Elephant Hill

In collaboration with One Tree Planted, and Stanley Park Brewing Company, this joint effort project will reforest the devastated regions of Elephant HIlls Region of British Columbia. We planted over 200,000 trees during the 2019 planting season, with more projects planned in the coming future.
Total Trees Planted
A devastating forest fire blazed through the regions of Elephant Hill during the summer of 2017, burning over 192,000 hectares of land. To bring the destruction to scale: 1 hectare is roughly the size of 1 rugby field. Just picture 192,000 burning rugby fields. In order to reforest this entire area, it will take roughly 13 million trees, years of hard work, and thoughtful planting techniques. This area had the largest area of continuous high intensity burn in the 2017 wildfire; much of it burned to mineral soil. In other words, this fire burned so hot that when water bombers dropped water over the fire, it evaporated before even reaching the trees.
Normally, the seeds from the trees would spread across the forest and will naturally reforest the area. But due to the wildfire’s intensity, many of the seeds were burnt too severely, and the seeds that did survive weren’t enough to reforest the area in a timely manner. Without reforestation, the ecosystem will be left in a dire state. By intervening, our planting efforts will help speed up the reforestation of Elephant Hill. Without our intervention, it will take 40-50 years to naturally reforest.
The damaged ecosystems will have a new chance of survival, and better opportunities to thrive. The project will speed the rate of recovery by reducing regeneration delay and improving the uniformity of recovery. Other landscape features such as wildlife trees, surviving patches of live timber and coarse woody debris were incorporated into the reforestation efforts.
Douglas-Fir
The Douglas-fir (genus Pseudotsuga). These trees are important timber trees; their strong wood is often utilized in boats, aircrafts, and construction. Douglas-firs are also culturally significant in North America as they are popular choices for Christmas trees.
Planting Process

Find Lodging
As Elephant Hill is quite remote, and the planting site even more so, we could only find accomodations at a nearby town called 100 Mile House where only one hotel was available. The trees were subsequently delivered here and we then trucked out to the site.

Assemble a Great Crew
We had to get an amazing crew who had experience planting in fire-burnt areas. Our tree planting partners are passionate and seasoned planters, and worked extremely hard through the planting season.

Choose the Right Place
Planting sites require the soil to be loose but still has form. Planting here means we also have to be cautious not to put the seedling somewhere that is blocked by a burnt tree as it could inhibit growth.
Meet Your Planting Team
Bill Layton
Regional Tree Planting Manager