Description of Historic Place

Green Timbers Inaugural Plantation is located at 140 Street and 96 Avenue, in a forest setting amidst Surrey's urban development. It consists of the surviving twenty-seven specimens from a commemorative tree planting in 1930.

Heritage Value

The Green Timbers Inaugural Plantation is valued as the first reforestation project in British Columbia. Over 2,000 hectares of towering old growth trees once lined the Old Yale Wagon Road (now the Fraser Highway). This was the last virgin forest that remained along the Pacific Highway that stretched from San Diego, California to Surrey, British Columbia. Before the felling of the final tree, the British Columbia Forest service promised to set aside a fourteen-hectare reserve for replanting and this became the site of British Columbia's first production forest nursery, supplying seedlings for distribution throughout the Province. The reforestation began with an Inaugural Ceremony on March 15, 1930, which was aimed at attracting public attention to the planting scheme. The Inaugural Plantation was the site of this initial planting and twenty-six selected foresters, politicians, newspapermen, farmers and businessmen sponsored the planting of the original 121 seedlings.

The Green Timbers Inaugural Plantation is valued for the twenty-seven trees from the initial planting that survive at the site. They are significant for their maturity and height and as an indication of the original form of the forest.

The Green Timbers Inaugural Plantation is also significant as a pioneering initiative in the scientific study of forestry in British Columbia. In 1930, Green Timbers was established as a Provincial Forest Reserve, with a forestry training school and major tree nursery. Trees were carefully monitored and this information was used to increase the survival and growth of saplings planted throughout the Province, indicative of the importance of silviculture to the ongoing maintenance of British Columbia forests.

Source: Heritage Planning Files, City of Surrey

Character-Defining Elements

Key elements that define the heritage character of the Green Timbers Inaugural Plantation include its:
- twenty-seven surviving trees from the original 1930 planting;
- mature form and height of the grouping; and
- forest setting within an urban area.