The Day the Trees Fell

On September 29, 2003 Hurricane Juan landed on the shores of Nova Scotia, causing what many describe as the worst storm to hit Halifax since 1893. I was living in Virginia at the time and other than what appeared on the nightly news and photographs posted on a variety of social web sites, the devastation was incomprehensible to me. This is often the case of the effects of natural disasters seen only through the lens of the internet. I recall distinctly my first trip back to Nova Scotia the following summer and was, as many still are, awe struck by the force of nature and the wrought it had on one of Halifax’s most famous parks, Point Pleasant.

I visited Point Pleasant this past summer, some 12 years later, and was again taken aback by the new landscape. My memories of this place still deceive me and my expectations, despite my familiarity, trick me into thinking what was once there still is. Ironically, that very notion is what drew me back to write my first blog entry in two years. My hiatus broken, literally and certainly figuratively by the once towering park I grew up near.

Despite the ravages of the storm, some trees still stand, as monuments to our memories and reminders of natures wrath. Peeled of their nature, sculpted by wind and time, these trees stand tall with a new meaning and resolve.

These are the trees that remain.