532-year-old N.S. hemlock claims record for oldest tree in the Maritimes
CBC
Nova Scotia only has a tiny fraction of old-growth forest left.
But thanks to research completed this summer, the province can lay claim to having the oldest tree on record in the Maritimes.
It's a 532-year-old eastern hemlock located in a stand not far from the South Panuke Wilderness Area, northwest of Hubbards.
The land used to be owned by the Bowater Mersey Paper Company. The province bought the parcel, along with many others, in 2012.
This summer, forest researchers with Nova Scotia's Department of Natural Resources and Renewables took core samples of roughly 100 trees in a small old-growth stand.
After counting the rings on one tree sample, Dalhousie University student Meaghan Pollock approached colleague Emily Woudstra.
"She said, 'I think we have aged [this tree at] 500 years old,' and I was like, 'No way! I don't believe that,'" said Woudstra. "So go show Brad and I want to count this afterwards, too."
Brad Butt, a forest researcher, didn't believe it either until he had a closer look at the sample.
"Yeah, there is definitely some excitement there," said Butt. "You kind of … stop the clock for a minute and everybody had a pause to really have a look at it."
Woudstra counted the rings again to ensure the count was correct.
"[There] was kind of a buzz around the office and people kept asking if they could see the core sample, too."
To be certain about the tree's age, the province shipped the sample to Mount Allison University's Ben Phillips. Phillips is a dendrochronologist, or an expert in tree rings.
"This tree has 532 measurable tree rings," Phillips said during a recent video chat. "I measured every single one of them under a microscope to a thousandth of a millimetre.
"Some of those rings only had two to three cells in width."