With the imminent demise of Stanley Park’s Hollow Tree, Kitsilano can come to the rescue with its own arboreal wonder. What is this you ask? A majestic stand of old growth cedar? A mighty fir reaching high into the sky? No, it’s actually the tree stump sitting on the beach at the end of Trafalgar Street (at path’s end if going west from Kits Pool).
Cathedral Grove’s largest tree has a diameter of 9 feet, whereas our neighbourhood landmark has a maximum diameter of 9.5 feet. As Saddam Hussein would have said, this is the mother of all stumps. I have a friend who recalls the stump being there in the 1960s, though said friend was heavily into other things in the 1960s so can at times be an unreliable source. To get some federal money to save our beloved historical stump from the ravages of time, we need to know a little of its history.
So I ask whether any one of you know about this old growth behemoth. Is it from the original clearing of Kitsilano? What is its species? For how long has it been at its current location? Hopefully not everyone will be stumped by these questions.
Last modified: May 19, 2008
