Vancouver Mayor Tim Leavitt remembers the first tree he ever climbed. It wasn’t until he’d reached the top, he said, that he realized there was a second step: getting down.
Leavitt seems to have survived — and thrived — nonetheless. And on Wednesday he exhorted dozens of young people, who gathered at the south end of Marshall Community Park, never to forget the bigger picture as they pursue their tree-climbing careers.
The bigger picture is this, he said during the city’s annual Arbor Day celebration: Vancouver values trees for their many environmental benefits — sequestering carbon and releasing oxygen, stabilizing the soil, absorbing noise, moderating temperatures and providing wildlife habitat — not to mention their historic value and sheer beauty.
Leavitt high-fived each and every kid who came to the event — from Image and Fruit Valley elementary schools — and requested their help in planting a very special elm in the little stand of trees near the corner of Mill Plain Boulevard and Fort Vancouver Way.
That’s the Mayor’s Grove, and it’s been a tradition for decades for each new mayor of Vancouver to select a tree to add to the growing miniature forest.
Kelly Punteney, a retired Vancouver parks and recreation staffer who’s spent years developing the city’s trails and trees, said the Mayor’s Grove got its start in 1972 when Mayor Lloyd Stormgren planted a noble fir near the Marshall Center. It had to be moved as the building expanded. Next was Mayor Jim Gallagher, who liked the tree-planting idea and followed Stormgren’s lead.
“If you’ve got two mayors planting trees, you’ve got a grove,” Punteney quipped. But it’s been a while since a new mayor planted a new tree there — thanks to former Mayor Royce Pollard’s 14-year stint at City Hall. Pollard chose a paper birch from his native Vermont.
On Wednesday, Leavitt became the 11th Vancouver mayor to plant a tree in Mayor’s Grove, Punteney said. He picked an elm — a symbol of resurgence, Leavitt said, since the species was once nearly wiped out by disease.
Punteney pointed out the towering trees that started out as saplings years ago and likened the Mayor’s Grove to nearby Officers Row. The big leaf maples there started out as a modest attempt to add class; now Officers Row is considered one Vancouver’s loveliest tree-lined boulevards.
The Mayor’s Grove started out a “desolate place,” Punteney said. “Now it’s a whole grove of mature trees.”
Tree City USA
Hollywood has the Oscars, television has the Emmys — and now, urban forestry commissioner Jim Wasden said, Vancouver Urban Forestry has the Mac awards.
Named for the late Gordon MacWIlliams, a longtime Vancouver tree activist who died last year — and for his widow, Sylvia, who helped him keep Vancouver green — the first-ever Mac awards were announced during the ceremony. They honor people who have made extraordinary contributions to Vancouver’s tree canopy.
Four awards were handed out Wednesday to Duane Northrup, a former chairman of the city’s urban forestry commission; Susan Sanders of the Carter Park neighborhood; Cynthia Tang of the Lincoln neighborhood; and the Old Apple Tree Research Committee, which came together to save the city’s famous 1826 tree via some innovative grafting after it was badly damaged last year.
“We thought it was a goner. They saved it,” said Wasden.
Vancouver was also honored by Washington Commissioner of Public Lands Peter Goldmark, who noted that the city has been named a “Tree City USA” 21 years in a row by the Arbor Day Foundation.
Chuck MacWilliams, son of Gordon and Sylvia, was on hand at the ceremony. He said his father would have loved the gathering and the honor — but would have been shy about admitting it.
“He grew up in the outdoors and I grew up in the outdoors with him,” Chuck said. “When I was 6 or 7, I was out there with him, digging tree holes.”
National Arbor Day is April 30.
