Big Lonely Doug
CanadaPort RenfrewGordon River Valley
In 2011, timber cruiser Dennis Cronin walked into an old-growth stand marked for logging and found a Douglas-fir too big to ignore. He wrapped it in ribbon reading Leave Tree, over and over, and in 2012 the forest around it came down anyway. What was left standing was a single 66-metre fir alone in a clearcut, and the photograph of it made the tree famous before it had a name. Activist and photographer T.J. Watt gave it one in 2014: Big Lonely Doug. Measured that April by forest ecologist Andy MacKinnon, it came in at 66.0 metres tall with an 11.91-metre girth, second in volume among Canada's known Douglas-firs and worth 701 points on the BC Big Tree Registry. It carries roughly a thousand years of growth, seeded around the year 1000, though nobody has counted its rings. It stands on Crown land, no permit needed, about 15 minutes from Port Renfrew on the Gordon Main logging road. The road turns rough past the Gordon River bridge and a short, steep trail drops to the base, though the best view of it, alone in the clearing that made it famous, is from the road itself.
Gordon Main logging road, Gordon River Valley, about 10 km north of Port Renfrew, Vancouver Island, BCYou can recognise it as the single 66-metre Douglas-fir standing alone in a clearcut, still wrapped in its green Leave Tree ribbon. It stands beside the Gordon Main logging road, Gordon River Valley.
Free, on Crown land within Tree Farm Licence 46; the tree itself was marked with a green 'Leave Tree' ribbon by the logger who found it and left standing when the surrounding stand was clearcut in 2012, so there is no gate or permission needed. Reaching it needs a vehicle: the logging road is fine for a standard car up to the Gordon River bridge, then gets rough and steep, with 4WD/high clearance recommended beyond it (2WD drivers can park at the bridge and walk about 1.5 km up the road). From the road pullout a flagged, fairly steep trail (about 250 m round trip) drops through clearcut debris to the tree's base; the best full view is actually from the road itself.
No public transit. Drive from Port Renfrew via the Gordon Main logging road (roughly 15-20 minutes); high-clearance or 4WD recommended past the Gordon River bridge.
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