EDITOR’S NOTE: Last spring, the Manitoulin Nature Club launched a Notable Trees of Manitoulin (NTOM) initiative to catalogue significant trees of Manitoulin Island. The club is seeking individuals to nominate trees that are important to them or that are in some way unique. Early surveyors documented trees at the imaginary corners and angles of parcels of land to mark boundaries and called them ‘witness trees.’ This distinction is also used to describe trees present at key historical events or events specific to a particular person such as a wedding or engagement. If there is a ‘witness tree’ in your family’s history, this would be a welcome nomination.
Notable trees can include notable specimens because of their size, form, shape, beauty, age, colour, rarity, genetic constitute or other distinctive features. They can also include living relics that display evidence of cultural modification by aboriginal or non-aboriginal people including having strips of bark or knot-green wood removed, test hole cuts made to determine soundness, furrows cut to collect pitch or sap or blazes to mark a trail. As well prominent community landmark trees, trees associated with local folklore, myths, legends or traditions or specimens associated with an historical person, place or event also qualify for nomination.
The Expositor will be following this initiative and will be highlighting a selection of these nominated trees and sharing the special stories behind them.
Anyone wishing for more information about the project can contactnotabletreesofmanitoulin@gmail.com or by writing to Notable Trees, P.O. Box 1006, Little Current, ON, P0P 1K0.
Oakes Cottages’ saw tree
Dave Riepert nominated a special maple tree at the entrance to Oakes Cottages on the west side of Lake Mindemoya.
“It’s a tree that has an old one-man saw stuck in it,” explained Mr. Riepert in his nomination form. “The fun part is that it is stuck 40 or 50 feet up in the tree.”
“I was working out at Oakes Cottages and a guest that has been going there for years pointed it out to me,” Mr. Riepert told The Expositor. “No one is quite sure who put it there, but it is pretty different which is why I nominated it.”
“I was told it was put in the tree when it was small and no on ever got it out and the tree just grew,” Robert Oakes, the nephew of the late Grant Oakes, who started Oakes Cottages, explained. “He said it was there when he bought the property so it would have to be at least 50-years-old.”
To view this unique tree, go to Oakes Cottages, stand in front of the mailbox, look across the road and up.
“It’s definitely worth the drive,” promised Mr. Riepert.
Oakes Cottages is on Monument Road, approximately three kilometres north of Rock Garden Tarrance Resort.
