How this massive tree cross-section will help teach Indigenous history, trauma and hope
The white oak dates back to the mid 1600s, before colonization
A massive cross-section of an old white oak that grew near the Thames River, or Deshkan Ziibi, at Western University, will now serve as a teaching resource at the school's new Office of Indigenous Initiatives.
White oak, which is native to southern Ontario, used to make up much of the Carolinian Forest here but is now less common because of clear-cutting and development.
"There used to be a lot of oak savannas around this area," said Lauren September Poeta, or Waabaabagaakwe, which translates in English as Changing Leaves Woman. Poeta is an graduate student in the archeology department and works at the new Indigenous centre. She grew up on Curve Lake First Nation near Peterborough and is a registered member of Wiikwemkoong Unceded Territory.
"We want to use this cross-section as a land-based teaching tool, but one that is inside," she said. "Working with the geography and environment departments at Western, we were able to use dendrochronology, which is counting all the tree rings and aging it back."
The tree is 9 feet (2.7 metres) wide and dates back to the mid 1600s.
"We can count starting on the outside, from 2017 when it came down, and count all the way back to about 1760 when there is a big patch of rot, and we estimate that was about another 100 years, so this tree dates back to the time before colonization in this specific area. You can see the environmental conditions that the tree was living in for the last 350 or so years."
'Not a standardized timeline'
It's a different way to look at history and time, Poeta said, one that is not linear.
"It's not just a standardized timeline, where you see a straight progression of time in perfect intervals, and you only look at what is being shown to you," she said.
"When you look at the tree rings as a way of showing the passing of time, you see the environment, you see all these different influences that were going on during this time. You see massive areas of really rapid growth, where the tree was really healthy and thriving in the environment, and you also see areas where growth really tapered off and there wasn't much growth at all and the tree was really struggling."
The tree cross-section challenges perceptions of time and different events, Poeta said.
"That's what we're really trying to do at the Indigenous learning centre, is give place-based and land-based knowledge and this is a step toward that direction."
There are also scars on the tree along its lifetime that can be used as metaphors for trauma and healing, she added.
"You can see scars where the tree was impacted by something, and in some places how it healed and the those scars eventually disappear, but then there's also scars that you can see following throughout the lifetime of the tree. We can use those for talking about trauma and how sometimes you can heal from it, and sometimes you just have to learn to live with it."
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
