As part of the situated learning for Module 1: Sensory Experiences, I went to the UBC Library Gardens to consider the question, “Can I smell time here?” My question was perhaps too complex, as it was more simple for me to “see” time or “hear” time, as expressed in my previous posts. But what about the scent of time? What would that even be? My nose guided me in the past to the flowering plants and bushes of the gardens, and indeed these do point to the seasonality of this garden area. Over the course of the term I witnessed the bloom of the garden’s plants and trees, and then watched as the flowers dropped their petals like pastel snow. I also noted that the gardeners placed a strong smelling cedar mulch throughout the garden. The mulch made me think about how the cedar tree itself has been used in BC over time, in various ways, and what this “resource” has meant to the development of the University, through the field of Forestry as well as in the cycles of settler-colonial wealth creation that sometimes returned to the campus in the form of philanthropic donations. I decided to focus my attention on a large Western Red Cedar (or “redcedar”), UBC Tree number 5838, that is located near a group of benches in the South garden near the UBC Main Library.

UBC Tree 5838, Western Red Cedar, Thuja plicata

Cedar tree near benches by the UBC Library

Tree tags for UBC Tree 5838

This particular cedar is quite large, and I wondered about its age. The south garden was planted between 1925-1930, but some of the trees moved there were a few years old prior to planting. It is possible that this tree can be seen in the lower left of this image taken by Vancouver photographer Leonard Frank in 1929.

UBC 1.1/1024, UBC Main Library and grounds. Photo by Leonard Frank, 1929. UBC Archives.

As with some of the other large trees in the north and south library “pocket gardens”, this Western Red Cedar is about 100 years old, if not a bit older. This century mark roughly corresponds to the opening of the campus in 1925. While this tree was likely planted on this spot, hundreds (thousands?) of cedars like it were removed from the site of the UBC campus since 1914 when the campus was clear-cut to make way for the University. It exists here as a cultivated specimen, not as part of a natural ecosystem.

In addition to the tree tags found on many campus trees at UBC, the tree was marked with a small metal sign from the Campus Botanica project.

Campus Botanica sign for Western Red Cedar tree

The Campus Botanica project was created years ago as a collaboration between UBC’s Creative Writing Program and the Social Ecological Economic Development Studies Program (SEEDS). The student-focused project placed 120 botanical signs throughout the UBC campus, offering different perspectives on how we might encounter plants and trees in this environment.

Returning to the question of smelling time, this old tree does not have much of a strong smell on its own (I actually put my face up to the bark and sniffed it). But surrounding the area the strong smell of cedar mulch said a lot about the life cycle of this “provincial tree” in this broader place of British Columbia. The smell of the mulch in the garden is the smell of money for some, and for others it is the smell of an endangered lifeway. A recent publication of the Canadian Forest Service, An Economic Assessment of the Western Redcedar Industry in British Columbia (2018), describes the tree species as one of the most valuable in BC and associated with $1 billion in economic activity annually. Yet, many have weighed in on the losses caused by the cedar industry, as described in this report by the David Suzuki Foundation, A Vanishing Heritage: The Loss of Ancient Red Cedar.

For me the question of time swirls around this particular tree, in relation to its own lifespan and that of the humans around it. I can’t articulate it well, but trees like this one are attached to place in particular ways that extend beyond the people that planted it or those who have sat below it. “UBC Tree 5838” exists in and through the campus, in spite of the institution and the goings on around it.

More information about the cultural role of cedar in this area can be found on the Indigenous Foundations website (UBC Faculty of Arts):

Cedar

UBC Clock Tower as seen from the Residential School History and Dialogue Centre. Photo by Amy Scott Metcalfe, 2021.

Last week, when I was asking myself, “Can I sense time here?” while I was in the UBC Library Garden, I decided to take a visual soundscape video: UBC Library Garden visual soundscape, May 2021

It happened that I was there near the top of the hour, so the chimes of the UBC Clocktower are audible in the segment. The Clocktower itself has a backstory, related to time (not surprisingly), as described in this article by Erwin Wodarczak, appearing in the November 2013 issue of the Trek (alumni) magazine, called “The Clock Tower and the Anarchists“. Intrigued? Please pause here and follow the link to read it. Reading the story helps to “cement” the concept of colonial time to this exact spot.

We learn from Wodarczak’s article that the clock tower could also be called the Ladner Tower: “The tower was a gift from Leon J. Ladner. He was the son of British Columbia pioneers, born and raised in the town that bears his family name. . . . A founding member of Convocation, it was Ladner who in May 1921 moved the resolution urging the establishment of a new campus at Point Grey.”

Ladner had “also hoped that the clock tower would serve as an inspiration to UBC students: When that clock tower is completed and the clock rings out the passing of each hour, I hope it will remind the young students that not only does time go fast, but that the hours at our university are very precious and the use of those hours will seriously affect the success, the happiness and the future of their lives.”

The year was 1967, and students were not satisfied with Ladner’s capitalistic sense of time, nor that his $150,000 donation was to be used for a symbolic clock tower and not the Library itself, noting that you could “buy 25,000 books” with the same money. Controversy and student unrest did not abate as the project neared completion in 1968, so much so that the university declined to hold a dedication ceremony out of concern that students might hold a demonstration. The article states, “Director of Ceremonies Malcolm McGregor was even more blunt – when asked by The Ubyssey when students could expect an official dedication, he answered, ‘I won’t be part of a ceremony that is for the benefit of anarchists.’”

The original carillon bells of the UBC Clock Tower were replaced with a digital recording in the late 1990s. The “Big Ben” tune counts the hours, marking (making) time as well as sounding out the British-ness of the University of British Columbia and the province of BC itself.

More about campus timekeeping in this University Affairs magazine article, “A Brief History of Clock Towers on Canadian University Campuses“, by Kerry Banks (September, 2020).

Last week I took some time to visit the UBC Library Garden. Guided by our readings on sensory tours, I gave myself the prompt: Can I sense time here? Could I see, hear, smell, taste, touch time here?

I brought a copy of a booklet that I frequently consult called “A Self-Guide to UBC Campus Trees” (UBC Land and Building Services, publication date unknown). In the Table of Contents there is a heading titled “Areas of Campus” with subheadings, such as “Main Library”. Turning to that page, I found the following description:

The first gardens to evolve on campus were the pocket gardens on the north and south sides of the Main Library (1925-1930). These were designed by the University’s first Landscape Architect, Frank E. Buck (on the new campus from 1926-1949). The gardens were planted in a hybrid Japanese-English style with rock walls, bridges, ponds, creeks, winding pathways and a selection of oriental plants. Many of the original trees can still be seen here.

I read the descriptions of several trees that were located in this area near the Library, each with a four-digit number the preceded the common name and then the Latin botanical name. Also noted were the location and “comments”. I was first interested to visit “5766 Japanese Maple” as the comments said: “This is the largest Japanese Maple on campus. Native to Japan, Central China & Korea.” The location is not exactly in the area that I had demarcated as my site of learning for the course, but adjacent to it. Finding it was relatively simple, so much so that I was shocked that I had never noticed it before, considering how much I examine trees on campus regularly. As it was then, seeing time before me:

UBC Tree 5766 Japanese Maple, Acer palmatum, Photo by Amy Scott Metcalfe, 2021.

Many trees on campus are tagged, some with two tags, such as these:

The tree is magnificent, and probably nearly 100 years old. I have a new route added to my tree visits now.