Chainsaw Elegy

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by Mike Lancaster

Chainsaw Elegy
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The frost hangs heavy on the spruce boughs,
A cushioning silence stretched between each trunk,
Each reaching, needled bow, and every snow-covered limb.
Beneath my boots, the frozen ground, shielding roots, 
Protecting soils, and small creatures from harm during their winter slumber.

The saw ignites, a bitter hymn,
Its rasping voice against the cold, 
A blade that sings of loss, care, cost, 
Of benefit and profit, death, stewardship, and history.
Each measured cut, a wound, a gift, 
Our future is placed in calloused hands.


I love conducting chainsaw-based forestry operations in winter. For one thing, it’s cold. Your saw, equipment and gear, and everything that you require for a day can weigh as much as 35 kg (+- 80 lbs.), so colder temperatures are most welcome if you have a good distance to cover on foot. You might feel exhausted by the end of the day but it’s a good exhaustion; both body and mind know that they’ve completed their tasks the right way. It is a feeling that is satisfying in a way that cannot be described, it must be experienced. 

Another major benefit is that when the ground is frozen and covered by a thick blanket of snow, it is the best time of year to avoid damages to soils, plants, tree roots, and everything that lives amongst them. 

Conducting forestry by chainsaw has become a diminishing skillset over the decades as hard-working folks and their saws have largely been replaced by big machines that can do the work of more than 10, requiring just 1 to operate them. There are still holdouts, dedicated to their craft, doing forestry in a way that is increasingly seen as outdated, with a dogged, almost romantic, desire to make a living off the forests they love without overly harming them. These are the folks that we need to support, lifting them up as examples of the value-added, reduced-impact forestry that we wish we could see more of across Nova Scotia. 

What is lost in the drive to maximize efficiency and profits goes beyond ecological consequences to the realm of human experience. It is easier to maintain a connection to the forest when you are touching it with your hands, not through a joystick. When we walk in the forest we hear, smell, and experience it in a way that is not accessible when we are in the enclosed cab of a harvester. 

Let us not be divided by the rhetoric of the industrial lobbyists that say those who advocate for this vision are “anti-forestry”. Let us support small-scale operations and producers and ecologically-minded initiatives like the Mi’kmaw Forestry Initiative and Medway Community Forests Co-Op. We have lost much of our collective connection to the forests. Let's get it back.

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Mike Lancaster spends the majority of his time filling his various roles within the nonprofit world; he is the Executive Director of the St. Margaret's Bay Stewardship Association, Coordinator of the Healthy Forest Coalition, Vice Chair of the Medway Community Forest Co-op, and Stewardship Coordinator of the Woodens River Watershed Environmental Organization. He is also the proprietor of a small business that conducts forest and forestry consulting, assessments, and applications.

Mike's work has taken him all across Nova Scotia as he seeks to improve his understanding of the Wabanaki-Acadian forest ecosystem and how to integrate an increased emphasis on conservation, community, and resource stewardship into public policy.