Ancient Fires

This image was made at The Pines, a backcountry campsite and beach in Quetico Provincial Park, Ontario on a clear September evening. In this pine woodland, fire has played an important role. While gathering wood for our own campfires, I found evidence from the tops of fallen trees indicating fire has been active in this ecosystem for a long time. The rings in the topmost branches counted out at 220 years or more, meaning that these pines might be more than 400 years old. Both Red and White Pines are resistant to fire if it burns as it does in a natural system - low and slow. Fire suppression for the past century has created a situation across Turtle Island where fuel - mostly in the form of dead wood, leaves and needles - has gathered and created a potential pine killing fire hazard. If White Pines in particular are subject to an intense fire, their thick bark is not enough to keep their sap and resins from boiling and killing them. Fortunately for the trees at The Pines, humans have nicely kept these fuel loads from gathering by collecting all the deadwood and burning it. The trees here seem to survive wildfires when they come to visit. One of the most influential single forces at The Pines for the past 12,000 years has been Homo sapiens. That’s about 2.5 times longer ago than when the Egyptian pyramids were built. For at least that long humans have had campfires on this beach under the more ancient fires of the Milky Way.