On Oct. 1, United Earth Stewards (UES) hosted a tree planting ceremony at Willband Creek Park in Abbotsford. The UES raises money each year for their annual tree planting efforts. This is the first year since the pandemic that the UES was allowed to be directly involved with planting the trees; during the pandemic the trees were being planted by city workers instead.
The ceremony was presented by Stó:lo Elder Eddie Gardner. “The words [mean] that this is a sacred Earth and welcome to our territory,” Gardner explained about the opening ceremonial song. “When we [present the song] in a social setting and there’s a lot of us around, the men and women will sing it, but there are some dancers who would dance, and they would dance in a way that would show that they’re gathering up everything that’s around us like this, and they would take it and put it in their hearts and give it to the people that are there.”
A portion of the ceremony included having everyone present sprinkle a bit of tobacco on each of the representative trees for the hundreds to be planted shortly after. The placement of the tobacco was a way to give back to the tree and is a common custom of the Stó:lo people.
Gardner also explained the significance of the closing song, saying it “was a song to honour the water spirits. We want the rains to come and nurture the rooted ones and make sure that they have that life that water brings to them and to all of us. The other part of that song is a song to honour the spirit of the eagle that we hold in high regard. The eagle represents that our prayers are taking flight and going to our sacred life spirit.”
UES first met in 2018 to plan a way to aid the battle against climate change in a tangible way. They came to the conclusion of raising funds annually for tree planting. The first year of fundraising allowed the group to purchase 110 small trees. 2022 is the fourth year of fundraising, and they were able to plant over 600 trees throughout Willband Creek Park.
“There’s five united churches in the local area who were all involved in one way or another,” said Kate Jordan, one of the founding members of UES. “We got really tired of politicians not doing very much about climate change. A lot of us felt deep distress about what’s going on and so we thought, well, something we can do is plant trees because we know the trees sequester carbon and they provide oxygen.”
Jordan explained, “we approached the City of Abbotsford and they encouraged us to fundraise, and that the city will plant trees with the money that we raise. So on Oct. 5, 2019, we joined in and planted trees in Willband Creek Park. The following year we raised almost twice as much money as the first year.”
The tree planting project is a cooperative effort between UES and the City of Abbotsford. Much of the planting ends up being done by trained workers of the forestry department of the city. During the pandemic restrictions, the forestry department did all of the planting to comply with the health mandates of the time. To donate toward the continued climate change efforts, go to their website, where for $20 you can pay for one tree to contribute to the cause.
Emmaline is working on her BA and ambitions to become an English teacher. They always say, those who cannot do, teach. She spends her free time buying, reading, and hoarding books with the hope that one day she will have no furniture and instead only have piles of books.
