North Bay’s Chippewa Creek stands to benefit from the planting of hundreds of trees and shrubs by dozens of volunteers Saturday.
“We are here at the former landfill site on Marsh Drive and we are planting 300 trees to help naturalize this former landfill site. It would take up a couple of acres,” explained Peggy Walsh Craig, Chair of Trees for Nipissing.
“We look for a spot that is family-friendly, not steep. All this area here is in the Chippewa Creek watershed and by planting trees we’re helping to reduce erosion into Chippewa Creek.”
In order to restore the landfill site to a natural forest roughly 30 years after it closed, volunteers planted oaks, maples, spruce, willows, and larch.
Trees for Nipissing received support from a number of eco-minded organizations including Forests Without Borders, the North Bay-Mattawa Conservation Authority, and the City of North Bay.
TD Friends of the Environment provided financial support as well as physical labour to help get the job done.
“We are one of the donors for the program to provide funding for the trees and the materials needed, but we also have a good group of individuals who volunteer their time annually for these types of events,” explained Brandy Campbell, Branch manager at the TD downtown North Bay location.
“The money comes from the TD. We do a great job of reserving certain funds to use for community projects, and it is up to branch leaders to try to find those projects within their communities, apply for the funding for them, and we were approved by TD to donate towards this one.”
Campbell said the entire team is proud to help out with this project.
“I personally have been involved with TD Tree Days for the last 15 years. You’ll also see a lot of our colleagues have brought their children with them too, so it is really making an impact on the environment and trying to influence the youth as well to continue to do that.”
In addition to the formal groups, individuals and families also rolled up their sleeves to help with the tree planting.
Renee-Claude Serre not only brought her mom to help plant but also her four children as well, ranging in age from one to 12 years old.
Three generations working together for a better future.
“We actually home school, so I love to pick events with different generations and things that are very impactful, and long-term and get the kids involved. Everything is a learning experience and this is something that will directly impact them so it makes it that much more important,” shared Serre.
The young mother went on to talk about what she hopes her children will take away from the day.
“I think just the connection with nature and it is long term. They see what we planted at our own home and they say look ‘It is almost as tall as me now.'. It is building that connection. What is most important for me is to see the joy in them, and how much they enjoy nature. It is almost like a relationship and they are developing that.”
At the end of the day, it is about restoring the former landfill site to a natural forest.
”We are not creating a park, but what happens on this site is that a lot of people go here with ATVs and their snowmobiles and that’s fine except that everybody’s making a new trail. But every trail leads to erosion and unfortunately lots of garbage. There’s been a lot of stuff dumped here that is not from the original landfill. It’s still fresh so we know it has been newly discarded here and I would like to encourage people to remember this is nature, and in nature, we don’t want to see your beer cans,” stated Walsh Craig.
The trees will grow to different heights, with some growing quicker than others.
“Our planting includes a few shrubs because shrubs will survive almost everything. So we plant some shrubs just to ensure that there are lots of plants here and so some of the trees such as Red Oak and Sugar Maple, they’ll get 60-80 feet tall,” Walsh Craig said.
“Most trees prefer full sun and most of this site is full sun. Unfortunately, the soil conditions are beach sand, or finer sand than beach sand even, but we did a planting here last year and it looks like we have about an 80 per cent survival rate.”
The chair of Trees for Nipissing added the project will increase climate resilience, reduce carbon in our atmosphere and provide more habitat for birds and animals.