Canada 2025

Tuesday23September

We left Victoria and reached our next campsite, Arrowvale Campground, located in the small town of Port Alberni.

Forest afternoon in the great forests of Vancouver Island. The Cathedral Trail allows you to walk alongside trees, some of which germinated more than 800 years ago. A commemorative plaque is dedicated to David Douglas, a famous Scottish botanist who contributed significantly to the knowledge of local flora in the 19th century. His name would be given to the largest of the pines, Pseudotsuga menziesii.

A maple heavily covered in moss due to the very humid environment.

This is not moss but "fruticose" lichen, nicknamed "old man's beard" or "Jupiter's beard".

Nothing is wasted: this millenary trunk, cut to clear the path, begins its second life as a nourishing tree to regenerate the undergrowth. This decomposing fungus will help it by sweating beads loaded with enzymes. A natural phenomenon called guttation.

Two giants of the canopy, Douglas firs that concentrate all their foliage at the top to capture maximum sun in the high canopy.

The Devil's Club. Its Latin name (Oplopanax horridum) literally means "horrible weapon" because of its sharp thorns that inflict very painful wounds.

Detail of the bark of an old Douglas fir: an ultra-resistant cork shield several tens of centimeters thick, forged to protect the giant from fires.  

The giant thuja (Western red cedar), an iconic tree of British Columbia. Its naturally rot-proof wood allows it to defy time, even after its death.

The tallest Douglas firs on the site reach about 75 to 76 meters in height.

In the heart of Cathedral Grove, this snag offers a vital refuge and a natural pantry essential to forest biodiversity. Its wood, victim of rot caused by fungi, cracks into geometric cubes while becoming a fertile sponge for the regeneration of the forest.

The "Big Tree" of Cathedral Grove: a giant Douglas fir 76 meters tall and over 800 years old, which far exceeds the height of the Leaning Tower of Pisa. It was already over 300 years old when Christopher Columbus arrived in 1492".

A tree on a tree! This nurse stump provided a fertile cradle for conifer seeds to germinate, protecting them from predators and providing the nutrients necessary for their growth.

We are leaving Cathedral Grove to reach the Stamp River in Stamp Falls Provincial Park. Wild salmon (Oncorhynchus) are swimming up this river right now. This gull knew how to take advantage of it...

A Great Blue Heron (Ardea herodias fannini).

The facilities are a fish ladder (or fishway) accompanied by a counting station.

Wild salmon are numerous and some are attempting to swim up the small waterfalls of the river!  
- An adult salmon can jump up to 2 to 3 meters high out of the water.
- To give enough power to its jump, the salmon goes to the bottom of a calm water pool below the waterfall, swims at full speed towards the surface while undulating its body, then uses its caudal fin like a spring to propel itself into the air.

Salmon swim up the river for one single reason: to reproduce (spawn) at the exact place where they were born.

We are walking along the upper part of the stream.

Upstream, the river is very calm.

  On the rocks, two salmon seem to have been caught by a predator we wouldn't want to cross paths with too closely, especially since we left our bear spray in the car!  

And bingo! We see it moving away in the distance on the riverbanks: a black bear (Ursus americanus)! The animal must consume between 20,000 and 30,000 calories per day, the equivalent of several dozen salmon, to accumulate the layer of fat essential for its survival during its winter sleep.  

In doubt, we turn back and see, a little late, the signs that warned of the possible danger...  

At the salmon crossing point, a cabin broadcasts the video feed from a camera filming the tunnels where the fish can pass. The control screen records and counts every salmon crossing the fish ladder.

A "Chronolog" sign invites visitors to photograph the landscape from a fixed point, then send their photo to document the evolution of the river over the seasons via a timelapse. The result is visible here: www.chronolog.io/site/DFO101

End of the day. Well, not quite, we have to buy groceries for the evening. The large Walmart supermarket in Port Alberni will be perfect for that.  

Back to the campsite and, after dinner, a little photo session of the starry sky.