Cutting through downtown on a summer evening walk a few years ago, I heard giggling from above.
Looking up, I spied what appeared to be two teenagers perched in a makeshift treehouse about 15 feet up a big spruce tree between the Senior Village and the health clinic along First Avenue.
The couple had built or discovered a nest of a few boards that was almost invisible, at least at night. The tree with the homemade crow’s nest stood for years, serving as a hideaway for countless small-town kids hungry for some privacy.
But it’s gone now. Like so many other trees that made our downtown interesting and beautiful, it was cut down. A willow on Port Chilkoot Beach suffered the same fate recently. It was a favorite of neighbors because it budded early, often in March, providing a first sign of spring.
Many other trees have been felled too soon, including several along Main Street that strung with lights once served as the town’s unofficial Christmas tree. A great loss was the felling of the giant conifer next to the historic Charlie Anway cabin that gave the place a lost-in-the-forest, fairytale appearance.
Fortunately, a few beauties remain, including two mountain ash spared by the contractor who tore down the old elementary school at Third and Main. When fall conditions are just right, the larger of the two bursts into a rainbow of color.
Still, much of our urban landscape fluctuates wildly between undeveloped lots overgrown with vegetation and clearcut ones filled and paved flat. Do we even know what to do with trees? How important are they?
Try this. Stand on the sidewalk that straddles the bank parking lot and train your view at the museum’s totem pole. Now try imagine how the totem would look without the spruce tree behind it.
Or stand at Third and Main, looking north toward Skagway, and imagine the gravel parking lot across the street extending to the sidewalk without the green buffer provided by tiny George Mark Park. Or simpler yet, imagine Tlingit Park without trees. It would look much like it truly is, a low-lying flat spot.
Trees are critical for so many things let’s just forget the important ones – like providing the oxygen we breathe, filtering the water we drink and providing other animals with food and homes – and concentrate on the minor, aesthetic ones.
Trees are to the urban landscape what lingerie is to nakedness: They show off the goods while hiding what needn’t be seen. They add shape, color and appeal, while camouflaging rough edges. They turn pretty into beauty.
But with the exception of a few short-lived efforts – Joe Poor’s apple tree campaign comes to mind – we rarely consider adding trees to improve our town’s look.
Perhaps it’s because we cut down so many of them to clear spots in the forest we’ve come to regard trees as the enemy. Or maybe it’s that so many of our trees sit on private property and we are loathe even to suggest what private landowners should do with their land. Those are possible explanations, but poor excuses.
We’ve been blind too long to our urban trees, and to their potential.
The borough should lead on this issue by surveying its properties around town to improve with foliage. The elementary school section fronting Main Street and the school entrance facing Old Haines Highway would be obvious places to start. Another spot is between the high school running track and the field directly adjacent to the north.
With a little leadership and example, private landowners might follow suit.
Other downtown spots that could be improved with trees include the north side of Willard Street between Second and Third avenues; between Lynn Canal Counseling and King’s Store; the Department of Transportation yard west of the Main Street gate; the Fish and Game office lot; and in front of Thor’s and the Alascom building.
We live surrounded by forest. Let’s learn to use our trees to improve our town, and let’s think twice before taking them down.