A couple from the Codroy Valley took it upon themselves to help people on the Conception Bay North Shore replenish some of the trees lost in wildfires that devastated the region last summer.
Harrison Bragg and Judy Warren have been growing and selling trees and other plants for years, but have decided that it’s time to downsize.
They typically carry a stock of approximately 1,500 to 2,000 trees.
Warren says Harrison decided that he wanted to donate the trees they have to the people affected by last year’s fires, so they packed up a bunch of them and headed for Conception Bay.
Warren says it just so happened that their trip coincided with a terrible crash on the Trans Canada that claimed the lives of two people and sent two others to hospital, resulting in a 7-hour closure of the highway.
“We got in so far as Clarenville and we stopped for gas…and Harrison says, which is uncharacteristic of him because he’s usually in a rush to get to where he’s going. So, we drop into the restaurant and while we were there, we heard of the accident, so we said ‘well we really want to get where we’re going, so we might as well just go on up and get in the lineup.’ But, we didn’t know it was going to be seven hours.”
Warren says it was nighttime before they arrived in Conception Bay North and with no idea where they were and nowhere else to go, they decided to sleep in their truck on the side of the road.
She says when they woke the next morning, they realised that they were right in the heart of the burned-out area.
Patches of grass poking out of the burnt ground, one year after the CBN wildfires (VOCM).
“I woke up very early and I started to look around as the sun rose and I could see the haze coming off the ground. I then realised that we were in one of the burned-over areas.” She says it was “eerie really, but we were only a short distance from where we were supposed to go.”
She says they managed to meet up with the appropriate people at the local park who were grateful for the trees, and the effort it took for them to get there.
Warren says Harrison is not stopping there. He’s now in the process of putting together seeds to send along to the region to help people grow their own trees.
“He’s going to continue on doing that,” says Warren, “so that we can keep going with this.”
