Sandhill Nursery has donated a birch tree which will be planted in partnership with Hope Arises Project Inc. the Town of Huntsville, and the Huntsville Public Library at River Mill Park.
“We are pleased to accept a beautiful donation from Sandhill Nursery of a young birch tree. I went out and picked this specific little girl and believe that she was the one for us to bring forward today,” said Joyce Johnathan Crone with Hope Arises at the Huntsville General Committee meeting held on September 27. “Birch trees have a very significant background to Indigenous, specifically First Nations People so that is why I chose a birch tree.”
Johnathan Crone also said that she has learned over time that people’s connection to the land and how it sustains life, “we should no longer from Mother Earth refer to nature as it, so she, our little birch, is a symbol of life and hope and trust and she represents the lives of those lost,, as we know, as we’re leading into September 30th (National Day of Trutch and Reconciliation) and the hope of reconciliation for the future for our town and beyond and the trust and alliegance that we have had and continue to establish together as settlers and Indigenous people living in this community.”
She asked that the birch tree be named Hope and be planted “in a place of respect and honour with an eyesight for our community and tourists to be able to see and to be able to see her grow. She will grow. She does need to get into the ground as Sandhill Nursery advised… the ask, as you know, is part of not only the truth but part of our new way of knowing, being and doing as you are all very aware as a Town Council.”
Jonathan Crone asked Huntsville Mayor Nancy Alcock to symbolically place on ribbon on the tree with the name of a child who passed away at a Canadian residential school. “These are the documented children and there are undocumented children of those children who are still to be found over the next generations or years.”
Alcock thanked Jonathan Crone for everything she and her organization does to educate others.
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Interesting choice of the birch tree. I’ve seen a lot of things crafted from that white bark. I especially remember an old fellow (Joe?) out near Goose Lake who had a knack for turning out stuff which he sold to the tourist. The one thing I really liked was a belt he had braided from strips of the bark. I have seen pails that hold water, containers decorated with quills and beads, and canoes fashioned from the wood and bark. One canoe in particular I coveted. It was owned by Egbert Boothby and sequestered carefully away in one of the boathouses at the lodge.
We were in the park when Mr. Commandant was fashioning a bark canoe. I believe it was for Expo ’67? or another indigenous gathering near Montreal. Someone may correct me on that.
The white and yellow birch were prized by local loggers back at the beginning of the 1900’s. Bethune Pulp and Lumber, Huntsville Lumber and Muskoka Wood all drove millions of board feet of birch down the Big East River to their local mills. It was used in furniture and coveted for its use in making veneer. My father also finished some molded birch hulls back in the 60’s.
Local birch was also sought during the war years, being used in constructing the de Haviland ‘Mosquito’, known as the ‘wooden wonder’. The plane was fast for the day and generally used in ‘Pathfinder’ or reconnaissance roles.
So our little birch will grace River Mill Park as our tree of hope. I wish it (she) well and am glad it wasn’t lost in the ‘Tombstone Territory’ of Kent Park. Maybe it will find its role as our arboreal ‘pathfinder’.
But I do find it ironic that our council finds itself in possession of a tree! All the best little lady.