Jessica Head isn’t alone in thinking the Morgan Arboretum on the western tip of Montreal Island possesses a magical quality.
Step into the 245-hectare forest reserve in Sainte-Anne-de-Bellevue, and you’re instantly transported out of a bustling metropolis: traffic sounds fade, bird chirps rise.
“You feel like you’re in the woods. It doesn’t feel like a park. It feels like the back forty of a farm,” says Head, BSc’97, the Arboretum’s director and an associate professor in the Department of Natural Resource Sciences at McGill’s Macdonald Campus. “To have that on the island of Montreal is just so special.”
The Morgan Arboretum is both a McGill research station and education facility – and a beloved community sanctuary, popular with walkers (and canine pals), birders, cross-country skiers, snowshoers and stargazers thanks to the lack of light pollution overhead.
On Sunday, October 26, during Homecoming Celebration Weekend, the Arboretum celebrates its 80th anniversary with food, music, guided tours, educational presentations, a vendor marketplace, historical exhibits and activities for children.
Rich in biodiversity, the Arboretum is home to many species of mammals, reptiles and amphibians. There’s a chance you could spot a bald eagle, a great horned owl or colourful warblers among more than 170 species of birds depending on the season. Tree collections include firs, oaks, birches, maples, lindens, spruces, hardwoods and flowering trees and shrubs from Quebec and around the globe.
The Arboretum’s mission revolves around education, research, conservation and recreation. It also serves as an outdoor classroom. In late September, Kyle Elliott took his students on one of four bird walks this semester at the Arboretum as part of their ornithology class.
“We did five- or six-point counts where we’re standing and trying to hear and record any bird we observe within 25 meters. So, they learn about this traditional technique in ornithology,” says Elliott, an associate professor in natural resource sciences at Macdonald Campus.
Among the sightings during the class lab, a Northern goshawk and red-bellied woodpecker. “If I said there was any bird which is like an emblem for the Arboretum among birders, it would be the red-bellied woodpecker. It’s actually really hard to see elsewhere in Quebec and on the island of Montreal, but relatively easy to see [here],” Elliott says.
“You feel like you’re in the woods. To have that on the island of Montreal is just so special.”
Jessica Head, director of the Morgan Arboretum
Students in the environmental biology program relish the chance to get outdoors. “They want to be learning in nature. So it’s great to be able – a short distance away from campus – to go out and wander around part of Canada’s largest urban forest,” Elliott says, referring to the Grand parc de l’Ouest, which includes the Arboretum.
Greater emphasis on outreach
About 60 to 75 schools visit the Arboretum annually for education, physical activity, research and guided tours. The Arboretum welcomes an estimated 10,000 visitors a year and works with other local organizations, such as a mycology group that provides mushroom tours.
Bringing the broader community to the Arboretum is part of a push by the Office for Experiential Learning and Community Outreach to draw more people to the “Arbo”, the Horticulture Research Centre and the dairy farm at Macdonald Campus.
For the Arboretum, the beefed-up outreach efforts have included educational materials for tours focused on sustainable agriculture and biodiversity and facilitating a visit by children who recently immigrated to Canada.
‘The sound of the axe was everywhere’
McGill acquired the land – the Arboretum is located on part of what was once the Stoneycroft Farm – in 1945, thanks to the generosity of the Morgan family and McGill benefactor J.W. McConnell along with help from the Quebec government.
At the official opening in 1949, Cleveland Morgan told the gathering that his father James had bought the Stoneycroft farm at the turn of that century, alarmed by the rate at which trees were being felled during a coal famine.
“The sound of the axe was everywhere on the island and many acres of woodland were sacrificed to meet the emergency,” Cleveland Morgan was quoted in The Gazette’s account of the ceremony. “…He began buying up all wood lots in this vicinity that he could lay hands on…In this way, the area was eventually saved for future generations.”
The Arboretum’s vocation has evolved since its early days as a study centre focused on woodlot management. Maple syrup harvesting remains a popular annual activity, although it was sidelined during the pandemic.
McGill re-naturalized the land from 1945 to 1965 with the aim of creating an environment historically emblematic of the St. Lawrence Lowlands ecosystem, explains Scott Pemberton, the Arboretum’s field operations manager.
“The beautiful thing with the Arboretum – and born from that patchwork – is that you will see different environments. We have fields, a few small ponds, open areas, closed areas, gardens,” Pemberton says.
Dr. W. H. Brittain, who served as dean of the Faculty of Agriculture for more than 20 years, spearheaded the early development of the Arboretum, becoming its curator in 1955. In Canada’s centennial year, Brittain established the Canada Birch Trail at the Arboretum with white birch specimens from across the country. Incredibly, most of Canada’s provincial premiers attended the tree-planting ceremony on McGill’s downtown campus after being honoured at Convocation in October 1967. (The trees were subsequently replanted at the Arboretum.)
The soothing power of nature
Owned by McGill, the forest reserve relies on funding from memberships and its registered charity, the Morgan Arboretum and Woodland Development Association. Upgrading the Arboretum’s facilities is on their wish list and more volunteers are needed, Head says. “A generation of volunteers who’ve made the Arboretum what it is today are now retiring from active participation,” she says.
Head would like to see more of the McGill community come to the Arboretum. “The people who know the Arboretum love it,” she says.
“I’ve heard so many stories of people who’ve been struggling and have used the Arboretum as a way to help treat themselves,” says Head. “That’s part of the reason it’s so important to the community because everyone goes through hard times.”
