How many times does one get to cross off a Bucket List item in one’s lifetime?
This past week I had that chance.
It had taken me twenty-six years to achieve this goal. Multiple failed attempts over those two decades. But this week I did it.
This quest started in 1996.
I was twenty-five (just about to turn twenty-six) when I first got the idea to do this. Who could have guessed all those years ago it would be a quest and later a bucket list item.
It didn’t start out that way.
No it started out as a simple back country/light off-roading trip to visit a tree.
Not just any tree mind you.
Rather the worlds largest Douglas Fir which happens to be on Vancouver Island.
I moved to Vancouver Island in early January 1996 on a wing and a prayer. It was a spur of the moment move from Edmonton brought on by one of my best friends telling me a Tuesday morning that he had throat cancer and they were giving him a 50/50 chance of survival. That fateful morning over coffee while we discussed options he and I came up with the idea to move that week to Vancouver Island. Neither he nor I really knew anyone there but as we put it, “I’ll be damned if I die in Edmonton”. Later that Tuesday evening my girlfriend and I decided yes we were going to do and so for the next three days we sold what we could, donated the rest and loaded up a 1981 Datsun 200SX with the dog, two cats, and all that we could jam into the car and trunk as well as tie to the roof and deck of the trunk. My buddy had decided late Thursday to stay in Edmonton and get treatment, but the girlfriend and I decided to go ahead with the plan, the adventure to move to the far west coast of Canada. We left that fateful Friday morning during a blizzard for Vancouver Island.
Like many I had seen photos of giant trees in National Geographic, seen video footage of the giants of the forests from California to Vancouver Island my entire life. In my first few weeks on the island I had been introduced to these giants in real life at Pearson College (we stayed a couple of weeks there as the girlfriend had attended it when she was younger) and East Sooke Park. Photos in magazines and video footage on TV or in movies does NOT do these giants justice.
I began to ask locals as I got to know people who had grown up on the island and settled into my new life on the west coast.
Where can I find the biggest?
The widest?
The oldest?
There are really more than just one species out here (yes there are)?
Time and time again people who hiked, who enjoyed four wheeling and those who enjoyed the mountains on the south island talked about the Giant out by Port Renfrew.
Where is it?
How do I get there?
Can you pin-point it on this map?
And time and time again people would point to an area east of Port Renfrew and say “it’s in there and you are going to need a 4x4 to get to it”.
Well not one to let a little thing like not owning a 4x4 stop me I started out trying to find it with my faithful dog Sarah in tow on my days off. At this point I was driving a 1976 Plymouth Volaré station-wagon. No it was not a four wheel drive but it was a solid built car from the 70’s, had okay ground clearance for a car, ground grabber winter tires, a trustworthy slant six and a driver who knew how to drive in the back country. For over a year and a half I drove down logging roads, forestry service roads and pretty much anything I could squeeze that ‘wagon onto. More than once I ended up spending the night sleeping with the dog in the back of the car. I tried countless times to get the girlfriend to join me in my quest or get a friend to come along but it was always just me and the dog - and I treasured those times with Sarah. I had found the worlds largest Sitka Spruce. I had come across groves of old growth forest few living people had ever witnessed. I had encountered numerous black bears and spotted a few cougars, herds of elk, mating bald eagles, and I had met a ton of the locals who lived in Port Renfrew and struck up friendships I still have to this day.
In 1998 a game changer would enter my life.
The first edition of the "Backroads Mapbook - Vancouver Island" and a BC Forestry road map (I still have the map).
Both were given to me by an old logger who had spent his life logging Vancouver Island and living in Port Renfrew whom I had met at the local pub one evening. I honestly think he thought I was a little touched in the head. “Why is a Montreal city boy who works with computers out driving down dangerous roads including active logging roads in an old Mopar wagon with just a dog to find a tree?”. But he listened as I explained why I wanted to see this tree. By the end of that night we were fast friends and he told me, “next time you’re in town track me down, I am normally here (the pub) and I will have something that will help you on your crazy quest”.
Next time I was up in town I stopped at the pub and there he was. He went out to his old Ford 4x4 and grabbed a book and a map. As I looked over the map in awe of all these amazing roads I could explore, he found a spot on the map and pointed to it - “Right here, this is Red Creek Fir”. I could have cried, but of course while wearing my redneck hat as it were, all I did was smile. “I don’t know if this is the one you are looking for, but this is the biggest fucking tree I have ever seen and it awed even this old loggers heart the first time I saw it” he said as he took a drag from his smoke and chased it with a mouthful of Lucky Lager.
The next morning I headed out to finally see My Tree.
Mother Nature had other plans - the road was washed out.
Three more times I tried over six months and every time the road was out or just not something I could get down with the ‘wagon. That winter would see the end of that wagon. It got replaced with a Chevy Beretta GT.
The following year I tried nine times but the Beretta was a sports car, lowered - great on pavement, not so great on back roads. Within the year I would trade it for another wagon, this time a 1989 Oldsmobile Cutlass Ciera International Edition.
For two years I tried with the Olds wagon and again Mother Nature would throw roadblocks in my way. Fallen trees, washed out roads, mudslides, rock slides - you name it.
But I never stopped trying.
After my divorce in 2000 I would get myself a 1982 BMW 320i which I built into a track/rally car. When I set up the suspension for rally with AT tires that little Bimmer could get a number of places guys in Jeeps were always stunned to see me at. My quest continued but it was without my trusty sidekick as Sarah had reached the end of her life and had to be put down in May 2000. Those were lonely trips that first year without the dog. I kept making my attempts but it wasn’t the same without someone (even a dog) to share the experiences with.
Enter a new adventure partner. In February of 2001 I would meet the woman/best friend/adventure buddy who shared my sense of adventure. She totally understood my quest and had been to the tree in her early twenties when she used to do back country backpacking/camping. For two years, time allowing she and I would be out in the Olds ‘wagon or the Bimmer, and time and time again Mother Nature would thwart our attempts. Maddy being Maddy when a failed attempt happened she would take me someplace else to see amazing trees and landscapes. Carmanah Walbran valley, Uclulet, Tofino, Gold River, Campbell River, the Gulf Islands. If we couldn't get to the Tree, she would make sure we got somewhere special - all I had to do was drive and trust her.
After yet another failed attempt in March 2004 Maddy turned to me and said, “It’s time we get a Jeep”.
With that simply statement we up’ed our game - out went the Olds ‘wagon in came the 2003 Jeep Liberty (Renegade Edition).
Faith (as we called the Jeep) would enable us to get places my previous cars would not.
That was that - We Own a Jeep - Fuck You Mother Nature, I am coming for my tree.
Three years of trying and three years of not getting there. Sometimes we got a little bit off pavement, other times I was crawling over down trees, cutting fallen trees, balancing on three wheels, driving over mudslides - yes we got farther than we ever had before, but there was always something that stopped us.
Kids grow, life changes, the Jeep was too small. Enter a 1989 GMC Safari mini-van. It could haul all the kids stuff and still get down the back roads. On with a set of AT tires, a rear locker installed, under armour to protect the important parts and we had our new adventure truck.
We tried with that truck until late September 2008 when my partner’s health took a turn for the worse and all plans to get to the Tree went out the window.
The next two years would see changes in my life I never believed I would go through. Pain I didn’t know my soul was capable of surviving. From time to time she and I would talk and she would apologize that she had let me down on my quest and I would tell her “maybe it wasn’t meant to be - after all, it’s not about the destination, it’s about the journey and those you share it with”. I had the better part of nine amazing years going on crazy back woods adventures. I had spent time with my best friend doing things I had dreamed of my whole life. It was a hard reminder nothing lasts forever and life is not guaranteed - Thankfully she would survive but us as a unit was no more.
2010 I would find myself with an Audi GT80 Quattro (factory race edition with lockers) and I started dragging my eleven year old daughter along with me. Girlfriends would eventually come into my life and some would make the attempt with me. After the Audi was a ’95 Volvo 850, a 1982 Volvo 245.
And time and time again I couldn’t make it to the tree. By the early 2010’s the original road that got you there had been wiped out completely and a newer back road was being cut into the forest, but this road was not car friendly - it really did require truck and ideally a four wheel drive.
It flies by. One day you’re 26, the next you are a week away from being 52 (April 5).
On March 29, 2022 at 4:09 P.M. I finally made it to Red Creek Fir.
It took an hour and a half of driving east and north of Port Renfrew in my new to me 2002 GMC Jimmy. Along for the journey was one of my best friends, a fellow photographer, a person who saved my life once upon a time, Snowman (the nickname is another story). Snowman had no idea what getting to this Tree meant to me until I turned and said, “I get to scratch a Bucket List item off my list today”, I had simply said lets go out for a drive and with that left camp for a drive.
From where we pulled off to park is was 0.56 KM with an elevation gain of 150 feet to reach the Tree.
The smile on my face was priceless. The twinkle in my eye speaks volumes.
This photo is for Maddy. Love you Woman.
This photo is for Snowman. Love you so much - thanks for being part of this journey and part of the story - I couldn’t have done it without you.
This photo is for all of my friends and family who never gave up on me, never quit on me and always believed in me. I love you all so much - Thank You.
This photo is for six year old Me - You Did It.
