May is Tree Month

Details

Published on Sunday, May 3, 2015

By Donna Morken 

After recognizing the need for future tree growth within the municipality, Rivers & Area Community Foundation (RACF) applied to Tree Canada for the CN spruce seedling program in August 2014. Tree Canada offers a program with different sponsors for seedlings and since the community was founded because of the railway, it seemed like a logical connection. The local Millennium Park is a reclaimed CN gravel pit and works very well for this type of program.

Ken Fosty, a certified arborist and community advisor with Tree Canada, came to Rivers to look at the area and discussions were held regarding an application to the program. All the seedlings must be planted on municipal land and both municipalities supported this application. Millennium Park was chosen as the first location for seedlings and, under the direction of Fosty, an application for 100,000 seedlings was completed. 

Fast forward several months and next week (May 4-8) RACF together with Tree Canada will see that application come to fruition with permanent tree cover for not only Rivers’ Wetland Centre of Excellence but also Millennium Park. Tree Canada, in conjunction with CN, will be providing 92,694 jack pine and white spruce seedlings. These seedlings will be planted by professional tree planters. Both the seedlings and tree planters are supplied by Tree Canada at no cost to RACF. As the seedlings will be planted in the wild, they will have to find their own resiliency, but are suited for these types of soil conditions. Watch for this exciting new addition to our community.