Ontario, the second largest province in Canada, stretches roughly 1,000 miles from north to south, and an equal distance from east to west with an area somewhat over 400,000 square miles. This is equivalent in size to three and a half times the combined areas of England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland. … Of this immense area, it is estimated that some 198 million acres is forest land, with slightly more than half of it productive. This area of forest land is equal to one-half the forest area of all the countries of Europe, exclusive of Russia. It is equal to seven times the forest area of France, and three times that of Sweden.… The forest throughout this vast extent includes about 90 kinds of trees, exclusive of the hawthorns, and shows well-marked differences in the occurrence of these, as one travels from south to north.
From the 1980 7th edition of The Forest Trees of Ontario.
Once the E. L. Moore book is done I want to get back to modelling trees and pick up where I left off last year. Trying to make properly scaled trees, not the usual dinky sized, lollipop things one usually sees on layouts, was something of a revelation. Just getting the size, shape, and colour right, even if the detailing wasn’t quite up to par, made for a big improvement in the overall look of my little Loonar Module. Up close it’s clear its trees need work, but standing back a bit and looking at the whole composition I’m struck by a feeling of rightness and recognition with the scene.
This, for better or worse, has made me a tree snob. Any how-to-make-model-trees guide that doesn’t start with looking around outside at trees, research in books or the internet about real trees, or simply looking at tree photographs, I immediately dismiss. I realize for most layouts trees are background items, and often vast quantities are needed, so approximate methods are required for their construction, but still, I can’t shake the feeling that something is missing with that approach, especially when there’s conceptual spillover when it comes to making so-called quick-and-easy foreground trees.
So far the guides that have helped me the most are a series of tree making videos by Boomer Diorama, and Gordon Gravett’s two tree modelling books.
Here’s one of Boomer’s videos, but there are several more at his channel.
I bought copies of Gravett’s books online from the Pendon Museum’s shop last year. They were pricey, but well worth it.
Boomer models British Columbia’s trees and Gravett does England’s, with me it’s Ontario’s, so although I can use their techniques I had to look up some Ontario specific tree reference material. On The Loonar Module I used my own photos and some data found on the internet. For the next round I thought I’d see what I could find in the way of Ontario tree guidebooks.
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| Inside Ontario Trees |
When we were visiting the Royal Ontario Museum a few weeks ago I found a copy of Jeffery Domm’s Ontario Trees in the gift shop. It was published in 2022, and I’ve eyed it for awhile at a few online booksellers. When I saw it live and in person, ok, well, I bought a copy. I figured even though I’d have to carry it back home, at least I wasn’t giving Jeff B. even more of my money and my purchase was helping out a place I liked, even if only in a small way.
I must admit I bought it mainly for the pictures of entire trees and tree data, which are excellent. The subtitle is A visual guide to the most important species and the publisher’s done a great job in providing the visual information a modeller needs, even though they no doubt never had that in mind.
Speaking of the publisher, it’s a Nova Scotia company called Formac Publishing, and in the acknowledgements section the publisher notes it received financial support for the book from both the federal government and the Nova Scotia Department of Communities, Culture and Heritage. I don’t see any note of any support from the Ontario government. Weird.
However, here’s something of a classic in Ontario tree identification literature that the Ontario government did at one time support and publish: The Forest Trees of Ontario. Copies of this publication by the Ministry of Natural Resources seemed to be everywhere when I was growing up. The cover is instantly recognizable to me, but I had more-or-less forgotten what was inside, so I bought a copy of the 1980 edition from an online bookseller.
It’s not much use to the modeller as it focuses on structured tree identification by leaves, fruit, bark, and twigs. There’s an extensive collection of photographs of those things, but none of whole trees.
The front matter notes the book had been in print since 1925, and was revised in 1946 and 1968. In the forward to the 1925 edition it’s noted:
Twenty-four years ago, Dr. W. H. Muldrew, a well-known Ontario educationist and naturalist, issued the first tree book of the province, entitled “Sylvan Ontario - A Guide to Our Native Trees and Shrubs.” This was a very useful publication, filling a long-felt want, but has been out of print for many years.
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| Some leaf drawings from Sylvan Ontario |
Luckily I have the internet and found an online copy of this 1901 book.
It turns out Dr. W. H. Muldrew is William Hawthorne Muldrew, B.A., D. PAED, Principal of the Gravenhurst High School. Wikipedia tells me, “Dr. W. H. Muldrew was the first principal and being an expert of native trees and shrubs, designed the landscaping.” Dr. Muldrew notes in the book’s preface,
The trees, especially, so common and so interesting, though so little known, he [Muldrew that is] has tried to introduce to his classes as neighbors worthy of attentive study - not as mere units in a system, but as living things solving the problem of life in their own way. In pursuance to this idea there has been established in the grounds of the Gravenhurst High School an arboretum, where practically all the trees and shrubs of the district may be seen and studied. The collection and care of such specimens has made necessary an accurate knowledge of their features, and the method employed in introducing them to successive classes has helped to make possible the preparation of this hand-book.
Like The Forest Trees of Ontario that was published a quarter century later, the book features a structured method of tree identification based on leaves and other characteristics. Unlike The Forest Trees of Ontario, there are no photographs of leaves and so on, but there are 131 leaf drawings by the author. No drawings of entire trees though.
I don’t know why these old Ontario books don’t have any photos or drawings of entire trees. Maybe that was not considered existential for identification? Maybe that was too arty for inclusion? Production complications? Something else?
I couldn’t end this without mentioning Trees and How They Grow by Katherine Carter. It’s not about Ontario trees, but I did receive it as a Christmas gift in Ontario in 1967.
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