{"id":22726,"date":"2018-02-06T00:05:56","date_gmt":"2018-02-06T08:05:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/hakaimagazine.com\/?post_type=custom_features&p=22726"},"modified":"2018-02-06T20:49:28","modified_gmt":"2018-02-07T04:49:28","slug":"the-trees-that-sail-to-sea","status":"publish","type":"custom_features","link":"https:\/\/hakaimagazine.com\/features\/the-trees-that-sail-to-sea\/","title":{"rendered":"The Trees That Sail to Sea"},"content":{"rendered":"

Logs the size of telephone poles drift along the shore of the Salish Sea. Erik Hammond turns the wheel of his aluminum skiff and closes in. He grabs his ax and towlines, then leaps atop the floating wood, much as his father did, and his father did before him. With the butt of his ax he drives anchor pegs into the choicest three and ties them to the stern. When he turns his boat, the lines go taut\u2014the logs startle, then come to heel. Satisfied, he unties the lines and tosses them over before circling back to the beach. But the logs sail on, toward his partner, George Moore, who adds them to the growing haul already tied behind his skiff.<\/p>\n

Hammond and Moore are beachcombers, or log salvors, based in Gibsons, British Columbia, a small coastal community less than 50 kilometers north of Vancouver. They are practitioners of an occupation once common on the Pacific Northwest coast. Moore, 72, has been chasing logs since he was a kid. Hammond, 41, was still in diapers when he started tagging along with his father. It\u2019s a demanding and sometimes dangerous pursuit that calls for strength, balance, finesse, and a command of mechanics and physics. In return, it offers uncertainty and little pay.<\/p>\n

\u201cI love it,\u201d Hammond declares. \u201cIt\u2019s all I know how to do.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Erik<\/a>

Erik Hammond works on a bundle of salvaged logs in Gibsons, British Columbia. Photo by John Lehmann\/Canadian Press Images<\/p><\/div>\n

On this calm summer afternoon, Hammond and Moore gather merchantable timber that has escaped log booms owned by logging companies. Once wood is floating free, it\u2019s a hazard to navigation\u2014and fair game for licensed log salvors. Today\u2019s catch, mostly fir and cedar, will be sold through a cooperative that returns a share of the total value back to the logging companies. What\u2019s left for Hammond and Moore averages CAN $25 per log\u2014which they split. They\u2019re also on the lookout for pristine, uncut trees that have ended up in the water through wind, erosion, or flood. With no logging company to lay a claim, this wood can fetch far more. They say the best time for beachcombing is during the fall and winter months, when high tides coincide with the arrival of powerful storms, which upset log booms and topple trees into swollen rivers and streams.<\/p>\n

Be it clean sawlogs, twisted branches, or stumps with the rootball still attached\u2014whether the result of industry or flood\u2014driftwood is the remains of any tree that ends up washed ashore or floating in the sea. Beyond a dwindling number of beachcombers hoping to make a buck, and mariners wishing to avoid striking deadheads, why should anyone care?<\/p>\n

Driftwood makes an enormous if underappreciated contribution to the food web connecting the forests and the sea. From streams to estuaries to the deep ocean floor, driftwood shapes every environment it passes through. While there\u2019s an awareness that temperate rainforests are enriched with nitrogen from the marine environment, delivered by decomposing salmon, less well known is the fact that dead trees from those same forests travel to the sea and become a vital source of food and habitat. Driftwood is in need of a PR campaign, celebrity spokesperson, or publicist at the very least. Driftwood, it turns out, is also rapidly disappearing.<\/p>\n

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Dead trees were sailing the seas long before our ancestors conceived of the ax or skiff, long before the continents split and went their separate ways. And yet, when a tree falls in a river or stream today, it can set out on a journey that remains little studied and poorly understood.<\/p>\n

A tree undergoes reincarnation when it lands in flowing water. Branches, bark, and heartwood\u2014what appears to be nothing more than floating debris\u2014become either home to or sustenance for a range of plants and animals. In old-growth forests, up to 70 percent of the organic matter from fallen trees remains in streams long enough to nurture the organisms living there, passing through the digestive tracts of bacteria, fungi, and insects. Caddis flies and mayflies undergo their metamorphosis into adults while anchored to floating wood. When they emerge, they in turn become food for salmon fry, salamanders, bats, and birds. Larger logs control the very shape and flow of streams, creating pools and back eddies where returning salmon rest and spawn. These pools provide critical shelter for young salmon as they hatch, feed, and hide from predators before they make a break for the open sea.<\/p>\n