Camelot set ablaze to save rare trees

Part of one small Ontario island torched to save fire-loving pine

— Four years of government work went up in smoke on this rocky isle in the Thousand Islands archipelago this week. Big smiles and congratulations filled the air afterward.

The 16 workers of a Parks Canada fire crew purposely charred a hectare of this rugged, uninhabited St. Lawrence River island to save a stand of scraggly but rare trees called pitch pine.

It’s a counterintuitive species — wood that needs flames to regenerate and survive. Pitch pine seeds, in turn, provide food for birds and other wildlife.

It’s part of what makes the Thousand Islands National Park one of Canada’s natural wonders.

“We have responsibility to keep the species here,” said Josh Van Wieren, the park’s ecologist. “One of the main reasons they’re in trouble here is the fire suppression over the last century.”

Fire is an essential part of nature, but has been suppressed here to protect people and property.

As the unimpeded forest advances and thickens, Camelot’s 50 to 75 mature pitch pines are left in the dark. They not only struggle to absorb sunlight through the canopy but have to compete with a jungle of white and red pine, eastern hemlock, black and pin cherry, red and white cedar and red and white oak, among others.

The ground, meanwhile, is covered with decaying vegetation, blocking the seeds from reaching the soil minerals they need to germinate and grow into saplings.

No saplings means no more pitch pine. And this is one of only two places in Canada that pitch pine grows. The other is southern Quebec.

The object of Tuesday’s prescribed burn was not to burn down Camelot, but just roast it enough to give the pitch pines room to thrive in the woods.

Three other burns have been staged on other islands in recent years, and Van Wieren said the early evidence shows the pitch pine (as well as red oak), “really does a lot better when there’s fire; we’re not getting regeneration without it.”

Still, the park’s inventory of pitch pine, which number in the thousands, has shrunk by more than 50 per cent since the 1970s.

FRED CHARTRAND/THE CANADIAN PRESS Firefighters from Gananoque, Ont., hose down flames as Parks Canada crew members set fire to a section of Camelot Island Tuesday. Their actions in Thousand Islands National Park are part of an effort to protect the rare, fire-dependent pitch pine.