Connaught Heights - Teddy talks about old growth trees 2023-06-13

 

Seed trays prepared by students, for their courtyard garden

CONNAUGHT HEIGHTS ELEMENTARY SCHOOL - New Westminster, BC

Rock The Salish Sea - May 16, 17, 18, 2023

Teddy talks about old growth trees

Teddy and his classmates sang “Mr. Douglas”, our homage to old growth Douglas Fir trees in the Koksilah Ancient Forest on Vancouver Island. Students watched our video, that tells the story of how the song came to be. Mr Douglas video

It was inspired by a visit to the Forestry Centre in Duncan, where there is a cross section of a 1300-year-old tree. Signage points to the historical events that the tree had lived through. We wrote the song in “the first tree”; Mr. Douglas is the tree speaking. There is less than 1% of coastal old growth Douglas Fir forest left.

Thank you Teddy, for speaking up for ancient trees…they are so important for biodiversity, and your future, and future generations. You did a wonderful job!

“I’ve been around since before Ghengis Khan, and the first book published in China

In the olden days in the time of Crusades, I was born in Koksilah.

I was just four hundred when the Vikings sailed and first set foot in North America

First Nations saw white guys with blue eyes…I was there through it all…”

“They call me Mr. Douglas, 

I get respect cause you know when you get this old

They call you, Mr. Douglas

One of the oldest living things on Earth.”

(Mr. Douglas, written by Holly Arntzen and Kevin Wright.)

Connaught Heights Elementary Google Site