In the fall of 2021, a rare weather event took place in Vancouver that left a trail of devastation along Pacific Spirit Park. The event is said to have started as a water spout off the coast, and then moved inland forming a tornado that devastated a swath of forest. As it happens, the even took place along some of the trails I was following that day in the park, and it is a sight to behold.
Trees lay scattered, burnt to a crisp, yanked from their roots, and splintered where they stood.
I had forgotten all about those storms, when lightning streaked across the leaden sky, and I was not aware that a tornado had touched down. So, as I followed the Lilly of the Valley trail and entered the destroyed forest, I couldn’t help but feel a sense of doom. It was as if I was entering the land of Mordor- gnarled branches, black carcasses, and trees tumbled over with their trunks split open spilling their wooden entrails.
One particular tree had burned from within, and only its carbon shell remained. I entered the hollow center and looked up at the sky above the skeletal remains of the tree and marveled at the sight.
I looked around me in awe. How could it be that the trees along the trail had been destroyed, but just a few meters off, they were all intact? I asked myself.
Was it a controlled burn? It didn’t make any sense. Vandalism? It would take some doing and why would somebody go through the trouble. Storm? It couldn’t be. A storm wouldn't just be concentrated along the trail.
Unbeknown to me at that moment, the answer to the mystery lay just up ahead.
One cool thing about this park is that there are certain areas surrounded by a fence, where one can hold events like workshops, gatherings, and maybe even classes given that the university is nearby. Passing by one of the enclosures, I noticed that there was a group of young people with notebooks, and older adults who appeared to be instructing them. The sign at the entrance read wilderness first aid, or something like it. I didn’t want to invade their privacy, so I did not take a pic of the sign, and at the moment it didn't occur to me to jot it down in my fancy little notebook I had brought for just such an occasion.
I saw a large fallen tree where the trail veered right. Park staff had also placed a small fence around the fallen sentinel and made the hollowed ground look orderly and neat.
A sign beside the fence explained what happened that fateful day. Tornadoes are fairly rare around these parts with only 3 or 4 in recorded history. So the event was an extreme outlier but not unprecedented.
The sign makes a key point. For there to be growth, change, variety there has to be some destruction. Just like those Hindu cats have been saying for thousands of years. Here was that destruction, a Kali-esque principle that puts pressure on organisms to change and adapt quickly in order to keep on trucking through time.
The vegetation began to grow thicker down the trail, lush, and there were no signs of destruction, just the silent stirring of the forest, and the odd bird call echoing through the trees.
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