The City of Abbotsford is planning to create the first “memorial forest” in B.C. to commemorate loved ones who have passed.
A proposal comes before city council on Tuesday afternoon (Dec. 9) to designate Hughes Park at 1395 Clearbrook Rd. for the program.
The park is currently the site of a baseball diamond, but a staff report to council states the last booking for the park was in April 2017.
The report indicates there are currently 11 trees on site – mainly spruce and Douglas fir – with room to add another 38.
The proposal also includes a memorial wall, where plaques would be added with the names of those being remembered.
The staff report states that the total cost of the 38 trees and the memorial wall is estimated to be $44,000. Additional pathway work and seating are estimated to be another $50,000.
The proposal recommends that the cost for anyone wanting to memorialize a loved one be set at $1,500, amounting to a total of $57,000 being recovered once all 38 trees are planted.
(The rest of the funding will come from the city’s parks development cost charge reserve.)
Although a tree will be planted for each memorial request, that specific tree will not be associated with a specific individual, the staff report states.
Instead, their name will be added to the memorial wall, and their loved ones will be invited to a commemorative ceremony held each year to honour all those who have had a tree planted in their memory.
The trees to be planted on the site will be chosen by city staff. One possibility listed in the proposal is the Swedish columnar aspen.
“Its narrow, upright form allows for close planting without creating a congested atmosphere,” the report states.
“ … Planting this tree in a formal grid layout would provide a juxtaposition to a natural forest area, providing substantive canopy cover and open spaces at the park.”
The staff report indicates there are currently 12 memorial forests in Canada: nine in Ontario, two in Alberta and one in Manitoba.
Abbotsford’s previous memorial tree program was put on hold for review. This involved consultation between staff and the citizen for funding, siting, selecting and planting the tree.
These trees are usually marked with a metal plaque.
The staff report says that typical memorial tree programs involve a five- to 10-year agreement between the two parties, but citizens’ expectations often extend beyond that.
“Most citizens committing to a memorial tree have expectations that the tree will be in place for the standard lifespan of that species, which in many cases is 50 to 75 years,” the report states.
“Thus, citizens tend to be disappointed when memorial trees are impacted or removed … and expect that the municipality will replace the memorial tree, even though the agreement between the citizen and municipality has lapsed.”
The staff report says the city typically sees about five memorial trees planted each year, and there are currently 16 people on the wait list.
Hughes Park is named for Eliza Louise (Daw) Hughes, who was born in Wiltshire, England and moved to the Poplar area of Abbotsford in 1921 to be closer to her daughter after her husband died.
Hughes is credited with starting the community’s first library out of her home.
When local farmworkers started the Poplar Farmers’ Institute, Hughes donated land for the Poplar Hall. The former location of the hall is believed to be the current park.
An exact timeline for the project is not listed in the report, but it says funding “would be identified no earlier than 2027.”