Preservation is Progress: The Brontë Oak

This Old Tree with Doug Still
Preservation is Progress: The Brontë Oak (Transcript)
Season 1, Episode 17
Published July 5, 2023


[Song - Pendulums by Sarah Harmer]  00:05

Doug Still  00:27
That is the music of Sarah Harmer, a Juno Award winning singer-songwriter from Ontario, Canada. Besides being great, why am I playing her music? Because in 2006, she gave a benefit concert to raise a portion of $343,000 needed to save a big oak tree along with another band called Ohbijou. Very cool, and I would definitely go to that concert! The money was required to redesign a highway so the powers that be wouldn't plow the tree down to make room for more cars. The concert was part of a larger fundraising campaign led by members of Oakville, Ontario. But how did it come to this? It turns out this beloved tree faced numerous existential threats over the course of its 200 plus years, surviving each one if only to be saved again by future generations. I talked with several guests, including local tree experts John McNeil and Pete Williams; Oakville Town Councillor Allen Elgar; and Sarah Harmer herself to find out where this tree gets its nine lives. 

Is it worth $343,000 to save a single tree? I hope to answer this as we learn the enduring story of the Brontë oak. I'm Doug still, and this is This Old Tree.

[This Old Tree theme song - Dee Lee]  01:56

Doug Still  02:14
The Brontë oak is a massive oak tree that stands in a long grassy island within the busy Brontë Road in Oakville. The important Halton Regional Office Complex exists across the street, while the other side leads down into a natural area that holds Brontë Creek. Four lanes veer around the tree, two on each side, creating an eye shape with the tree in the middle of a large mulch bed like the pupil within an iris. Indeed, it sees everything coming and going into Oakville as it has for at least two centuries. Depending on who you ask, the tree is either about 200 years old, or as many as 375 years old. It dates back to pre European Settlement when the lands were the traditional territory of the Huron-Wendat and the Haudenosaunee, and now is treaty land of the Mississaugas of the First Credit Nation. The tree stands 20 meters tall with an impressive 25 meter spread - that’s 65 and 82 feet to us Americans - and a 60” diameter trunk that demands your attention. It is a stunning sight, and comforting to those who know that its presence might easily have been denied.

Few people know the history of the Brontë Oak better than John McNeil, the longtime City Forester of Oakville. He's a professional colleague and friend of mine, and is now a consulting arborist for McNeil Urban Forestry. He and this special tree have been through the trenches together. John, welcome to the show.

John McNeil  03:51
Thank you very much, Doug. I'm glad to be here.

Doug Still  03:53
We've known each other I think for about 20 years. We served on the executive board for Society of Municipal Arborists together, I think that's when I first got to know you.

John McNeil  04:03
Yes. And I always looked up to you, Doug, and still do physically because you're -  not just because you're taller, but you are the president that preceded me. And whenever we go back to SMA meetings, there's a ceremony that the past presidents pass the gavel, and you're always standing on my left and pass me the gavel. You taught me a lot while you were there.

Doug Still  04:24
I always knew you were from the town of Oakville, but being the dumb American that I am, I've never quite, like, understood exactly where that was.

John McNeil  04:34
It is located west of Toronto about an hour's drive. 

Doug Still
How did Oakville get its name? 

John McNeil
Well, it's a municipality named after a tree, the Quercus oak and it was the predominant species of the forest when the Europeans came to settle in the 1700s 1800s looking for not only timber, for pine for the king's Navy, but also to blossom a local timber trade. And so the pine and oaks were essentially cleared from the region to sustain those industries that supported villages and hamlets that started popping up along the north shores of Lake Ontario.

Doug Still  05:23
Right. And conveniently, they could put the logs on a ship, and send them right back to England.

John McNeil  05:29
That's right, down to Lake Ontario, down the St. Lawrence River out into the Atlantic. Oakville was named after the predominant deciduous species in the region, which were red and white oaks.

Doug Still  05:40
So we're gonna be talking about the Brontë Oak, which is a white oak, which dates before the founding of Oakville and the area was logged. Why do you think this tree was left? Any idea?

John McNeil  05:54
It would be pure speculation on my part, Doug. As I understand the some of the background, some of the history that I learned of the story behind this tree is that a settler was granted a tract of approximately 315 acres in and around that region where the oak tree today is located. And he was a prominent member of that logging community that we just talked about. And he was a sawyer. And perhaps his farm boundary was situated somewhat in and around proximity to where that tree was - a lot of trees often were cleared in this case for logging but where they served a practical purpose perhaps marking a prominent spot or a corner boundary, or perhaps that's why it was spared the ax.

Doug Still  06:48
Did the highway, or did the road always come right by the tree?

John McNeil  06:53
Well, that highway -  that is part and parcel of this story. It was a provincial highway, although of only two lanes for many years. You know, prior to any so-called highways, there was a stage coach to support this logging industry or timber industry, as we called it at the beginning of our conversation. There were hamlets that were dotted, you know, just speckled specks within the wilderness, not connected and isolated, hugging the shores of the north shores of Lake Ontario and perhaps moving inland along some of the river systems, because there are a few prominent rivers that drain into Lake Ontario that move back into the hinterland. And these isolated unconnected communities ultimately, in the early 1800s, as I understand, started to be connected and there was a prominent stagecoach run between Muddy York and a community farther west of Oakville, which is now the City of Hamilton. Today's highways were former stagecoach runs, ultimately, it became more busy as the automobile was rolled out in the early 1900s. It became a road and progressed as the volume of traffic gradually increased to its status today.

Doug Still  08:11
So maybe that's why it was saved early on, because there was a stagecoach road, or it was a passageway, and it was not in the middle of a field that didn't affect agriculture. They provided some shade and wayfinding…

John McNeil  08:25
That's a reasonable proposition.

Doug Still  08:28
Which is the opposite of its later troubles, but we'll get to that. You told me about when you first learned about the Brontë Oak as a young urban forester in Oakville. Could you describe that day? And who did you meet?

John McNeil  08:41
Yes, I'd love to, because even though it was a long time ago, as I said, I was the forester there for some 30 years, my career began there in the late 1980s. I thought about it this morning prior to this interview, I drew in my breath, that's almost 40 years ago today! A long time ago, but when I moved into the area, my boss at the time encouraged me to get to know certain individuals as part of my introduction to the community. I was new. I was a young, impressionable urban forester in my mid 20s. And he encouraged me to get to know the personalities in the area. And one of the individuals whose name he dropped was a fella by the name of Dr. George Atkins, but left it up to me to make the contact. 

So one day I called up this gentleman, and he very graciously received me, and I'll never forget that afternoon I spent. It remains with me today as an example of an outstanding gentleman that, and a generous, warm gentleman, and a very knowledgeable gentleman, and one whose name is linked to this tree. Dr. George Atkins at that time, and this is probably in the late 1980s. Doug. He was a retired agronomist, a field of agricultural science. And he happened to live on the property directly across the road, Brontë Road, from what is today called the Brontë  white oak tree…

Doug Still
Right in front of our tree… 

John McNeil
…from our tree. He could see it from his study. The house remains there today. And it's a beautiful, I'd say Victorian style three story home with gables and decorative architecture. And the large wraparound porch is something that would strike you, out of maybe Ann of Green Gables, as a beautiful country home. So I called him up and asked if I could come over to see him. And he very graciously said yes, and we set up this date, where he entertained me. And then I came up the driveway. He welcomed me into his home and sat me down in this beautiful hand wood paneled study for the afternoon, and we enjoyed a wonderful conversation. And then the conversation turned to the Brontë  white oak tree. And he was very much in tune with this tree and loved this tree. And I credit Dr. Atkins who has since deceased, as the prominent person who was involved in saving this tree from destruction. 

But there's at least three threats to this tree. Before we continue I’ll just name them. The first threat that I'm aware of was a hydro line. The second threat was a water line. And the third threat was a highway expansion. So a hydro line, a water line and a highway expansion. And Dr. Atkins was prominent in saving the tree from the first threat.

Doug Still  11:54
Being the hydro line. That was in the 1970s?

John McNeil  11:57
That was in the 1970s. And what Dr. Atkins - he brought out a scrapbook and showed me newspaper clippings of the incident that he was prominent in. Dr. Atkins, his story goes something like this, that he became aware that at the time that tree, it was owned by the Ontario government, it was a highway, a provincial highway. The above ground hydro utility that would have been located on a provincial highway would be our provincial utility called at that time, Ontario Hydro. Ontario Hydro is a massive hydro utility that is a distribution and transmission and generation company that supplies electrical power to millions of Ontario residents. So they're a very powerful organization. And they had planned an expansion of their above ground hydro pole line. And by expansion, I mean, that probably meant that they were going to increase the height of the hydro poles and the span of the hydro pole. So it's going to make them taller and bigger, overall taller and fatter, if you will. And so that hydro line happened to be located on the same side of Brontë road as the Brontë  oak tree.

Doug Still  13:10
They don't want trees anywhere near these lines during storms. Most likely, they're going to be doing some clearing, and Dr. Atkins saw this coming.

John McNeil  13:21
Exactly, they're going to be doing a lot of clearing. And so Dr. Atkins, as a concerned citizen, somehow became aware of this proposal. And ultimately, he objected to the proposed design, because he quite correctly saw that it would hammer out a ghastly proportion of the crown of this oak tree, rendering it perhaps a fatal volume.

Doug Still  13:48
Right, this 200 year old tree he sees out of his living room window and his porch.

John McNeil  13:53
Exactly. And so ultimately, he told me, he ended up petitioning the most senior provincial bureaucrat at that time, which would have been the Minister of Transportation. So we're talking about a cabinet level position. And he wrote to the Minister of Transportation I believe at that time, the gentleman's name was James Snow. We've since had some parkways in the Greater Toronto Area named after him. And James Snow may never have even ventured out to Oakville to see said tree, but Dr. Atkins captured James Snow's attention. And through his efforts of writing to James Snow and documenting at that time it was a prominent tree in its own right, because then even in the 70s, it would have been pushing - it would have been massive of girth, it's some - I'm stretching out my arms beyond as wide as they can and that's a span of at least four or five feet, and it's a massive tree that probably would take, I could imagine, three or five  people holding hands to gather around that tree, its massive girth. Its impact on the landscape was very prominent, even then, and Dr. Atkins successfully convinced the Minister of Transportation to intervene. And like I said, you have to appreciate that Ontario Hydro is a massive today multibillion dollar corporation. Enough said it's just a massive Corporation. 

And so to have changes made in a plan that was likely already approved and paid for, wouldn't have been easy to do. It was almost a David and Goliath story because it was basically Dr. Atkins taking on a Crown Corporation and the provincial government.

Doug Still  15:42
Dr. Atkins or Aikens may have been David, but he was a David well versed in the skills of PR. In fact, George Atkins was a radio personality. From 1955 to 1980. He was the farm commentator for CBC Radio and Television out of Toronto. He knew how to reach the right people, and how to tell a convincing story. The threat to the Brontë Oak was featured in the Oakville Beaver, then the Toronto telegram with photos of Dr. Atkins standing next to the tree. Letters of support came in from professors at the University of Toronto and elsewhere. So with his public campaign and the disarming charm that John McNeil later experienced firsthand in his study, I imagined Dr. Atkins had the Minister of Transportation in his hands.

John McNeil  16:32
And so Dr. Atkins got the Minister to intervene, get the engineering plans amended, and the line essentially zigzags around the tree untouched. And I'm sure Hydro probably had fits saying you can't take a transmission line and span it over a highway like this. And therefore, none of the branches of the tree were touched.

Doug Still  16:59
What did he say? Why did they listen to him? Was it just force of personality?

John McNeil  17:04
Well, Dr. Atkins, as I said, was a retired agronomist. He was a scientist, a professional person, and was able I think, to give somewhat knowledgeably, even though his background wasn't in aboriculture or urban forestry, reading between the lines somewhat, probably gave a synopsis of the benefits of the of the tree, at least in terms of the, you know, the basic ecology. And he recognized the value of trees in water conservation, soil conservation, as well as cleaning the air, cooling the air, and stabilizing the soil.

Doug Still  17:41
So you've mentioned then, a second controversy regarding this tree. When was that?

John McNeil  17:46
Well this, Doug, I neglected to or forgot to talk to you about. And it was brought to my attention by Pete Williams, the fellow forester that I'm encouraging you to make contact with. He's an old friend of mine. It was just a few years before 2006. There was a second, what I call the second threat that I'm aware of, and that's the water line. And it wasn't just any water line. They're talking about a massive aqueduct.

Doug Still  18:15
More electricity, more water and bigger roads. The wheels of progress along Brontë Rd. may have been slow in the stagecoach days, but they were turning rather quickly by the beginning of the 21st century. Does progress have to mean fewer trees? 

[Theme music]

We're going to take a break here. When we come back, the utility projects keep coming and the stakes get higher for the Brontë Oak.

[Song - Tether, by Sarah Harmer]

Pete Williams  19:15
But it was about a two meter diameter pipe that went from Lake Ontario to a reservoir just south of the Town of Milton. All along the Brontë Road.

Doug Still  19:27
Pete Williams is a consulting arborist and Principal of Williams and Associates Forestry Consulting. In 2002, a large aqueduct project was being planned by the Regional Municipality to serve the growing population of Oakville and nearby towns. Pete was hired to evaluate all the trees along several kilometers of the aqueduct’s proposed path to determine which could be retained. When he got to the Brontë oak, a neighbor spoke up about its protection once again. It was George Atkins, 30 years after the Hydro Electric affair. Pete was drawn into his vortex.

Pete Williams  20:05
I was hired by -  I believe it was a landscape architect who was working for either the building contractor or one of the other sub-consultants. So I can't even remember who the primary consultant was, and I could not find the file. So anyway, I was out there doing the survey and I was asked to meet with George Atkins, who was a famous radio - well, among certain circles, a famous radio host, who hosted the Developing Countries Farm Radio Network. I knew of him from his radio show. 

So he came across the street, and one of his causes was this tree. So we stood there, and while I was evaluating we talked, it was very interesting. And there was a big scar at the base of this tree. It was on the west side, maybe of the old road, it was maybe 100 feet or 120 feet from the road. And there was a big scar on it. Maybe it wasn't that far. You know, I'm old now, so I forget things. [But it was close enough.] It was gonna be disturbed significantly. And so there was a scar at the base of it. And so George and I were talking. I said, “Well, it seems like a pretty healthy tree except for this,” because that's just where a truck ran into it. [wow] I think the scar is pretty much healed over. So we looked at the tree and, and the funny thing was, I called it a bur oak, because I moved here from East Tennessee, and I know what white oak looks like. But down there, the white oak does quite better and has long white plates. Around Huron it's at the edge of its range. And it's not that many of them have those bark characteristics that white oak usually does. And that's really, you know, if I'm just looking at trees, that's how I gauge them. Most of the white oaks anyway, because just bark is very distinctive. So I just called it a bur oak because it was all broken up. And when George received my report, he says that it's not a bur oak, it's a white oak. So I lost some credibility there! But I went by again, I looked way up at the top between a couple of the branches. There were some of those smooth plates. But I said, “Well, George, that's fine. But it won't make any difference in the report except for the spelling.”

Doug Still  22:11
That's right. Sounds like he knew everything about that tree.

Pete Williams  22:14
Oh, it was a mission. It was right across the road, he had a really nice woodlot that was just on the other side of the road. And he'd lived there for 20, 30 years, it was a bit of a mission with him. They were considering tunneling under the tree. And they wanted to know, the question was, how would that affect the tree?

Doug Still  22:32
How far down below the tree? 

Pete Williams  22:36
The pipe is two meters across. So it is a big pipe. I was kind of scratching my head over this. And then I took my soil auger with me because I knew the area fairly well, that area is right at the top of the old Iroquois Lake, glacial lake you're quite at top of bank, so it was really suspicious. There's a lot of clay soils in the area, but then you get a lot of other material deposited on top of it. So anyway, I took my auger with me and the tree was doing quite well, except for the scar. And so I augered down and there was about a meter or less, you know, somewhere between two and three feet of sand over the clay which explained why the tree was doing so well. Because, you know, it's a perched water table with a lot of rooting space and at that point the tree could send its roots anywhere, because the road was some distance away. There was just an old farmhouse next to it. And it could take advantage of all that water. [Oh, yeah] Cuz you know, it had decent drainage. So it was really a quite good site quality for white oak or almost any tree.

Doug Still  23:45
Right, but not necessarily for tunneling. 

Pete Williams  23:49
Well, actually - what I told them -  what happens in Oakville is that there's this red clay that's either a till deposit by the glaciers or it's weathered in place from a shale formation. And then there's the shale below it which you can actually dig through with a backhoe if you're doing something.

Doug Still  24:10
Pete isn't only a forester. He has a master's degree in physiography, which is a branch of geology that investigates the surface features of the Earth, including soils, geological movements, weather and other factors, adding to his knowledge of trees. This unique background meant that Pete was the right person at the right time to propose a lifeline for the old tree.

Pete Williams  24:34
I said, “Well, here's the deal. I said, “If you can get the pipe below a meter so that the pipe is within that clay zone, you won't affect the tree.” And that's what they did. There was no visible effect of it. So they tunneled from about 70 meters on or about 100 feet on one side, 100 or 150 feet on each side of it. 

Doug Still
Wow, sort of like a dip?

Pete Williams
Well, the pipe - I'm not sure how much it dipped because I wasn't looking at the engineering drawings or anything. What they did is they excavated up to 150 feet at the tree and tunneled across it. Just putting the pipe from the surface would have been, I don't know - I don't cost these things out - pretty cheap because it's just the excavator time. But tunneling, they suggest that the tunneling itself would have cost $80,000 or $100,000 or something. And I said, “Well, that's great. It's good to keep the tree. It's nice to have big trees.” I said, “Well, what about that other one?” And they said, “That one has to go.” So that was the end of it.

Doug Still  25:36
Now, was the tree on their radar already before you brought it to their attention? 

Pete Wiliams
Oh, I didn't bring it to their attention. 

Doug Still
George had already been on it. 

Pete Williams  25:47
It was a part of the negotiation, and George Atkins had something to do with calling attention to it with the contract.

Doug Still  25:56
This time, he didn't need a PR campaign. But he did need to speak up to keep the tree on the radar. Thankfully, Pete was on the job working with other talented engineers. It was a testament to their influence that they convinced a sensitive regional water utility to spend significant change to tunnel under the 200 year old tree. $80 to $100,000 is nothing to sneeze at! 

But soon after came the biggest capital project of all, and it would take more than just Dr. Atkins to keep the Brontë Oak from coming down. This wasn't over. 

[Music]

This time it was a highway project, and you don't mess with the needs of the automobile. Or do you? 

Brontë road was to be expanded from two lanes to four. The report for the project stated the beloved tree would not survive and should be removed. I spoke with longtime Council Member Alan Elgar who was in office back in 2006. He questioned the report, and a fight was brewing. 

How did you first become aware of the Brontë Oak and its importance?

Allan Elgar  27:09
Well actually, I'm from a rural area myself, and I just always noticed the old oak tree. I did not realize it was under threat until after, when I was on council when we talked about urbanization, the widening of roads for traffic to flow better. When we received a report saying that the tree only had a 10% chance of survival if in fact, the tree was left there, and the road went around the tree. And of course, on anything, you know, you do the environmental assessment to find out all this information. And we had a consulting company who put the report together which went to Council, which pointed out that the tree has lived almost 250 years, but it's only got a 10% chance of survival for a few more years. Therefore, there's only a 10% chance this tree will survive. [Very upsetting] But you know something? What are you going to do? But I was lucky enough to find another person, Jack Radecky from the City of Toronto, who also was an arborist and in charge of the trees in Toronto at the time. He came out - the tree had excited him and two others to go out and have a look at the tree. Like we couldn't have picked a colder day in February!

Doug Still  28:27
That's always how it works…

Allan Elgar  28:29
It was brutal. So he came out and they stood and they looked at the tree. And they told me “I'd really like to see the report you're referring to.” I had it with me, I get that kind of stuff when I was meeting with them. So I had it with me. And they said “That's the consultant's report. That's not the arborist report.” And like, here I am thinking it's the report, and they said, “No, can you please get me the arborist report?”

Doug Still  28:59
Which they did not include in the other report? 

Allan Elgar  29:03
No! They summarized it. So anyway, they went back to the region, and they said, “Oh, we'll try and get that for you.” In the meantime, I already called and found the company that did it out of Guelph - Steven Aboud and Associates. I got the report which stated that tree has a 90% chance of survival indefinitely, even if the good roads go around the tree.

Doug Still  29:26
Conditional on if the road was adjusted around the tree, correct?

Allan Elgar  29:29
Yes. But in the other Council’s report, it wouldn't matter what they did, you know, there's only a 10% chance it's gonna survive, versus the actual arborist saying 90% chance. So that's when the fun began.

Doug Still  29:46
I see. What did you do next?

Allan Elgar  29:49
Well, the next thing is we tried to stir up interest and we got it to the town. We asked the region to reconsider some of the portion of the environmental assessment, which they did. They got enough votes on council to do that.

Doug Still  30:05
And that's when he brought in Joyce Burnelll to testify on the Brontë Oak’s behalf.

Allan Elgar  30:11
But you also have an 87 year old woman named Joyce Burnelll who came and spoke at the region, and a very colorful speech she gave to the region. She was the one that convinced the councilors….

Doug Still  30:27
How did she get involved?

Allan Elgar  30:29
She got it. I sent out something about the oak tree, and she responded back to me and said, “What you're trying to do - I don't know you, but what you're trying to do, I really like. I like what you're trying to do.” So I said to her, “Ms. Burnell, I think you're probably the only person that can really save this tree, because you could come and speak at Regional Council. I think they will at least listen to you. And she was a teacher all of her life, a school teacher. And she said, “I'll do that.” [That's wonderful] Yeah, it was unbelievably beautiful. When she spoke - who was going to argue with an 87 year old woman that spoke so passionately, and she broke into a song singing “Save our oak, God save our great oak tree” and everything.

Doug Still  31:18
What was her general message?

Allan Elgar  31:21
That we have to save this tree. It's an important tree. It's historic. There's hardly any left in Oakville at all, they've all been cut down for masts for ships, you know, years and years ago. It was a seedling in 1760, and there is no way this tree should be cut. We have to save it. 

Doug Still
But there was a catch. 

Allan Elgar
But then they came back with, if you want to save the tree, you have to raise $343,000. And that was at a June meeting in 2006. It was also an election year for all municipal and regional councilors, by the way. The Regional Council said, “We will give you until the end of December to raise 343,000, because we weren't going to put that on the taxpayer.” 

Doug Still  32:12
That’s a very precise number. 

Allan Elgar  32:15
Very precise, yes, wasn’t it though? [laughs] Right? Very precise. And you're starting at base zero.

Doug Still  32:23
They didn't really think that that was possible, did they?

Allan Elgar  32:26
Of course not! Like come on. An 87 year old woman, what's she going to do, raise $10,000 or, you know, after everybody comes through?

Doug Still  32:34
There's something rotten about that.

Allan Elgar  32:37
Well yeah, yes. But if that's, hey, that was -  some of the Councilors were laughing around the regional meeting.

Doug Still  32:45
Yeah, well, they messed with the wrong 87 year old lady. 

[theme music]

When we come back from a short break, we'll learn what happened next. You're listening to This Old Tree.

[Song - Squeaking Voices by Sarah Harmer]

Doug Still  33:50
So after she spoke, after that public meeting, what changed?

Allan Elgar  33:55
What really changed was everybody that engaged - not just around Oak Hill, but I'm talking in other countries also - were sending emails of support about how important trees were to them. It was different countries across the world.

Doug Still  34:13
The fundraising had begun, and the story hit the national media. Letters of support and donations poured in, including from one Royal tree lover across the Atlantic.

Allan Elgar  34:27
Then also Prince Charles, who is now the king, sent a letter from Clarence House, saying that he felt that the tree should be protected. [Amazing] The Prince of Wales was indeed very concerned to hear about the threat to one of the few remaining trees in Oakville.

Doug Still  34:46
So he heard about it through the news? 

Allan Elgar  34:49
He heard about it through a lady who lived in Toronto, but knew Prince Charles. So she sent him a fax and that was on October the 19th, 2006.

Doug Still  35:03
I remember faxes.

 Allan Elgar  35:07
Yes, were getting older [both laugh]

Doug Still  35:08
And she had a direct fax line to Prince Charles. 
Allan Elgar  35:12
Yes she did. Yeah. And she took the time to do it. And they sent back a hardcopy letter with the Clarence House logo on it.

Doug Still  35:22
Where did the donations come from. All over?

Allan Elgar  35:26
Yes. We had schoolkids selling oak leaves. We had a jewelry store downtown Oakville who made gold or silver acorns which they were selling and given the proceeds to this fund. We had it a brewing company in Oakville, which was giving for every beer sold of the Great White Oak beer, and put the label of the tree on it and everything. They gave a buck for every one. And then we also had one donor who, just herself, gave $150,000.

Doug Still  36:02
Wow, wow. Anonymously?

Allan Elgar  36:05
Yes, it was anonymous at the time. Yes, it was. She said, “I will match whatever you give.” And it was still a little low, so she wrote out a check for $150,000.

Doug Still  36:18
Incredible. So that was sort of the Keystone donation?

Allan Elgar  36:22
That was absolutely. We had a singer called Sarah Harmer. I'm not sure if you've heard of her down there. but she's a pretty famous singer. She put on a benefit concert for us for free. Every dollar of the proceeds went to saving the oak tree.

Doug Still  36:39
This was during that nine month effort. 

Allan Elgar  36:43
Yep, this was during the effort. And she gave every dollar she made at that concert. We had that through the Oakville -  I set that up through the Oakville Art Center. So the money all went through the Oakville Art Center to buy your tickets. So everything was very straightforward, but not $1 went to her. She is one good person. And you know something, from then on we knew we could do it. We figured we'd raised around $270,000 out of the 343. And then the Province and the Region and the town of Oakville threw in the rest to make it work.

Doug Still  37:24
Not everyone was pleased that the City was spending this money to save a single tree, based on an article in the National Post in January 2007 entitled “Not all of Oakville Rooting for Old Tree.” Said one constituent, “Realistically, this seems to have more emotional weight than any sort of logical weight…because it is going to be in the middle of a four lane highway. Nobody even thought to talk to the voters.” 

But it seems most people thought differently. This was a fast moving train, and nothing was going to get in the way of saving the Bronte Oak. To preservationists, the effort touched something deep inside. 

[theme music]

They rerouted the highway around the tree, giving it ample room, forming the island I first told you about. Councilman Elgar spreads the praise.

Allan Elgar  38:22
They went around the tree, and that tree is still very much alive today. They got the road up now nicely around the tree, whatever it took. Whatever was their number. It’s the public’s tree, it's the people's tree, as Joyce Burnelll said, and as Renee Sandelowski was another Councilor on Council at the time who was a spark plug behind it too - a true spark plug. She came to speak to Council and Jim Young, another person behind the scenes somewhat, who really supported Joyce Burnell who was the fire…without Joyce, I don't know whether Regional Council would have even given an extra six months to save the tree and raise the money. So…

Doug Still  39:09
One really cool thing is that I got a chance to talk to Sarah Harmer about the benefit concert she did with Ohbijou, and chat about environmental activism. She was kind enough to come on the show. I asked her how she first heard about the effort to save the old oak tree.

Sarah Harmer  39:25
I think it may have been through Alan Elgar the Councilor. And it could have been through the media, I'm not quite sure. I think I had read about Joyce Burnelll who was the older citizen who had really spearheaded things at the council meeting, and got, I think, a six month window for the community to raise that money. I think my mom might have told me about it or I heard about it in the media or Alan I can't quite remember. But it came to my attention for sure.

Doug Still  39:59
Do you live nearby? Where are you?

Sarah Harmer  40:03
Yeah, I now live in Kingston, Ontario, which is on the east end of Lake Ontario and Oakville is kind of at the west end of the lake. They’re about three hours apart. But I grew up near Oakville in North Burlington. So I was spending a lot of time there with my family and working on other environmental issues. It's a very populated area, so it has a lot of pressures on it as far as protecting the natural landscape. It’s vulnerable there. So I've been working on a big gravel mining issue. I had been spending a lot of time in the area, but I live three hours away.

Doug Still  40:37
Is that the Niagara Escarpment? 

Sarah Harmer
Yes. 

Doug Still
Yeah, I know you were involved in that, bringing attention to that issue. Could you describe it a little bit?

Sarah Harmer  40:47
Oh I would love to. Yeah, the Niagara Escarpment is a big ridge corridor, it runs for 700 or more kilometers from Niagara Falls all the way up. It kind of peters out around Chicago, so it actually goes into the states as well. It's been historically hard to develop because it is a big, rocky cliff face and escarpment corridor. It's got something like, I don't know how many, a large percentage of our endangered and threatened species. It's got ancient forests, white cedars that are older than any other tree east of the Rocky Mountains. You know, it's really ancient ecosystems up there. It's also very coveted by the gravel mining industry because the rock is close to the surface. And it's close to market. So I was working…unfortunately, it's kind of a zombie quarry application. So we defeated it, after eight years of building the science and fighting at a big hearing.

Doug Still  41:50
Now you started a nonprofit?

Sarah Harmer  41:52
Yeah, we started a community group called PERL - Protecting Escarpment Rural Land - which was just a bunch of volunteers who had never really done that kind of work before. Just like there are so many community groups around the world, trying to figure out how decisions get made and trying to be involved. And so the quarry was dismissed by the Province. They found it to be a bad idea for the endangered species and the water. Unfortunately, only six years or so after that decision. Lafarge, the company, has come back and they're trying again. They've reapplied for some of the exact same land. So right now, we're back in the same bad, bad nightmare of once again, having to raise all the money, and science, and re-litigate the whole blinkin’ thing.

Doug Still  42:40
I know you wrote a song called Escarpment Blues, which is a great song. But now you're gonna have to write another song.

Sarah Harmer  42:47
I know. That's it. [both chuckle] It’s Escarpment Blues, times two.

Doug Still  42:51
Right, right. 

But Sarah also found time to support the Brontë Oak.

Sarah Harmer  42:57
One little thing, you know, at the time when it came to my attention, my album “I'm a Mountain” was nominated for a Polaris Award, which is a music award in Canada. And the award winnings if you won the award, was a $20,000 prize. I was interviewed and asked what I would do if I won, what I would do with that $20,000. And I said, a little bit flippantly, but I kind of said, “I would donate it to the white oak in Oakville.” And a guy who was in another band called Ohbijou, who was also nominated for the Polaris award, read that interview and said, “I know that tree. My grandfather, George Atkins taught me how to play chess under that tree.”  [Wow] And contacted me and said, “We should do something.” And I said, “Yeah, let's do a show.”

Doug Still  43:51
His name keeps coming up, George Atkins.

Sarah Harmer  43:54
Well, he came to the show, which we did. We put on a fundraiser concert in the afternoon, right by the tree. It's at the regional auditorium. It was like in a school gym, kind of vibe. And George Atkins was there, I hadn't met him. But my mom and dad were there as well. And my dad told me about being - my dad's in his 90’s now, but he was a farmer. And he said, at lunchtime he and his brothers would come in and listen to CBC Farm Radio at their lunch hour. And it would be George Atkins who was a broadcaster about farming know-how. And so I got to meet him that day and he, yeah, he was Ryan Carly's grandfather, and he had, I think, owned the land that the the region had at one point expropriated. But he had made a deal with them back in the 70’s, as far as I understand, to always protect this ancient tree.

Doug Still  44:52
That's fantastic. It's a small world, right?

Sarah Harmer  44:54
Yeah, Canada is a huge country, but it's a small population. So there often is a lot of crossover.

Doug Still  45:00
Who performed at the concert?

Sarah Harmer  45:03
So Ohbijou was the first band, and then myself and my band. So we kind of did a stripped-down thing because it was in a gym. You know, I don't know if we had any lights it was a pretty modest production, but it was a great crowd. And then after the show, I was playing with my friend Spencer Evans who plays clarinet and piano, and he's a real Pied Piper and he led everyone out, playing his clarinet. He led everyone out from the regional hall there to the tree. And we all did a - someone who was up from the local paper in a cherry picker, and they did a photo of us all.

Doug Still  45:50
I love it. I’ll have to find that photo. 

Sarah Harmer  45:53
Yes, it was the Oakville Beaver, I believe is the name of the paper.

Doug Still  45:57
Have you ever written a song about a tree?

Sarah Harmer  46:01
That's a good question. I don't think I have. [Doug chuckles] And man, I'm a huge, I'm a huge tree hugger. I love I love planting them. I love admiring them.

Doug Still  46:13
Why are trees important to you?

Sarah Harmer  46:17
They're there other beings, you know, they're so… I mean, I grew up on a big farm on an old farm. And so we have a lot of big maples. And you know, they're rooted in time they - I’m a nostalgic person I think by nature. So I love to imagine kind of what things were like 100 years ago when you're next to an old tree. You can feel that it has a sense of that. 

But you know, it's one of those things at the time it was very daunting, the amount of money - I think we raised about $12,000 at our concert. [fantastic] A bit of a drop in the bucket next to 343. But you just never know.

Doug Still  47:00
Well, you  raised awareness. So you don't really know how much you raised because of the concert right?  

Sarah Harmer  47:07
Yeah, for sure, for sure. Yeah, you don't know when you're looking at it from the other side. It's a joy now. I drive by it regularly - it's kind of a slightly out of my way to get up to my folks. But I often make that route just to give it a hello. I'm looking at it right now, because I have a pencil drawing of it here in my kitchen. A woman named Betty Goodfellow - I think it was her name - and as part of the fundraiser she had done a sketch of it without its leaves, a wintertime sketch.

Doug Still  47:42
Well, thanks so much for joining me today. I really appreciate it. It's been lovely talking to you.

Sarah Harmer  47:46
Hey, my pleasure. Thank you so much Doug. I can look forward to listening to the final product.

Doug Still  47:52
And good luck with preserving the Niagara Escarpment.

Sarah Harmer  47:56
Thank you very much. We need a lot of luck.

Doug Still  48:00
I also asked my other guests why they thought the Bronte Oak has been so important to the people of Oakville and the surrounding area all these years.

John McNeil  48:10
I think the tree is a symbol of the town spirit. And it is a strongly held spirit and I believe a sincere spirit. There's a respect for the urban forest and things of nature held by the majority of the citizens of Oakville.

Doug Still  48:27
Do you think there's anything distinctly Canadian about the story of the Brontë Oak surviving all these threats

John McNeil  48:33
Well, no blood was shed. Nobody was violent. In that sense. It probably was a polite discussion. [both laugh] Even though there were a few tempers raised at times. Let's say it was a polite debate. That’s probably uniquely Canadian.

Doug Still  48:49
What do you think about when you drive by the Brontë Oak now. What comes to mind? 

John McNeil  48:55
Well first off, just a sense of pride. There’s a sense of pride for having been part of that and helped to, in some way, small way contribute towards building that and sustaining that. And I also think of Dr. Atkins.

Pete Williams  49:09
I suspect there's a few individuals that were its champion. Like George Atkins, for example. I know he was very… that was before it was really popular to do that kind of, you know, like, it wasn't as rah rah as it is these days. So he was successful in drawing attention to it and rallying some support. And I imagine Allen Elgar was involved in it as well. But I mean, it took somebody -  people, to like rattle a couple of doors to actually draw the attention to it, and then more people joined in on it.

Doug Still  49:42
What do you think of when you drive by it now?

Pete Williams  49:44
I go, “Nice lookin’ tree. That's lucky, a lucky one” You know, because, like I said, if you're rolling the dice, they all had to fall in its favor for it to stay.

Allan Elgar  49:56
I think one of the reasons is because where it’s situated, where people drive by it every day. Now it's almost like a monument, it's kind of like a landmark in that area for sure. In my life I've never seen so many engaged people from all aspects of life.

Doug Still  50:16
What goes through your mind when you drive by the tree now?

Allan Elgar  50:20
I just, I just smile, when I see it looking at me. [laughs] My next concern Brontë Oak widening from two lanes on each side to three lanes on each side.

Doug Still  50:31
That's coming up.

Allan Elgar  50:32
Yes, it is. And that's it. That's another concern I have going forward with the street.

Doug Still  50:37
I can honestly say there's no construction damage or danger that's going to happen to the tree.

Allan Elgar  50:43
I hope you're right. [both laugh] We need people to stand up. I remember a New York University professor who said, “People should not live above the treeline.” He said, “If you're above the tree line by very much you're not associated with the ground, and people should stay grounded.” 

Doug Still  51:13
Was it worth $343,000 to save the Brontë Oak tree? I think so, but I'm biased. Prince Charles thought so. And Sarah Harmer thought so. Most importantly, the people of Oakville felt it was important. The tree is a link to the past, a living piece of environmental heritage. To them it is a symbol that suggests we can save the world if we try.

I'd like to thank my wonderful guests John McNeil, Pete Williams, Alan Elgar, and Sarah Harmer. And thank you listeners for tuning into the show, once again. You can find links and credits in the show notes and I'll be posting photos on Facebook and Instagram. See you next time. I'm Doug Still, and this has been This Old Tree

[Theme song - This Old Tree by Dee Lee]

[Song - The Ring by Sarah Harmer]