Tree lovers unveil mural that imagines leafier future
A group of tree enthusiasts is pushing Edmonton to imagine the city in 1,000 years with a new mural at the Art Gallery of Alberta.
The Secret Longtree Society plans to grow 1,000 trees that each last 1,000 years, but the new mural exhibition, The Secret Longtree Society: Cultivate the Millennium, will illustrate that those numbers are not an arbitrary quota, one organizer said.
"In order to create better futures, we need to be able to imagine better futures," Dustin Bajer, a member of The Secret Longtree Society, told Taproot. "Our hunch is that a future that includes people tending our city, and in this case, (tending) 1,000-year-old trees, is probably a nice future … The goal of the project of planting those trees is, more than anything, an invitation to imagine what this city could look like in 1,000 years."
The mural has hypothetical timelines for events related to urban trees in Edmonton through the year 3100, laid out visually upon the rings trees develop as they age. For example, it asks what Edmonton looks like if it achieves its canopy goal of 20% coverage, and what might happen if American elm trees die off in the city.
"(These possible events are) the result of a bunch of decisions," Bajer said. "None of these things are inevitable. We have various levels of control. The thing that I hope people will take away from it is that the future is something you build. It doesn't have to be something that is."
Longtree members have already planted a few hundred trees across sites like the grounds of the North Glenora Community League and the Royal Gardens Community League, Bajer said. Many of them are ginkgo biloba, Rocky Mountain bristlecone pine, and trembling aspen varietals, which the Longtree members chose for their suitability to the local climate and other conditions. Organizers hope these trees will one day join the group of older trees in Edmonton, like a horse chestnut tree in an alley near Jasper Avenue and 105 Street NW that is at least 100 years old. Known as The Holowach Tree, it is featured in a CBC GEM documentary about the society made by Sticks & Stones.
"With all of these (older) trees, the reason we know about them, and the reason we can talk about them today, is because somebody held on to that story and continues to share it," Bajer said.
He added that people tell stories about trees, but trees also tell stories about people. For example, many goji berry trees on the north banks of the North Saskatchewan River near Edmonton's original Chinatown were planted by early Chinese-Canadian immigrants to the city. While the officially designated Chinatown now lies further north, these trees help keep the legacy of Chinese settlers alive, Bajer said.
"The people were displaced from that space, but the plants are still there," he said.
Guests who wish to see the mural, curated by the gallery's Sara McKarney, can do so from Nov. 29, when there will be a screening of the documentary and a Q&A, to March 15. Access to the mural and event is included in standard gallery admission. Anyone interested in learning more about the not-so-secret society can do so on the Shrubscriber platform.
