Timber River Demonstration Forest
To download a PDF document describing the Timber River Demonstration Forest project, click on the following link:
Timber River Demonstration Forest Pamphlet
Information about this Demonstration Forest project
New Brunswick is famed for being Canada's only official bilingual province, with a rich mix of English and French Acadian culture (and please don't forget about the Mi'kmaq peoples). The Bay of Fundy, situated on New Brunswick's southern border, is well known for having the highest tides in the world. From the Robert Stanfield International Airport in Halifax, Nova Scotia, a peaceful three-hour drive allows visitors to reach this property, which is being developed as the Timber River Demonstration Forest.
The property is located at the following geographic location:
Latitude: 46.07575o North
Longitude: 64.05845o West
Additional maps and directions to this property can be found within the PDF link at the top of this page. If using Google Earth to locate the property, type the following coordinates into the search bar of the Google Earth app: 46.07575, -64.05845
This 340 acre property was purchased as a multi-use property in 2006, after previous owners logged the majority of the property in the 1980's, 1990's, and early 2000's.
Approximately 75 acres of land on this property are believed to have been harvested in the early 1980's, and will be approaching early maturity within another decade or so. Another 125 acres of land on this property were planted after a commercial harvest in the early 2000's (prior to Replant.ca Environmental acquiring the property in 2006). Those 125 acres underwent a manual brushing and thinning treatment in 2018 to improve the integrity of the juvenile stand. The thinning treatment in 2018 was carried out in partnership with the New Brunswick provincial government.
The remaining 140 acres of this property is benefitting from some natural regeneration, but will be significantly enhanced with additional seedlings. In addition, it will be very important to implement a second major stand-tending program on parts of this property, to allow existing and new trees to develop to their full potential. New seedlings were added to this property starting in 2019, and the long-term planting program was completed with the successful addition of the final 52,907 seedlings in the spring of 2023.
Conceptual design of the network of walking trails was completed in 2020. The next main focus for this property will be the actual trail-clearing work, hopefully starting in the Fall of 2025, after we finish a large backlog of post-hurricane cleanup on other properties. We will use a mulching machine to assist with this work, to allow us to catch up on lost time. We estimate that this property will eventually benefit from the addition of a mix of six coniferous and nine deciduous species.
Access to this property is excellent. The southeastern corner of the property is accessible to small cars, and is situated only a few hundred meters to the north of the main provincial highway that leads to the Confederation Bridge and to the province of Prince Edward Island. This is a heavily trafficked tourism corridor within the region.
The large size of this property will help to facilitate the development of a complex system of biking, hiking, horseback riding, and cross-country skiing trails surrounded by mature forests, as well as a public park with several picnic areas. We hope to complete all of this work by the end of 2026.
We hope that any members of the general public who visit this property will appreciate the mix of juvenile and semi-mature forests that can be found on the Timber River Demonstration Forest!
Here are some photos of this property:
This small (4 acre) piece of open land is actually full of blueberry plants! If you look at the property on Google Earth, you'll see this rectangle as a small square just above the middle of the east side of the property.
These red spruce trees survived a thinning treatment in 2018. Some of them are quite hard to see, due to the heavy brush and grass in the area. Conifers such as red spruce generally grow slowly for the first decade, but then start to add significant height and volume with increasing speed. In about five years, these trees will stand out very well, and it will be easy to walk between them.
This section of the property also went through a thinning treatment in 2018. The prominent species in this photo is the Trembling Aspen, which is a type of deciduous tree (a soft hardwood). Aspen trees grow faster than spruce trees, so these are the same age as the trees in the previous photo, but they definitely stand out better. Within five years, the brush and grass will diminish and it will be quite easy to walk though this juvenile forest.
Here's a section of semi-mature forest on the property. This section was not thinned out when it was starting to grow, so it's a bit of a mess. We aim to target areas such as this one for a bit of a cleanup at some point in the near future, to open up a bit more space and to allow these trees to gain more height and volume.
This demonstration forest is a pleasure to visit when the skies are blue!
Members of the public will eventually be welcome to visit our demonstration forest properties. While every effort is made to ensure the timeliness and accuracy of the information and documents presented on this site, Replant.ca Environmental and its Directors and Officers assume no liability or responsibility for the completeness, accuracy or usefulness of any of the Information. Information (including any revisions and updates) on this site is provided solely for general public information purposes and is provided strictly on an "as is" basis. Visitors to any of our properties do so at their own risk, and agree that neither Replant.ca Environmental nor its Directors or Officers shall be held liable for any injuries or damages to persons or properties as a result of public visits. By visiting one of our properties, all persons accept that there may be risks and safety hazards found upon all properties, which can include but are not limited to: Uneven trail footing, sharp sticks, stumps, inclement weather, dangerous animals (including bears, moose, and coyotes), running and still water, unstable trees, overhead hazards, trip hazards, dehydration, allergens, noxious plants, damage to personal belongings, and the possiblity of getting lost. Visitors to our properties will do their best to minimize and mitigate any potential hazards, and prepare themselves accordingly for visits to our properties, which includes the use of proper footwear, clothing and outerwear that is appropriate for all weather conditions, the potential use of insect repellents, and proper supervision of any children or minors that accompany you to the sites. Visitors to our properties are not allowed to cut trees, and out of respect for the environment and for future visitors, we request that you carry out all garbage that you bring to the site. The use of ATV's, snowmobiles, and other motorized vehicles is restricted in some areas, as per posted signs.
At the present time, until trail building work is complete, we ask that members of the public do not use our sites without requesting a free tour accompanied by one of the members of our organization. This is to help ensure that visitors do not unwitting expose themselves to hazards on site. Our trail systems are currently incomplete, and we are prohibiting motorized traffic from these trails due to the presence of sharp stumps and other dangers. Contact us at any time to request a tour!
If you'd like to see more photos taken at this site, visit our Planting Photos collection on Dropbox. Go into the 2023 sub-folder, and from there, go into the "Timber River Demonstration Forest" sub-folder. That folder contains several dozen photos taken while our crews were planting the last 52,907 seedlings throughout the understory in May of 2023.