I believe thats what they call the combined northern forests of the Eurasian and North American continents that wrapped around the planet in the days before humans cut them all down.
Im currently riding through that region... And I have to say that there is not much of anything up here other than forest. Its mostly coniferous trees (lots a Pine and Fir) but in places there are also lots of broadleaved trees too (Birch, Aspen and Poplar).
The highway is a swathe of asphalt down the middle of a strip of bright green grass that cuts a swathe through an otherwise uninterrupted dark green forest.
Its not just the highway though, there are high tension power lines, microwave towers for the telephones, a buried gas line and the good old rail line as well. They all follow the same corridor through the mountainous sections (they spread out a bit on the plains).
Theres also a chain of airfields that correspond to town sites every few hundred kilometers. Its the old Alaska highway that I believe was put in during the second world war in order to “secure the territories”. And that meant getting air rail and road access to Alaska.
That road building effort was no doubt a major undertaking but the old highway was a rather “puny” little thing (though plenty effective!)
These days though, the highway has been hugely improved... Its a supper smooth well maintained highway. Im riding along and looking at the huge amounts of “cut and fill” that have been done to smooth it out and the size of the cleared strips of grass land on either side... It must cost a bomb to keep it this well maintained.
It has been given a MAJOR face lift/improvement.
About that forest though. Im pretty sure that most of the forest that Ive seen has been logged since the trees are not that big. Its true that the trees get smaller as you go north, but I think the bigger factor is that they grow much slower up here with the short growing season. I saw only one sign saying when the block was replanted but it was 20 years ago and the trees were still looking quite small and weedy. Looks like they grow 20-30cm per year here (not a lot)
Along with mining, its pretty much the only industry that I can see up here, but its still amazing to think that most of it has been logged at some time... Its just such a vast area of land.
People down south in the city area (Lower mainland) really do have little idea of how big their province is and how much forest there is or how few people.
On an interesting side note, The original old growth forest up here must have locked up an enormous amount of carbon (green house gasses) that has all been released back into the atmosphere in decades past. Id guess (certainly not a qualified guess though) that only about 25% of the mass of the old forest has been recaptured into wood. That means that there is still enormous potential of “Carbon Capture and Sequester” in the regeneration of these forests...which could be good news for the environment.... The down side is that it looks like we would have to wait about a century or two for it to happen,... And then of course WE WOULD HAVE TO STOP CUTTING IT DOWN!
Fat chance I guess, Oh well :)))
Im currently riding through that region... And I have to say that there is not much of anything up here other than forest. Its mostly coniferous trees (lots a Pine and Fir) but in places there are also lots of broadleaved trees too (Birch, Aspen and Poplar).
The highway is a swathe of asphalt down the middle of a strip of bright green grass that cuts a swathe through an otherwise uninterrupted dark green forest.
Its not just the highway though, there are high tension power lines, microwave towers for the telephones, a buried gas line and the good old rail line as well. They all follow the same corridor through the mountainous sections (they spread out a bit on the plains).
Theres also a chain of airfields that correspond to town sites every few hundred kilometers. Its the old Alaska highway that I believe was put in during the second world war in order to “secure the territories”. And that meant getting air rail and road access to Alaska.
That road building effort was no doubt a major undertaking but the old highway was a rather “puny” little thing (though plenty effective!)
These days though, the highway has been hugely improved... Its a supper smooth well maintained highway. Im riding along and looking at the huge amounts of “cut and fill” that have been done to smooth it out and the size of the cleared strips of grass land on either side... It must cost a bomb to keep it this well maintained.
It has been given a MAJOR face lift/improvement.
About that forest though. Im pretty sure that most of the forest that Ive seen has been logged since the trees are not that big. Its true that the trees get smaller as you go north, but I think the bigger factor is that they grow much slower up here with the short growing season. I saw only one sign saying when the block was replanted but it was 20 years ago and the trees were still looking quite small and weedy. Looks like they grow 20-30cm per year here (not a lot)
Along with mining, its pretty much the only industry that I can see up here, but its still amazing to think that most of it has been logged at some time... Its just such a vast area of land.
People down south in the city area (Lower mainland) really do have little idea of how big their province is and how much forest there is or how few people.
On an interesting side note, The original old growth forest up here must have locked up an enormous amount of carbon (green house gasses) that has all been released back into the atmosphere in decades past. Id guess (certainly not a qualified guess though) that only about 25% of the mass of the old forest has been recaptured into wood. That means that there is still enormous potential of “Carbon Capture and Sequester” in the regeneration of these forests...which could be good news for the environment.... The down side is that it looks like we would have to wait about a century or two for it to happen,... And then of course WE WOULD HAVE TO STOP CUTTING IT DOWN!
Fat chance I guess, Oh well :)))
