My family, wife and I standing next to the largest Douglas Fir currently known to exist on Earth.

Most people are not aware that (before the tallest ones were targeted for clearcutting by colonials) the tallest Douglas Fir trees in BC once exceeded even the Californian Redwoods in height.

Douglas Fir are known for their mycorrhizal network enabled forest economy orchestrating and generosity towards less fortunate rooted beings as they have been recorded gifting nutrients to a diverse array of species through their roots and fungal allies. These are foundational beings for ecosystem health, salmon habitat protectors, soil builders, watershed guardians, keystone species.

——

“She has searched for a name for the great ancient trunks of the uncut forest, the ones who keep the market in carbons and metabolites going. Now she has one:

Fungi mine stone to supply their trees with minerals. They hunt springtails, which they feed to their hosts. Trees, for their part, store extra sugar in their fungi's synapses, to dole out to the sick and shaded and wounded. A forest takes care of itself, even as it builds the local climate it needs to survive.

Before it dies, a Douglas-fir, half a millennium old, will send its storehouse of chemicals back down into its roots and out through its fungal partners, donating its riches to the community. pool in a last will and testament. We might well call these ancient benefactors giving trees.”

- Richard Powers (from his book titled “The Overstory” chapter titled “Trunk” page 242 about a character in the book named Patricia Westerford)

——

This massive Douglas fir we are standing next to in the pic is an entire ecosystem onto himself , supporting ferns, blueberry bushes , lush mosses and diverse lichens on this trunk. That said, in all likelihood, this tree was one of the smaller Douglas Firs in the valley about 200 years ago. When colonial forces began feverishly clearcutting every ancient and tall rooted being they could get their hands on about 150 years ago in what is now called BC they went for the tallest ones first.

Although a Coast redwood is presently the tallest tree found to date, there is evidence that the coastal Douglas-fir has the biological capacity to surpass the redwoods in stratospheric height.

In 2008, a study proposed that the maximum height for a Doug­las fir -- one of the world's tallest trees -- is about 453 feet (138 meters).

A Douglas-fir is the third tallest tree in the world (or second, depending on other accounts), and some believe a Douglas-fir could be, or once was, the tallest. Upper height limit estimates for the species go as high as 476 ft, and before logging began in the 19th and 20th centuries, plus 400 foot trees were probably fairly common.

A Douglas fir measured 415 feet high, (127 meters) in 1902 at the Alfred John Nye property in Lynn Valley. Diameter was 14 ft 3 inches 5 feet from the ground.

A 352 footer was felled in 1907 in Lynn Valley. Diameter was 10 feet.

In 1897 a 465 foot (142 m) Douglas fir was felled in Whatcom, Washington on the Alfred Loop ranch near MT. Baker. Diameter was 11 feet, and 220 feet to first branch. Board footage was 96,345 feet of top quality lumber.

Who knows how big his elder brothers were as back when the clearcutting of the region started over a century ago people often did not even stop to measure them.

For all we know this near Fairy Creek on Vancouver Island valley could have been filled with Doug Firs taller than the tallest Redwoods.

(picture taken near the Fairy Creek ancient forest watershed, in a valley that has been mostly clearcut, on Vancouver island, August , 2025)

The BC and Canadian federal government still allows (and profits from) cutting down the last of the giant Douglas Fir trees that exist on Earth.

Please check out (and share) my full posts on the Walbran and Fairy Creek valleys and support the forest defenders that are engaging in their sacred duty to protect these learned and generous rooted beings so they can be appreciated by future generations.

——-

For more info, photos and videos on the area this picture and video was recorded in, check out the post linked below.