Welcome to VoiceMap’s newsletter, Senses of Direction, where we share stories from around the world that spark curiosity and stimulate your senses.
This month, we’ve got a story that begins with a missing cherry tree, and ends somewhere near the roots of how we remember a place. We also consider the quiet art of not offending anyone abroad which, it turns out, extends to what you wear on a Swiss hiking trail. Lastly, we visit remarkable trees in Wānaka, New Orleans and Vancouver that have survived against the odds.
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For your sense of impermanence | THEY CUT DOWN ‘GRANDPAPA’
Journalist J.B. MacKinnon went looking for a much-loved cherry tree in Vancouver’s Queen Elizabeth Park that he hadn’t visited in a while, seeking the sense of continuity that big, old trees tend to create, in “stitch[ing] time back together.” He found nothing but a stump.
They Cut Down ‘Grandpapa’ is a story about MacKinnon’s investigation into the tree’s disappearance. It’s something larger, too: an elegy for the world’s vanishing old trees, and a portrait of what we lose when they go.
This particular cherry tree had been so resplendent in bloom that it’d inspired the founding of the annual Vancouver Cherry Blossom Festival in 2006. “At any time of year, though, the cherry’s fairy-tale canopy drew people in.”
MacKinnon covers a lot of ground, and his vivid prose gives new life to the ecological arguments for protecting trees – and old ones in particular.
“A large, old tree is a world unto itself. Beneath its canopy, the ground is wetter and cooler – on a hot day, often four to five degrees cooler, enough to protect human health in a heat wave… Bats doze in one crevice of thick bark while, in the next, a tree frog sings. Squirrels build their leafy dreys in them; racoons wedge in the crooks of limbs to sleep. Big trees are alive with more moths, beetles, spiders, mosses and so on than almost anyone can name.”
He also points to research showing that the biggest one per cent of trees in a woodland typically store 50 per cent of the carbon.
MacKinnon finds his way back to the beginning of the story, when the tree was planted around ninety years ago by Japanese immigrants who were forcibly interned during WWII. They never returned to Vancouver to see the trees planted.
The removal of Grandpapa mirrors our ideas about ageing – whereas the traditional Japanese approach is to accept trees in their last stages of life, easing them into old age.
“A key philosophy behind hanging on to old trees…is wabi-sabi, a Zen concept that defies definition other than as an aesthetic that values everything the dominant modern culture does not. It mistrusts novelty, celebrates the long-lasting, embraces aging, admires decline and weathering. An old and failing tree is archetypal wabi-sabi. ‘There’s a story in that look, like a face with lots of furrows in it…’ ”
🔗 Read They Cut Down ‘Grandpapa’ – “a story about how trees can be stories” – and peruse MacKinnon’s companion piece, in which he maps his twelve favourite stately trees in Vancouver. Get inspired by Melbourne’s online map of the city’s public trees, each of which has an email address for people to report problems – but which they mostly use to write letters of gratitude. You can also lift your spirits with an update about the new shoots springing forth from the lost Sycamore Gap tree along Hadrian’s Wall.
For your sense of propriety | DON’T HIKE NAKED IN SWITZERLAND
When I backpacked across Eurasia in the mid-2000s, Lonely Planet’s guidebooks were indispensable in a way that’s impossible for real ‘digital natives’ to grasp. The only affordable guesthouse in central Aleppo with staff that speak English? The Lonely Planet guided me there. Essential tips for crossing into Bhutan on a day-permit from Sikkim? I found them in my dog-eared blue India ‘bible’, which still has pride of place on a shelf with my favourite travel books.
This month, Lonely Planet released another very practical type of guidebook: Don’t Hike Naked in Switzerland: And 101 Other Travel Etiquette Tips, by Patrick Kinsella. Organised by category – from greetings and tipping, to table manners and sacred sites – it’s the kind of book that turns embarrassing holiday memories into cautionary tales for someone else.
The title comes from a real incident, where a hiker apparently wandered past a Christian elderly care home wearing nothing but boots and a backpack. Soon afterward, the Swiss canton of Appenzell voted to pass a law banning nude hiking.
Kinsella is very amusing at times, and has a way of making sure that seasoned travellers won’t feel patronised. Being reminded about the subtleties around European kissing customs might even help you dodge the odd faux pas.
“So what is the best approach when you’re new to the local way of greeting? Well, when meeting and greeting local people you’ve just met or don’t know very well, just follow their lead. Kisses or cheek-to-cheek brushes usually start on the right and then swap to the left – except in Italy. Try not to stand there awkwardly with your body as stiff as a plank, but also don’t assume that cheek-kissing should be accompanied by hugging – let locals be your guide.”
Even if you aren’t new to the rules for nude bathing in Japanese hot springs, Kinsella’s chapter could spare you the indignity of being the sole man in the women’s onsen – in all your glory – if you didn’t notice that the curtains between sections were swapped from one morning to the next.
It’s not all humour, though. In an era where travellers behaving badly is shockingly common, this book reminds us all how to behave in culturally appropriate ways when it really matters – whether it’s shoeless in a temple or clothesless on a trail.
🔗 Take a sneak peek of Don’t Hike Naked in Switzerland’s tips in this article, or purchase the book here.
For your sense of survival | TREES THAT LIVED TO TELL THE TALE
Trees have inspired stories for as long as time. Here are a few of my favourites about resilient old trees from VoiceMap’s catalogue of audio tours.
Hear about New Orleans’ 700ish year-old oak tree, with its 150‑foot crown safely propped up by crutches, on Kevin J. Bozant’s VoiceMap of City Park. The McDonogh Oak lives in the largest stand of old-growth oak trees on Earth, and it still puts out a crop of acorns every year!
In another story of survival, there’s ‘That Wānaka Tree,’ a lone willow that grows in the shallows of Lake Wānaka. Famously, it wasn’t planted for beauty – it’s a crack willow which likely started life as a fence post that took root. Browse David Downs’ audio tour of Wānaka, New Zealand’s pristine alpine village in the Southern Alps.
Like the ‘Grandpapa’ cherry tree, Vancouver’s Hollow Tree no longer breathes life through its branches, but the city did succeed in preserving it.
The 1,000‑year‑old Western Red Cedar – now just a huge hollow stump roughly 18 metres in circumference – did not survive a severe 2006 windstorm. But it went on to become a famous tourist attraction, photographed with cars, horse‑drawn carriages and even elephants inside it. Listen to the story, or browse Gillian’s tour, Cycling the Stanley Park Seawall.
Until next time, thanks for travelling with us!
Best Wishes,
Claire van den Heever
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