I have been living and working in a six-acre patch of boreal forest in Portugal Cove since 2002. On September 21, 2010, Hurricane Igor felled quite a few of the trees that I live in the midst of. Some were blown over in their entirety, roots and all; the trunks of others were twisted so much they cracked and broke off.

As a way to engage with the loss, and to learn more about this patch of old-growth forest, I wanted to find out how old the fallen trees were. Ecologist Andrew Trant used a powerful microscope to date the cross-sections, which were cut from the stumps of the fallen trees.

The most surprising thing I learned was that the diameters of the trees were not relative to their ages. For example, two trees that were the same age (ninety-six years old) were very different sizes: the cross-section of one is 9 inches at its widest diameter, and the other is only 3 inches. The smaller tree was growing on top of the Tolt — a rocky hill where it was much more exposed. Those identified as being “over” a certain age are trees that had heart rot — a fungal disease that causes decay in tree trunks — resulting in some uncountable missing tree-rings.

None of the trees that were lost were younger than I was at the time (fifty-eight years old). I was thinking about the fact that they had been standing throughout my lifetime — our lives had been concurrent — until the day of the hurricane.