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An elder among elders: Saying goodbye to a historic tree
Sunday read

A city is full of historic trees, but most of their stories are unknown, unrecorded. The Garneau tree in Edmonton is different, Jana Pruden reports

Jana G. Pruden
Edmonton, alberta

This article was published more than 6 years ago. Some information may no longer be current.

The Garneau Tree: part 1 of 9, by @jana_pruden. In the beginning it was as thin and pale as a moth’s wing. A seed pod that grew into a sapling and was then carried two provinces west by Red River cart, to be planted in fertile soil near the banks of the North Saskatchewan River. It may have been placed into the ground by Laurent Garneau, set with the same strong hands that fought beside Louis Riel and turned black making charcoal with the Hudson’s Bay Company, that could make a fiddle sing with the music of the Métis people. Or maybe it was Mr. Garneau’s wife, Eleanor, who actually placed the tree into the earth behind their cabin that day in 1874, a symbol of both the past and the future. A Manitoba maple, to remind her of home. #TheGarneauTree

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The Garneau Tree: part 2 of 9, by @jana_pruden. Imagine it in fast-forward. That tree over 143 years, growing thicker and taller beside Laurent and Eleanor’s rustic cabin, reaching toward the sky as Edmonton appears around it, a city sprouting and sprawling in all directions. The homestead cabin disappears and there is a new house, then it grows old and disappears as well. Buggies and horses are replaced with automobiles. There is electricity, then radio and television, the Internet and smartphones. Buildings grow taller than the trees around them ever could. There is searing heat and frigid cold, drought and flood and fire. A deadly tornado, two world wars. Disasters wrought by man and nature. Generations of people are born and live and die. And there, through all of it, is the Garneau tree. Every spring, buds form and unfurl into a lush green canopy then turn yellow and are shed. For a period it is bare, and the cycle begins again. #TheGarneauTree

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The Garneau Tree: part 3 of 9, by @jana_pruden. The Latin name is Acer negundo, but in the United States they are known as box elder. In Canada, they are Manitoba maple trees, for the province that is their primary natural home. Their seeds travel in pairs of papery wings called samaras, beloved by children for the way they fall spinning to the ground, whirling like helicopters. Though they can be wounded by storms and snow, Manitoba maples are nonetheless hardy and resilient, so easily spread they’re considered in places to be an invasive species. Some think their irregular shape is ugly, their scattered samaras an annoyance, but on the harsh prairie they’re valuable for both their shade and shelter. First Nations people found many uses for them, turning their soft wood into vessels and pipes and drums, burning it for fuel and ceremony, to make black ink for tattoos. They harvested its syrup for sweetness, believed its smoke to be medicine. #TheGarneauTree

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The Garneau Tree: part 4 of 9, by @jana_pruden. Laurent Garneau was born in Michigan, the son of a trader and an Ojibwa woman. He tried his hand at trading before following the buffalo hunters north to Canada, where he joined Louis Riel fighting for the rights of the Métis at the Red River Rebellion in 1869. In 1874, he and his young wife moved west to Alberta. In their new homestead, the Garneaus had businesses, a ranch and farm, a family, lives of both success and hardship. Eleanor bore 15 children, but lost five. In 1885, around the time of the North-West Rebellion, Mr. Garneau was arrested, imprisoned and sentenced to death, for reasons that vary depending on which version of history you believe. It’s not known whether he had a part in Mr. Riel’s second uprising, though Mr. Riel himself had invited him. Eleanor died in 1912, Laurent in 1921. His descendants carry his stories and his humour, his love of music. The neighbourhood where his home once stood carries his history, his name. 🔺 “Laurent, who was once engaged in the buffalo hunts, Riel’s uprising, was a true plainsman who contributed to the democratic opening up of the west, not just in the idealistic sense, but in the hardships and the stress, the pioneer life,” said his great-great-grandson Duane Zaraska, standing on the land that was once the Garneau homestead and is now part of the University of Alberta campus. The meaning of that spot, and that old Manitoba maple, was powerful enough to move him to tears. #TheGarneauTree 📸: City of Edmonton Archives EA-58-3

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The Garneau Tree: part 5 of 9, by @jana_pruden. The city is full of historic trees, but most of their stories are unknown, unrecorded. The Garneau tree is different because Ms. Garneau told her neighbours its story, and those neighbours later told their son. When he became an old man in the 1970s, he passed the story on to a young woman who had moved into the neighbourhood, and she began telling others. Frances Cruden was 29 then, newly married and starting a family, but the story of the Garneau tree connected with her. There was something about feeling so close to history, connected to the people who helped form the place around her. She’d just moved to Edmonton from England and she understood deeply what that tree meant, why it had been so special. “Any immigrant knows you’re always yearning for something that reminds you of home,” she says. 🔺 The Garneau tree has been commemorated with a plaque, with historic designations. For 40 years, Ms. Cruden has watched it change and grow. At times it has had four trunks, at others only two. But it was always there, with new sprouts reaching out again. “I’ve always expected it to be there,” she says. “It’s always been there, until now.” #TheGarneauTree

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The Garneau Tree: part 6 of 9, by @jana_pruden. The lifespan of a Manitoba maple is 40 or 50 years, and the Garneau tree lived three times that long. But through the years, the rot inside had grown. By this summer, there were concerns the tree was becoming dangerous, its wood so soft in spots it crumbled to the touch. An arborist who examined the tree said it was time to cut it down. 🔺 Knowing the tree’s history and significance, the university planned a ceremony to say goodbye. On Friday evening, they put out a podium and rows of chairs in front of a safety fence that had been erected around the tree. Organizers expected a small showing of Garneau descendants and residents from the neighbourhood, but more than 100 people came. They stood in the fall sunshine for well over an hour, listening to speeches about Laurent and Eleanor Garneau, reflecting on the meaning of a tree planted lifetimes ago. 🔺 “The autumn is the time of harvesting what has been sown with care, and a time for shedding the old to prepare for the new,” said Métis elder and veteran John McDonald, in a prayer at the close of the ceremony. “It is a time of transition, a time of regeneration, a time of bringing back into alignment with the physical realm, for reaping the awards of past sowing and sowing the seeds of tomorrow. This great monument of our past and to our Métis heritage is an elder among elders.” Later, he walked to the tree and placed his hands gently on its bark, praying to release any spirits still contained inside. #TheGarneauTree

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The Garneau Tree: part 8 of 9, by @jana_pruden. Early on Sunday morning, the fabric that had been tied around the tree was removed, pieces of red and yellow cloth untied from one limb, a Métis sash taken from the other, all neatly folded, handled with care. There are still decisions being made about what to do with the site, and how best to recognize Mr. Garneau’s contributions and legacy. Wood from the tree is being saved, in hopes it can be used in special ways, preserved for the future. 🔺 “There’s something so symbolic about a tree that was only supposed to last 50 years being here 140 years later,” said Chris Andersen, dean of the university’s Faculty of Native Studies. “People who have never thought about this tree in their whole lives were in tears on Friday. That’s the great thing about symbols, they mean so many different things to so many people.” 🔺 Around 11 a.m., Scott MacKeigan arrived. The arborist got his truck in place, and readied his safety equipment, his chainsaw. He has worked on the tree for almost 15 years. “I’m not too happy about it,” he said. “Every tree means a lot. I’d sooner not have to take them down, but at a certain point it’s just like ourselves, you start breaking down.” #TheGarneauTree

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