The trees of the forest • by Deborah Bowen 1

Hamilton Arts & Letters   We have a 150-year-old white oak in our west-end Hamilton backyard. From before there were houses here. Not planted, at least not by people. Maybe 70 foot high. Huge, and settled in for the long haul. I didn't know most of that till early February this year, when Paul O'Hara, whose tree book I had just read with delight,2 graciously agreed to take me on a nature walk around the Bruce Trail on the Niagara escarpment near our house, and looked into the backyard on his way home. Now we are super-proud of our white oak. We've been taking pictures of it. We wonder what we can do to enhance its life. We honour its longevity.  [  >>>>>  FORWARD ] 1 Our backyard white Oak: All photos in this article except the last two are courtesy of John Bowen. 2 Paul O'Hara, A Trail Called Home: Tree Stories from the Golden Horseshoe (Dundurn P, 2019).   + [Distillate © HA&L + Deborah Bowen {from the Greek bios} -- the course of a life.]