Bridge Creek Estate: Ecoforestry

• Video
• Slide Show

Along with its own private forests, Bridge Creek manages a 600 hectare government woodlot license for a total of about 850 ha (2,100 acres) of forested land. We have aimed to manage these beautiful forests using sound ecoforestry principles. The ranch is fortunate to have excellent resources available such as Professional Foresters and careful logging contractors who assist in managing our diverse woodlands.

Bridge Creek Estate operates a Woodlot comprising 600 hectares (1482 acres) of crown land and 258 hectares (637 acres) of private forest. It is our aim to manage these forest-lands using the principles of Ecoforestry. The goal of Ecoforestry is to harvest wood in ways that protect the structure and function of the natural forest. The primary 'product' of Ecoforestry is a healthy forest. One of the main 'by-products' is timber, but others include clean water, wildlife habitat, beautiful views, and ecosystem diversity.

Woodlot:

Situated on the hillside above the ranch, W0555 is a beautiful forest of Douglas Fir and White Spruce. Managed in conjunction with the private forestland on the ranch, the Woodlot has an Annual Allowable Cut (AAC) of 1350 m3. Having carefully dealt with the Pine-beetle epidemic, BCE is now ready to take advantage of increases in price for higher quality wood. W0555 has excellent access and is positioned close to both the mills and town. Also, management has been done in an environmentally sensitive manner with a view to possible eco-certification.

Tree-Types

We have been extracting timber from our own property since the early 1900's. Most forest operations before the 1960's took only the larger Douglas-fir trees. Although this is now considered highgrading, we continue to have a functioning forest that has grown in from what was left behind. Our preferred mode of operation now is partial selection and small patch cuts - depending on the natural disturbance type of the stand being managed.

Our forest is located in the Interior Douglas-fir dry-belt (IDFdk3) and is composed primarily of the following trees:

Conifers:
Interior Douglas-fir (pseudotsuga menziesii, glauca)
Lodgepole Pine (pinus contorta, latifolia)
White Spruce (picea glauca)
Engelmann Spruce (picea engelmannii)

Deciduous:
Trembling Aspen (populus tremuloides)
Paper Birch (betula papyrifera)
Cottonwood (populus balsamifera, trichocarpa)

Douglas-fir stands in this area are usually 'climax' or late-stage forests and often present the greatest age and species diversity. Lodgepole Pine dominated stands tend to be earlier-stage forests (a 'pioneer' species) while interior Spruce generally grows on the wetter sites. The deciduous trees, mostly aspen, are a smaller proportion of our forests and add to the diversity of tree species.

Natural Disturbances and Cutting Trees

The area here is classified by the Ministry of Forests as 'Natural Disturbance Type 4' (NDT4). This bit of jargon is used to denote forests that have 'frequent stand-maintaining fires'. Notice the maintaining in that sentence. This means that the fires would tend to clear out the underbrush and kill the non-fire-resistant species, but still leave a functioning forest behind. Occasionally there might have been a large catastrophic crown-fire which would have killed entire areas of forest, but this would have been much rarer than it may have been in other areas.

Because modern man has been so efficient at suppressing fire, this process has been short-circuited. In our logging activities we are starting to try, as much as possible, to mimic how fire and insects would have affected the forest (although bugs and fire never actually removed trees).

As a late seral-stage (further along the line of succession), Douglas-fir works well with partial selection as it is windfirm and grows well in the shade. Larger Douglas-fir trees would have survived the low-intensity fires that would have historically occurred in this area. We are therefore trying to leave a proportion of these 'veterans' to provide structure and seed for the younger trees coming up underneath.

Lodgepole pine, after a certain age, becomes prone to attack by the Mountain Pine Beetle. Once dead, these areas are more subject to fire which would then clear areas of these trees. Lodgepole pine grows vigorously after a fire and prefers direct sunlight. Although we are prefer to use small patch cuts (<0.5 ha), with the recent beetle epidemic we have had to remove a large proportion of our pine stands.

Interior spruce, when growing on wet sites, does not always work very well with partial-cutting. Because the roots are shallower in wet areas, and the trees support each-other, spruce can suffer wind-throw when thinned too much. We are also trying small patch cuts in the these stands to mitigate the tendency towards blowdown. Although spruce will grow in the shade, it regrows more easily with the greater amount of sunlight available in a small patch cut. In the past we have used small clearcuts in the pine and spruce stands but we are now moving to smaller patches, or 'group selection', in order to maintain forest structure and visuals.

Animal Habitat

One of the reasons for operating according to Ecoforestry principles is to maintain animal habitat. There are many different species that use this forest for part or all of their life-cycle. There are many notable residents of our woodlot including Black Bears, Cougars, Coyotes, Fox, JackRabbits, Mule Deer, Moose, Bald Eagles, Great Blue Herons, and Owls.

Water

The small streams that run through our woodlot feed into Little Bridge Creek and Exeter Lake and this water eventually meets big Bridge Creek to the north of town. Although the streams in the woodlot are too small, all three of these other waterways support fish which we do not want to adversely affect with our forest operations. See the environmental projects page for the work that we have been doing protecting the wetlands. Bridge Creek Environmental Projects

Visuals

The crown portion of our woodlot is an important part of the viewscape for 100 Mile House and the Exeter Valley. As well, our private woodlot land runs along the West side of Highway 97 just north of 100 Mile House. Needless to say, we are very concerned with the visual impact of our operations in the forest. We feel that the practices associated with Ecoforestry, while maintaining the ecological integrity of the forest, also lower the visual impact of our activities. Although we may not always achieve it 100% of the time, our goal is that no-one will notice our woodlot operations.

Certification

Certification of forest operations has recently become a big issue in the timber industry. This process, copied somewhat from Organic certification of foods, is designed to provide third-party assurance of the ecologically-sound origin of lumber you buy. How effective is this? It depends on what is being certified.

The Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) is a third-party non-governmental organization (NGO) that has designed a standard for certification of forest practices. These standards are designed to protect forests, forest workers, and the communities that depend on the forests. FSC certification shows that the wood you buy comes from a forest that is managed for long-term ecological and economic sustainability, not just short-term profit. We support the FSC principles and are investigating the process of getting our forest operations certified. Ask to see if your local building supply carries FSC wood.

Although we no longer have any kind of wood-milling operation, Bridge Creek Ranch operated the first mill in 100 Mile, powered by the waterfall at Bridge Creek (pictured at right). While the mill is long gone, these beautiful falls can be seen in Centennial Park next to the village of 100 Mile House. Martin Cecil used this mill to cut the lumber for early buildings in town during the 1930's (see the history page).

Back to Top of Page