White pine (Pinus strobus) is Ontario’s provincial tree and thus one of the most cherished trees in the province. It is distinguished from other pines by having five long and soft needles per whorl. White pine is one of the longest-lived tree species in the North-East with one individual in Algonquin Park well over 500 years old! Together with tulip tree, white pine is also the tallest tree species in the North-East. White pine was very important to many Indigenous cultures, where some First Nations refer to it as the ‘Great Tree of Peace.’
Upon colonization by Europeans, white pine was one of the commercially most valuable species, based on its tall and straight stem and flexibility to wind. White pines were used as masts on the wooden royal British navy ships and for general construction. In fact, the ‘White Pine Act,’ instituted by the British Crown in 1711, prohibited the cutting of white pines wider than 60 cm anywhere under British rule. White pine today is absent or occurs at much reduced density over much of its former range in Canada. Using Algonquin Park as a proxy, researchers estimated the loss of white pine since the 1800s to be as high as 88%, based on still visible stumps from the earliest logging. Besides a general decrease in overall numbers, loggers unsurprisingly harvested predominantly the tallest specimens. As a result, the tallest white pine in Ontario today is 43 m, a far cry from the estimated 80 m of some old-growth white pines. Today’s fire suppression is hindering a more effective regrowth of white pine. White pine is adapted to regular, low grade fires to create gaps in the vegetation which the species naturally would use for rejuvenation. Thus, without an active restoration program including the use prescribed burning, white pine will most likely not attain the densities it had in Ontario before the arrival of Europeans.
Text written by Ivana Stehlik, loosely based on Erynne Soutanto’s original text
https://www.ontarioparks.com/parksblog/white-pine/
https://www.haliburtonforest.com/trees-snowmobiling-forest/
https://treecanada.ca/resources/canadas-arboreal-emblems/eastern-white-pine/
https://connecticuthistory.org/the-white-pine-acts-who-knew/
Thompson I. D., Simard J. H. and Titman R. D. 2006. Historical changes in white pine (Pinus strobus L.) density in Algonquin Park, Ontario, during the 19th century. Natural Areas Journal 26: 61-71.
Photo credit: Johndan Johnson-Eilola, CC BY 2.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), via Wikimedia Commons