Majestic yellow birch are the main long-lived species in most of the old-growth stands in the proposed Goldsmith Lake Wilderness Area. Many are over 200 years old, with quite a few over 300.
On Friends of Goldsmith Lake Wilderness Area (Public FB group Feb 25, 2025)
Good news about Goldsmith. Not THE good news we all hope for, that the Goldsmith Lake Wilderness Area will be identified as a candidate area for permanent protection, but another step in the right direction.
On February 21st, 12 more stands of officially recognized old-growth forest were added to the 3 already there.* Now it should be clear for all to see what an extraordinary gem Goldsmith Lake is. A pristine lake surrounded by 15 stands — 250 acres — of old growth forest! That’s rare as hen’s teeth in our heavily logged province. It is exceedingly rare on the South Mountain. There are a sprinkling of other recognized stands of old-growth in Annapolis County but not a one in the whole area shown on the map.
Red is old-growth forest recognized by DNR.
And we’re not done yet. DNR’s Old Growth Forest Coordinator has a list of 19 more stands of possible old-growth for his team to assess, stands that are spread out across the whole proposed wilderness area.
Why does it matter so much to finally see proof that these areas have been added to the province’s Old-Growth Forest Policy? Finally because some of these stands were assessed in the fall of 2023. But now they are there, on the publicly accessible Provincial Landscape Viewer map.
SAR as of Jan 9, 2025
It’s good to know that, under the Old-Growth policy, these 250 acres are now protected from logging, road building and other industrial activities. Just as important, though, is the part all these recognized old-growth stands play in giving the lie to WestFor’s claim that ‘these 10,000 acres’ — the ones we are working to protect — were all clearcut in the 1970’s.
Yellow birch growing on classic pit and mound topography in an area of old to old-growth forest DNR has not yet assessed.
DNR hasn’t been rash enough to make such an easily disproven claim but, from the start, staff fed Minister Rushton the line that the area is ‘managed forest’ and therefore, by implication, not worth protecting. Having DNR’s own map show all that old-growth — show, in other words, what an extraordinary haven of biodiversity the area is — might be more compelling than all the other evidence the citizen scientists have gathered and reported.
Speaking of all that other evidence, we have now identified over 100 species at risk occurrences in the Goldsmith Lake Wilderness Area! It’s quite astonishing.
When we started surveying the area in the fall of 2022 we had no idea of the riches we would find. It’s been a joy and an extraordinary privilege to keep coming back to this place. We’ve really only scratched the surface.
Anaptychia palmulata, a lichen we love to find because it is beautiful and because it only shows up in old forest in good lichen conditions.
*For anyone who keeps track of numbers, some stands have been merged. The old math was 7 existing OGF stands and 15 just added. Now it is 3 existing, 12 added.
So the core samples on the yellow birch only reach half way to the centre of each tree. Estimated ages are 376 years and 350!
That beech may not be big but it is probably very old. The bark blight makes them grow very slowly.
