Mt Freda

Photo to left of logging in the Mount Freda area

Mount Freda, in the Sunshine Coast Natural Resource District, is a project of qathet old growth.

The area is described on the organization's website:

From the Knuckleheads, Sentinel, and Skwim you can see her volcano-like profile, often with a shawl of cloud cloaked around her flanks. The community of Powell River uses a beautiful trail climbing through ancient forests, sensitive sub alpine meadows and tarns to access the summit at 1865 meters year round for hiking and skiing.

Ecologically, wet coastal forests dominated by Cedar and Hemlock are good examples of where natural disturbances are rare and often the whole forest can be much older than their oldest trees. Sometimes 3000-10,000yrs as an ecosystem. Trees at high elevation grow very slowly. Many tree rings are less than 1 mm wide. 1000 yr old trees can be less than 1 meter in diameter.

The Freda forest could possibly be some of the oldest forests in Canada and apart of the oldest living closed canopy forests in the world.

44 kms as the crow flies to the south from the Freda forest, is the Caran Forest. It is located on the lower Sunshine Coast and has world record holders for the yellow cedar and hemlock. It is in the same subalpine biogeoclimatic zone as the mountain hemlock/ yellow cedar forests here in our Powell River Backcountry.

Freda Cedar 1200 yrs

Caran Cedar 1824 yrs

Freda Hemlock 800 yrs

Caran Hemlock 1250 yrs