I lost a very dear old friend this past spring. I first met my friend back in 1992. My wife and I had just moved to Hillsdale, along with our 7 month old baby. Personally I didn’t know anyone here. So I thought I would walk around the village to see if I might meet some neighbours. But this was December. The streets were deserted. People had retreated indoors. Those who were out were in the sheltered confines of their automobiles driving somewhere.

This is when I met my new friend. When I first saw this living being I was instantly drawn towards her. She displayed maturity, strength, beauty, grace and dignity that welcomed me with open arms. From that very moment and over the past 33 years I felt comfortable sharing my heart and soul in her presence. My struggles, my hurts, my fears for the future, my hopes for the future. Am I making any positive difference at all in this world? When I was afraid to share my innermost feelings with another human being because I was afraid of being blasted away with both barrels, my friend was always nonjudgmental. My friend was always there for me.

What I am referring to is the Hillsdale Guardian Tree which was in the field behind our house. The tree would be the 1st thing I would look at when I looked out the back window as daylight appeared in the morning. At dusk the tree would be the last thing I would look out the back window at before darkness settled in. With everything changing in the world around me, the tree’s silent strength gave me a sense of stability. As a Christian first and then as a nature lover, the presence of this tree always had a way of drawing me closer to God. In 34 years I probably have spent hundreds and hundreds of hours communing with God while gazing out at the tree. The last 14 years since I been pastoring I would write sermons on my desktop computer in the dining room part of our combined kitchen/dining room. If the sermon writing for the previous Hillsdale church and now the present 3 churches wasn’t coming together the way I liked, I would take a break and spend time looking out the back window at the tree. It helped immensely. Sadly, developers destroyed the Hillsdale Guardian Tree this past spring. When the tree was destroyed by the developers, they also destroyed a part of me. It hurt so badly. I tried writing about it shortly after, but it was just too painful. I am still grieving. Every time I now look out the back yard and seeing it gone saddens me so much. But I need to continue writing and and get this posted to honour the tree with this article.

This Hillsdale development has been in the works for a lot of years. The original developer had plans to preserve the tree and have it as a highlight in the development. It was to be located as the centerpiece of a park. Although I wasn’t keen on the subdivision, at least the tree would be preserved, loved, showcased and respected. Which was wonderful. But then the subdivision was sold to another developer who quickly changed the draft plan so the park would no longer exist. The tree would be destroyed.

I had a hard time wrapping my mind around that. Would the developers actually have the nerve to go ahead and destroy such a beautiful tree? Is it only all about money and making the most profit? Or would there be a change of heart? One way I thought I would bring awareness on the tree was with a monthly post on Twitter. That was before Twitter was owned by Elon Musk. He later changed the name to X. The tree thread became extremely popular and my follower count ballooned to well over 14,000 followers. I would take a photo of the tree on the 21st of each month at 4:45 pm. I used to observe and admire the Hillsdale Guardian Tree everyday. It was so cool observing the tree through the different seasons. Posting a monthly photo would give the readers a glimpse of the beauty and majesty of the Hillsdale Guardian Tree through the changing seasons. I posted the tree photos in a monthly thread for a full 3+ years. I made my last post on Twitter this past February with my article Happy National Flag Day of Canada. Twitter had gotten so toxic under the ownership of Elon Musk that I sadly walked away. Like so many others, I am now a Twitter refugee. I pulled up stakes and moved and started over on a fairly new platform that’s similar to Twitter called Bluesky. It is much more pleasant there. Bluesky is now my preferred social media.

On my Twitter thread of the Hillsdale Guardian Tree I had 37 monthly posts. I haven’t yet deleted my Twitter (X platform) account. I am hoping that some day it will be sold to a new owner who will clean it up and restore it to what it used to be like. So you can find the entire tree thread here. In this article I have decided to have one photo of the tree from each month. It is often said that photos don’t do justice. This phrase is often used when something doesn’t appear as impressive, beautiful, or accurate in a picture, video, or description as it does in person. Which is so true for the Hillsdale Guardian Tree. For myself, the tree was not only seen; it was felt by me. Because it was a part of me. This tree was not simply an object in the landscape. I felt the tree with all my senses, not only with my eyes or through the lens of a camera. As the Hillsdale Guardian Tree no longer exists, please join me as I honour and relive my memories of this magnificent tree with these 12 monthly photos.

Every morning and afternoon there are drivers of many, many dozen tractor trailers that pass through Hillsdale on Highway 93 while I am on school crosswalk duty. With the weights some are carrying, and the speed they are travelling, it can get very unnerving for me. For some, there would not be a chance they could stop in time for a red light. Which is the reason why I have a two whistle system, which was introduced here by the late Graham McDonald over 30 years ago. Children do not cross the highway until they hear that second whistle. So in the middle of March on my morning crossing guard shift there was a big rig hauling a heavy, oversized lowboy trailer that particularly caught my attention. It was travelling unusually slow. When I noticed what the load was, I felt nauseas. The rig was carrying a massive feller buncher. It was about to pull off the highway at the field entrance 150 meters up the highway. I instinctively knew this was the day the beloved Hillsdale Guardian tree would be destroyed.

A month earlier we received notice of the impending tree removal of around 40 trees in the area to be developed. The location of each tree was marked on the notice. Every tree is valuable. One of the trees marked was the Crown Jewel, the Hillsdale Guardian Tree. The words “tree removal” really ticked me off. We remove something that is unwanted. When I think of removing something, the one thing that comes to my mind is going to the dentist to have a tooth removed (which I’ve had several removed). When the tooth gets to the point where it becomes so decayed, rotted and infected that it can’t be saved, then the only option was to have it removed. This was definitely not the case with these Hillsdale trees. Trees have such immense value. Tree destruction is far more accurate to me. By the time I got home from crosswalk I could hear the loud roar of the feller buncher as trees were being destroyed beside the highway. My stomach was in knots. Part of me wanted to put in ear plugs and crawl into bed. The other part of me wanted to be there for my beloved tree. For 33 years it was there for me. I did not want it to die alone. As hard as it was, I stood at the back of my lot and waited for the machine to come. It wasn’t long before the feller buncher made its way to the beloved Hillsdale Guardian Tree. The word feller buncher is a machine that fells the tree and then bunches it in a pile with other felled trees. All while the operator sits in a cab. They are very efficient. A large feller buncher like the one working that day is capable of felling and bunching as many as 600 to 1,000 monoculture reforestation type pine trees a day depending on the terrain and tree size. The healthy, hardwood Hillsdale Guardian tree was not going to go down without a fight. It took the operator 90 minutes before the tree was felled and lying lifeless on the ground.

It was extremely difficult for me to watch. But I know that I would have regretted it if I wasn’t there for it during its final hours. The tree had been there for me for 34 years. What I am regretting and really beating myself up with the most is I didn’t do enough to try and save the tree. Does anyone else care? Or is it just me? I know I would be going to battle against a multi million dollar developer who has the power and money to help win any legal battle. But at least I should have tried. The timing of this couldn’t have come at a worse time. I was already feeling defeated from the closure of the Hillsdale church. For 11+ years I worked with heart and soul alongside a small, beautiful aging congregation to try and keep the Hillsdale church going. I tried so hard. But in the end, it closed down anyways. Being established in 1851 (16 years before Confederation), it was by far the longest running institution in Hillsdale. Having the church close after pouring 11+ years of heart and soul into it left me feeling defeated.

I knew the only way to possibly save the tree was to try and obtain heritage status. In Ontario the Heritage Tree Program is administered by Forests Ontario. They mention for a tree to qualify, “It must be associated with an historic person or event, or be growing on historically significant land. The tree’s prominence within the surrounding community and/or use as a landmark is also taken into account. Trees are assessed for their form, shape, beauty, age, colour size, rarity, or other distinctive features by volunteer evaluators from the forest industry.” The tree to my knowledge may not have ticked off every box. Though it definitely was a community landmark. And it certainly did have merit for size, form, shape and beauty. I had that gut feeling the developer would have made sure that heritage status would never happen if I tried. This article here mentions that “Communities or local authorities usually nominate a tree for heritage status.” So many questions were swimming around in my head. If I tried to rally my community, would they come alongside me? Do they care enough for the tree to want to be an advocate for its survival? Should I take the risk? Or would I be in the eyes of the community an eccentric, odd ball, tree hugging senior who doesn’t really fit in the mold of the societal norm? But I should have tried anyways. A tree like that can never be replaced.

I had been making daily visits to the tree remains in the field behind my house. To pay my respects and to mourn. One day I went out to the field and there was a man already there with his young adult son and Alaskan Malamute dog. It was Mark from the next street over. He has lived in Hillsdale his entire life and has known the Guardian tree longer than myself. He also came to the tree remains to pay respects and to grieve. He mentioned his wife Kassandra wrote this beautiful poem which was collaborated with another neighbour across the street named Harmony who took photos when the tree was living. The collaboration by Kassandra and Harmony is found below. A few days later I was in the home of my next door neighbour. On their wall is a magnificent framed photograph that was taken of the tree.

There are several grating human produced sounds that violently assault my senses. One is traffic noise which I have to deal with daily on Highway 93 at the school crosswalk. This is where I stand beside the highway and hear the noise of often over a thousand cars and heavy trucks that race through my little village of Hillsdale each hour. The very, very vast mast majority of these vehicles have a lone occupant. Meaning a lone driver and no passengers. I feel very strongly about the importance of active transportation. I want to see children walk, bike and scoot to school. It is healthy for the children. With kids walking equates to less cars on the road as the kids are not being driven. Which in turn is better for the environment. So helping them get across this busy highway safely is important to me. Even if I have to deal with the grating highway noise. Seeing those children walk, bike and school each day gives me much joy. They are such great kids.

Then there is the sound of the feller buncher which fortunately I don’t hear every day. The sound of its roar as the Hillsdale Guardian Tree was being destroyed still haunts me. Equally sad is the rasping sound of a chain saw which can be heard over such a long distance. When the sound stops, there is a pause. This is followed by a rustling, a letting go. Then a deep, final thumping noise as the tree hits the ground. The tree is letting go, giving up its connection to our lives. At the very moment it has become a commodity. It is carried away on a truck to be processed by us. Life needs to flee from the shelter it once provided. Or it will die with it.

Each and every day this violent, reckless assault on nature is taking place all across our planet at a relentless place. From the illegal logging in the Congo Basin, to the ongoing destruction of the Amazon Rainforest. To closer to home where large swaths of environmentally protected Ontario Greenbelt is being destroyed to build yet another highway called the Bradford Bypass. The toll on our fragile planet is enormous. Last Saturday I was involved with the Monarch Ultra with their Monarch Race and Monarch Festival in Peterborough. I had a wonderful conversation with Mark Wooley who serves on the Catchacoma Forest Stewardship Committee. Which is under the umbrella of Wilderness Committee Ontario. The 149 hectare Catchacoma Forest is located in Peterborough County, Ontario and “Contains the largest documented old-growth eastern hemlock stand in Canada based on scientific literature and field data. It shelters trees over 250 years old with the oldest confirmed tree age clocking in at over 350 years old. “

Despite all that, the Catchacoma Old Growth Forest does not have protected status. The Catchacoma Forest Stewardship Committee website shares, “It is instead zoned as “general use” and leased for logging to the Bancroft Minden Forest Company. The old growth hemlock forest is threatened by commercial logging. Approximately 30 hectares was logged in the winter of 2020-21 and was scheduled for more logging by the Bancroft Minden Forest Company in the new 10-yr. forest management plan (2021-2030) until the Catchacoma Forest Stewardship Committee intervened to get a temporary moratorium.  The Forest also contains a significant wetland complex connecting Pencil Lake to the north to Pencil Creek, which feeds Catchacoma Lake. It is is home to at least 14 species-at-risk including the Algonquin wolf, Blanding’s turtle and historically documented cerulean warbler. Thank you Mark Wooley for getting involved.” Thank you for making a difference. Hoping this temporary moratorium becomes permanent. This link has lots of ways to continue to support the efforts to see this rare forest protected.

An article from Ancient Forest Exploration and Research mentions that “From an economic perspective, the Catchacoma Forest is at least 10 times more valuable if left unlogged.” So what does that actually mean? Where is the value of a tree or forest that is allowed to live instead of being destroyed?

So when Ancient Forest Exploration and Research says that “From an economic perspective, the Catchacoma Forest is at least 10 times more valuable if left unlogged,” personally I think that is a vast understatement. The value of the services that trees provide for us day in and day out is staggering. Not only our forests, but our entire planet is under enormous stress from human activities. So much so that the years 2021-2030 is the United Nations Decade on Ecosystem Restoration. As you probably know, the word “restoration” is completely opposite from the word “destruction“. From the UN website it says “There has never been a more urgent need to revive damaged ecosystems than now. Ecosystems support all life on Earth. The healthier our ecosystems are, the healthier the planet – and its people. The UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration aims to prevent, halt and reverse the degradation of ecosystems on every continent and in every ocean. It can help to end poverty, combat climate change and prevent a mass extinction. It will only succeed if everyone plays a part.”

On the UN website, forests are just one of eight ecosystems around the world desperately in need of repair. The other seven listed are farmlands, fresh water, grasslands, shrublands and savannah, mountains, oceans and coasts, peatlands and urban areas. You can choose more than one ecosystem. Your pledge doesn’t have to be enormous. Every bit can make a difference. I chose forests and my pledge is to grow a tree. Specifically I want it to be a sugar maple tree. Even though I am growing several trees already on my little half acre that I planted myself, I am thinking growing a sugar maple tree might help in my grieving process over the destruction of the Hillsdale Guardian sugar maple tree. In death there is new life. I am 67 years old now, so I definitely won’t be around to see the day when the tree is big enough for me to wrap my arms around it like I did with the Hillsdale Guardian tree. That tree can never be replaced. But that’s okay. There is an anonymous quote that goes, “Blessed is he who plants trees under whose shade he will never sit.”

I got a a word of encouragement from my Swiss ultrarunning friend Catrina Denker when I mentioned last spring about the destruction of the Hillsdale Guardian tree in my “The Central Ontario Ice Storm of 2025” article. It reads as follows, “Oh no… I’m so sorry about the Hillsdale tree, Carl. Thirty-four years—that’s not just a tree, that’s a presence. A witness to daily life, a marker of time, and now another casualty in the relentless clearing we call “progress.” I felt your grief in every word. It’s heart-breaking how easily something that took decades to grow can vanish overnight, replaced by concrete and convenience. What’s even more unsettling is how normal this kind of destruction has become. Your post hit hard—not just the tree, but the larger pattern: trees cut down for power lines, entire green spaces sacrificed for short-term gains. It’s like we’ve decided that shade, oxygen, and beauty are expendable. And all this while temperatures rise and habitats disappear. We know better—and yet, here we are. Your anger is justified. Your sadness too. It should be a big deal when a tree disappears. And it’s maddening that those in charge treat it like a footnote. Please, Carl, keep writing about it. Keep running through it. These small acts of witnessing, of not looking away—they matter. Thank you for giving voice to what so many of us feel. The Hillsdale tree deserved to be seen. The serious environmental issues must be known. And thanks to you, they are.“

A two minute video by Earth Conservation titled “The Importance of Trees for Our Environment and Health”.