We are always pleased to welcome new voices to the blog and today particularly happy to introduce a fresh new series that celebrates the beauty, wonder, and intricate connections of our local natural world, brought to you by the talented writer and naturalist Paul Hetzler.
Known for his deep appreciation and understanding of the environment and his engaging storytelling style, Paul will take us into the forests, fields, and waterways that surround us.
In this first piece, Paul dives into the white pine sharing insights that are sure to delight.
Stay tuned for more from Paul in the weeks to come!”
White Pines: Colossal in Plenty of Ways
The eastern white pine (Pinus strobus) isn’t really a crop-bearing tree, but it has borne priceless “fruit” for Western democracy. Physically as well as culturally massive, there are many accounts from the early 1800s of white pines over 61 metres tall being harvested. One credible report pegs a white pine at 75 m, and unverified accounts from back then claimed that leviathans as tall as 91 meters were felled.
The white pine is the official tree of Ontario, with the current national champion standing at 47 metres tall. In today’s second- and third-growth forests, the average mature white pine is often around 30 metres tall, with diameters of 75-80 cm.
In terms of identification, it’s the only native pine out East that bears needles in bundles, or fascicles, of five: one for each letter in W-H-I-T-E. (Just to be clear, the letters are not actually written on the needles.) White pine branches tend to swoop gracefully upwards toward their ends, and the tree produces attractive cones about 20-40 cm long with resin-tipped scales. White pine is renowned for its wide and clear (knot-free), straw-coloured lumber used for flooring, panelling, and sheathing, as well as for structural members. Much of eastern Canada was built on white pine, and in some old homes, original pine floorboards 50+ cm wide can still be found.
As impressive as its lumber is, white pine’s most precious gifts are intangible. In his book Forgotten Founders, Bruce E. Johansen details the link between our concept of democracy and the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) Confederacy, whose symbol is the white pine.
According to Haudenosaunee oral history, more than 1,000 years ago in what’s now upper NY State, as well as parts of Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Ontario, five nation-states were convinced by a prophet known as the Peacemaker (Dekanawidah) to join in a federation. Some non-Native historians have placed this event as late as 1660, despite the fact that’s nearly 50 years after a seminal Haudenosaunee treaty with the Dutch government.
The Peacemaker held that the white pine, with its five needles joined at the base, would be an apt symbol for the unique democratic structure he proposed. At the time, it comprised five nations: the Seneca (Onödowa’ga:’), Oneida (Onyota’a:ka), Onondaga (Onöñda’gega’), Cayuga (Gayogohó:no), and Mohawk (Kanienke’haka).
Each nation manages its own internal affairs through elected chiefs, but matters involving one or more nations are dealt with at the federal level. The Haudenosaunee federal government is composed of fifty chiefs who sit in two legislative houses; the Elder Brothers and Younger Brothers. There is a single elected Executor or Grand Chief (Adodarhoh), who among other things acts as a tie-breaker in the event the legislative bodies disagree after deliberating a proposal.
These and other tenets of Haudenosaunee governance are codified in The Great Law of Peace, or Kaianere’kó:wa. It is an oral constitution, and traditional chiefs are expected to know it by heart. I had the good fortune to have attended the first recitation of The Great Law ever done in the English language. It was in 1992 on Six Nations of the Grand River Territory near Brantford, Ontario, and took nine days for Oneida Snipe Clan chief Jake Thomas to recite it.
Though ravaged by colonization, The Great Law is still embraced by a segment of the population. Only women can vote under this structure, a fact which confounded European men, and was one reason that colonizers worked hard to subvert it and install more pliable, male-only councils. Haudenosaunee women, or clan mothers, still have the sole power to depose a chief who is not acting in the public’s best interest. Clan mothers can veto any law they deem short-sighted, in this sense collectively acting as a further check against abuse of power.
The Haudenosaunee often refer to the white pine as “the tree of peace.” The Peacemaker told the people to bury their weapons of war forever beneath its roots, and oral history notes that generations followed with no war. One of the articles of The Great Law lets other nations apply for membership by “tracing the white roots of peace” back to their source.
In 1722, a sixth nation, the Tuscarora (Skarù:ręˀ), did just that when they were admitted to the Confederacy after being driven from their homeland in present-day North Carolina. The Great Law was not altered, however, and Tuscarora leaders vote by proxy through the Oneida.
For the Haudenosaunee, the white pine remains an enduring representation of their culture. As described in The Great Law, a bald eagle sits at its top, a bundle of five arrows in its talons denoting strength in unity. The purpose of the sharp-sighted bird atop the pine is to watch for perils that could destabilise the government – namely greed and selfishness, as Chief Thomas explained in 1992.
As Donald A. Grinde lays out in his book Exemplar of Liberty: Native America and the Evolution of Democracy, key American Colonial figures such as Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, James Madison, and especially Benjamin Franklin, deeply admired The Great Law. As a result of their advocacy, Haudenosaunee chiefs were invited to address the Continental Congress to advise America’s founding fathers as they drafted the Constitution. In other words, the US Constitution is directly and deliberately based on The Great Law, the symbol of which is the white pine.
North American women’s-rights pioneers of the late 1800s, particularly Matilda Jocelyn Gage, credit Haudenosaunee women as the inspiration for demanding equal treatment. In her book Women, Church and State, Gage makes this connection explicitly. It is no accident that the US Women’s Rights National Historical Park is in Seneca territory, practically in the centre of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy.
Thus, the white pine is fundamentally linked to contemporary women’s rights, as well as to modern democracy. Some pretty amazing “crops” from this conifer, I’d say.
Paul J. Hetzler
Arboriste certifié, Société internationale d’arboriculture depuis 1996
Paul Hetzler writes about nature for The Québec Farmers’ Advocate, The Saturday Evening Post magazine and other venues. One of his essays was recently longlisted for the 2024 CBC Literary Prize for Nonfiction, and his work has appeared in Highlights for Children magazine and The Lancet.
Paul’s three books – Shady Characters (2018), Head of the Class: Smart as a Slime Mold (2021) and Birds of Happiness Aren’t Blue (2023) – can be accessed by clicking on the titles. Each book is packed with humorous nature-based essays on stuff like photosynthetic frogs, worms with copper teeth, trees that bleed blue, woodpeckers that compulsively decorate, and much more.
Wandering Wakefield 