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The morning the forest felt wrong
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Interpretation could have changed everything.
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I’ve walked this loop in Stanley Park for twenty years. It’s one of those routes that almost lives in the body — I know where the roots cross the path, where the light shifts in late afternoon, where the trail widens enough to let people pass. My partner and I have had hundreds of conversations here: about owls, about foamflower, about what to have for dinner. It’s comforting in the way only a longstanding ritual can be.
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This time, though, something was off. There were trees down, the whine of saws somewhere ahead. There was flagging tape and sawdust where there should have been damp soil and hikers’ tracks. Freshly cut hemlock has a particular smell, and it doesn’t belong — emotionally at least — in a forest you’ve always experienced as ancient and whole. My first reaction was protective and not entirely rational: Who authorized this? What are they doing?
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The deeper we walked, the more it looked — at first glance — like a clearcut. Stumps, churned soil, raw cross-sections glowing orange against moss and fern. It was upsetting. Viscerally so.
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And then I remembered last spring.
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