Millennium-old outliers on otherwise barren and exposed mountain terrain, limber pines are in rapid decline in Alberta.
words & photos :: Andrew Penner
In the waning light, the sun a glossy orange ball hanging just above the North Saskatchewan River, I finally found what I had been looking for: a mangled monster of a tree, a gothic-looking beast reputed to be nearly 3,000 years old. Quite possibly the oldest living thing in Alberta. A little sapling, perhaps, when the ancient Greeks carved the last pillar of the Parthenon.
For five minutes or so, as the biting Chinook wind scoured the Kootenay Plains Ecological Reserve, I marvelled at the thing, wandered around the base (that took a while), and felt the prehistoric wood. Then, for the obligatory photos, I set up my tripod 30 feet away on a rock, hit the timer and settled under the tree’s cavernous trunk to give the photo some scale. My quest to find and photograph the famous Whirlpool Point limber pine was a success.
I’m smitten with a number of things on this planet. Turquoise mountain lakes. Knife-edge ridgelines. Massive cats at the top of the food chain. Bears. Blue whales. There’s a bit of trend, it would seem. And you can throw one more big thing into the mix: trees. The bigger, the better. If it’s ancient, grotesque, tough-to-find, weird or rare, chances are, I’m interested. I’m interested in Alberta’s limber pines.
Clinging to rocky outcroppings, cliffs, grassy slopes and wind-blasted ridgetops at higher elevations, predominantly found in prized and precious montane ecosystems, the limber pine is a unique and impressive species. They often stand alone, outliers, on otherwise barren and exposed terrain.
Although these trees are widely distributed throughout the western United States, in Canada the limber pine is almost entirely confined to the montane subregion of the Rocky Mountain Natural Region in Alberta with a few scattered stands in the East Kootenays of southeastern British Columbia.
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And sadly, the limber pine—and its close sibling, the whitebark pine—is in rapid decline in Alberta. The limber pine, Pinus flexilis, and the whitebark pine, Pinus albicaulis, are the only two endangered tree species in the province. The threats to these trees include white pine blister rust, which is a human-introduced fungal disease, as well as climate change, fire suppression and the mountain pine beetle. And certainly industrial activity—e.g., open-pit coal mining—and other human-authored disturbances of montane areas can also be significant issues.
The limber pine is a five-needled, slow-growing pine with an upswept branched crown and rough, dark-brown bark with wide, scaly plates. It takes 40 years or more for the species to produce its large cones, and it relies primarily on the Clark’s nutcracker to disperse its seeds. And it’s critically important for soil stability in the montane, watershed management and carbon sequestering. Also, numerous small mammals and birds rely on it for shelter and as a food source—the seeds are packed with protein and have long been valued by Indigenous Peoples.
Without a doubt, the limber pine is an iconic symbol of Alberta’s southwest. In the Crowsnest Pass, for example, the famous Burmis Tree—it currently stands dead, propped up with brackets and a steel rod, beside Highway 3 as you enter the Crowsnest—is a cherished beacon adored especially by locals. If you’re zipping by, chances are a curious motorist will be stopped beside the road, taking a selfie with this left-for-dead but somehow-still-standing landmark.
If conditions are favourable, a limber can live for more than a thousand years. Even longer! Its gnarled and twisted, wind-tormented branches are limber (hence the name of the tree) and, because of the deep, widespread root system, it’s able to withstand the significant forces—powerful Chinook winds and heavy snow loads—that punish it. Very few, in fact, are uprooted. Due to its penchant to grow in solidarity or in small stands on open, rock-peppered terrain, it’s often a survivor when grass fires sweep through.
Near Calgary, places like Bob Creek Wildland and Black Creek Heritage Rangeland—spectacular prairies-meet-mountains landscapes where lone limber pines reign on windy ridgelines—have an undeniable pull. This area, known as The Whaleback, screams Alberta—it’s an iconic western landscape if there ever was one. Wanderers, writers, musicians, local ranchers, naturalists, environmentalists, Indigenous leaders and lovers of untamed lands have voiced their affection and waxed poetic about the rugged beauty, the water and the important biodiversity found in this area. “Think I’ll go out to Alberta, weather’s good there in the fall,” wrote Ian Tyson in “Four Strong Winds,” perhaps the most famous Canadian folk song ever written. Tyson, who grew up near Longview, was certainly a champion for the protection of the region.
Corb Lund, Ian Tyson, Andy Russell, Kevin Van Tighem and Charlie Russell are just a few notables who have advocated for the protection of this under-pressure landscape. “This is sacred country,” said Lund in a recent CBC story on the highly controversial open-pit coal mining initiatives. Open-pit coal mining, which will decimate broad swaths of the landscape and destroy water quality, is a massive environmental issue in this area.
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“This land just gets into your soul,” says Lorne Fitch, a professional biologist, writer and a past adjunct professor with the University of Calgary. In decades of field work, Fitch has spent extensive periods in the Bob Creek Wildland and other remote areas in Alberta’s southwest. “Once these areas are disturbed, once roads are built and creeks are disrupted, it’s basically impossible to restore them.”
In Fitch’s most recent book, Conservation Confidential: A Biologist Investigates the Clash Between Progress and Nature, he devotes an entire chapter to the old trees—limber pines and Douglas fir, most notably—in Alberta’s southwest.
“In a way, old trees do talk,” he states in an early graph. “Not the garrulous narratives of elderly people, but with ancient wisdom acquired with centuries of life experience. Old trees have given us a gift of insight into climate and of extreme variability, especially on the drought side. It’s a cautionary tale about our future.”
Like many people, including Fitch, who value time in the wilderness, I, too, love to walk among the old trees, pull out my camera and capture the curling and contorted shapes, hear the creaks, the groans, as the ancient wood bends in the breeze. There is a power there, a benefit that—just like any potent in-nature experience—provides much-needed soothing for the soul.
These moments drove me to learn more about ancient trees, and during my research I learned of the Whirlpool Point limber pine, culminating with that serene clifftop moment alone with the behemoth. But my successful quest only left me with more questions: Is the Whirlpool Point limber pine really 3,000 years old? Is it the oldest living thing in Alberta?
In one of my conversations with Fitch, he mentioned the extensive work of Dr. David Sauchyn, the director of the Prairie Adaptation Research Collaborative at the University of Regina. If there is a Wayne Gretzky in the old-tree-finding game, it’s probably Sauchyn. He’s devoted decades of his life to scouring Alberta (and Chile, California, Nevada and many other places where old trees can be found) looking for what he calls “old wood.” And, together with his team, he’s located and documented thousands of samples in Alberta, mainly in the Whaleback and Kootenay Plains Ecological Reserve, some of which are 1,500 years old. In his tree ring lab, Sauchyn has been able to analyze and decode more than 1,000 years of climate data.
“Old trees have given us a gift of insight into climate and of extreme variability, especially on the drought side. It’s a cautionary tale about our future.”
But Sauchyn, an expert in dendrochronology (the scientific method of studying tree rings, typically by laboriously boring into the tree to obtain a sample), doesn’t buy the 3,000-year-old age estimate of the Whirlpool Point pine made by more amateur tree hunters.
“The Whirlpool Point pine is rotten in the middle,” says Sauchyn. “They’re filling in the gaps using the measurements of the much thinner rings on the outside of the tree. The older growth rings, the ones that are gone in this particular tree, would be significantly larger. Ultimately, it can’t be proven, but my guess is this tree is, perhaps, half this age.”
Still curious, I asked Sauchyn about the legendary Great Basin bristlecone pine, Methuselah, which grows high in the White Mountains in eastern California. At 4,857 years old, it’s the oldest-known non-cloned living organism on earth. Not surprisingly, serious tree hunters consider visiting this ancient mammoth a rite of passage. Is it possible that a limber pine in Alberta could approach this kind of longevity?
Sauchyn cuts to the chase: “No, it’s not possible. Our colder climate just doesn’t support this.”
However, my search for old wood is far from over. My guess is the oldest tree in Alberta has not yet been found. It’s probably tucked away on some rocky ledge where it’s escaped fire, disease and other threats. I’m still hunting for that tree.” He likely has a few people hot on his heels.
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