Charlottetown reclaiming fallen trees after Fiona for city projects

Charlottetown is a city known for its trees, but many of them came down when post-tropical storm Fiona smashed into the province.

However, there’s now a post-Fiona plan for the trees that were lost.

A pair of carpenters are working with the city to make sure they don’t go to waste.

A large number of Charlottetown’s trees are over a 100-years-old. The storm knocked down many or damaged them so badly they needed to be cut down.

They city owns most of those trees.

“We’re seeing lots of the large, storied, generational trees that had fallen or been damaged, and part of the expertise that we wanted to bring in was just the opportunity to salvage some of these trees,” said Carly Siopis, a spokesperson for the City of Charlottetown. “Really use them for future stories.”

That’s where Elliot Mallett and Brodye Chappell came in. The carpenters stepped forward to use their expertise to identity wood suitable for use in projects.

“Looking for something that hasn’t rotted,” said Mallett. “So, lots of the middles of these trees are rotted out, and that’s probably the reason that they fell down, so we’re looking for something that’s still a solid tree throughout.”

The trees are marked in sections of about 10 to 14 feet, small enough to fit in the bed of a dump truck, so workers clearing trees know which to save.

“Marking out the trees for the arborist to cut it accordingly, it’s almost like we felt like a chef ready to butcher a pig,” said Chappell. “Nothing goes to waste, try and use as much as possible.”

The carpenters then go through the wood in detail, discarding anything that isn’t useable and cutting it into manageable chunks, grading, and organizing it.

“The trees need to live on and on. These trees have been, the trees behind me here, have been pillars in the community for 200 to 300 years,” said Chappell. “We can’t just throw them in the landfill, it’s just not right.”

The plan is to use the downed trees for benches, tables, art pieces, mementos, and even to be used in the city’s nature education programs.

“Part of salvaging these trees is really being able to, down the road, tell the story of what can be built from what’s been lost,” said Siopis.

The wood needs to be milled and kilned before it can be used in projects. They’re expecting the first few pieces of timber to be ready to go by the new year.