped me find the Grove. I was looking for leaves moving and there it was.
Immediately, I saw that the grove was still intact, but not doing well. There were about 9 trees. Only about about half of those taller than 10 feet and all of them thin enough that I could wrap two hands around the trunk. But still! It was there! Pacific Pando still lived!
How old is the Grove is the next question! Could our Pacific Pando equal the real Pando? Could it be over a thousand years old?
It is unlikely, but possible! Likely it started growing after Top Trail was burnt to a crisp during the great 1919 fire. However! There is evidence that Pacific Spirit and the Fraser Valley used to have a lot of Aspen. Aspen typically grows on well drained soil and so it was cleared for Farmland. In fact, Aspen Groves were used a sign to indicate good soil. Aspen doesn't show up on any of the old timber maps of the area in the 1800s, but this also doesn't mean anything, because Aspen wasn't seen as a valuable logging tree and other deciduous trees were also left of those maps.
Will Pacific Pando survive now that it is down to only 9 stems?
If you do end up tracking down Pacific Pando, first thing you'll notice the density of the brush. You cannot walk through it or even see a foot above the ground. Pacific Pando definitely has it work cut out for it. Especially with Sudden Aspen Decline (SAD), where Aspens over North America are dying rapidly for unexplained reasons, but ones that are definitely tied to warmer temperatures because of Climate Change.
In the 1991 Management Plan, the Parks Department identifies the Aspen Grove as a special area for environment restoration and says access to the Grove will be limited "to ensure this rare grove is retained'. There are two direct action items listed:
Action: 1. Work with UBC Forestry Department to establish restoration guidelines and a work program to restore and manage the aspen grove. 2. Feature the aspen grove as part of the Park's interpretive programs.
Unfortunately it looks like any and all plans to preserve Pacific Pando have been forgotten. But it is not too late! We can help Pacific Pando come back!
I'll give you two reasons why we should! Setting aside Aspens being a unique and rare clonal species, which is a good enough reason on its own!
Older publications about Pacific Spirit make reference to how it was once a butterfly hotspot. The 1991 Management Plan states "Butterflies are probably the most easily seen and recognizable insect in the Park. Their mobility and often striking colours attract attention."
I cannot recall the last time I've seen a butterfly in Pacific Spirit Park!
The 1991 Management Plan goes on to show why we don't see them anymore:
Trembling Aspen (Populus Tremuloides) is used by the adult Tiger Swallowtail and by three native Lower Mainland butterfly species during their caterpillar stage. They prefer saplings in a warm, sheltered, isolated place. Proposed restoration of the aspen grove would provide such habitat.
Aspens are important wildlife tree! They also attract a lot of insects, which attract frogs, and frogs attract birds like Herons.
There was a massive Heron Nesting site that used to be in the south end of Pacific Spirit Park along Marine Drive. Then UBC started becoming a popular university and Marine Drive got too heavy with traffic. In 1979 the Herons moved their Nesting site deeper into the Park. And can you guess where they moved?
That's right. Top Trail. Right beside the Aspen Grove.
Then in 2005 the Herons all left Pacific Spirit to join the colony in Stanley Park, doubling the size of the nests, from 70 to 176.
My guess is the Herons left Pacific Spirit permanently once the Aspen Grove started declining. If we bring back Pacific Pando, wildlife will return the park.
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Join me for guided walk to find and discuss Pacific Pando on Saturday, August 8th
