Downed Charlottetown trees getting closer to a second life after Fiona

Some of the historic trees downed by Fiona are one step closer to a second life, with the first anniversary of the post-tropical storm less than a month away. 

After the storm, the City of Charlottetown enlisted furniture maker Brodye Chappell to travel around the capital, looking for the pieces of downed trees with the best potential to be turned into a wide range of woodworking projects.

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Last November, the city also hosted a brainstorming session with residents, to explore some of their ideas for the reclaimed trees. 

Chappell and cabinet maker Elliot Mallett have spent the months since Fiona sorting through the salvaged trees and milling them into wooden slabs, the first step in their journey toward a finished product. 

"These elm trees, for example, that came down in this, they are a keystone in the city. So I want to do them justice so that they can live another life," Chappell said.

The goal, he said, was to "have something to look back on and say, 'Yeah, that storm was terrible, but look what we have out of this.'

"A project like this is never going to happen again, with the amount of trees that we've lost," Chappell said. "I want to really knock this project out of the park, and create some beautiful heirloom furniture, and also get some other niche makers in the mix, and get the most out of this material."

'Game time'

Once the salvaged trees were milled, Chappell said, they were left to air dry, to lower the moisture content before being put in a kiln in Tyne Valley to dry.

"We put it in a kiln for ballpark six to eight weeks. That brings the moisture content down to eight to 10 per cent, and then it's game time as far as creating goes," Chappell said.

"We were kind of hoping to have that done sooner, but there has been obviously some bumps in the road. But I'm hoping at some point this fall we'll be able to start creating, and making some timeless pieces."

Chappell said a few pieces of elm, ash and oak have already been given to the city to be used for educational programming.

"The cool thing is we can use every little bit of it, even if it's a small chunk. It could be a bowl. Another small section can be the arms and back of a chair."

Chappell looks forward to finally completing the first piece of furniture from the Fiona trees.

It's going to be really cool to be able to say that this wood was salvaged from Charlottetown...and the tree came down in Fiona​​​​​​.— Brodye Chappell, furniture maker

"It's going to be really cool to be able to say that this wood was salvaged from Charlottetown, and the story behind it being the tree came down in Fiona."

"I think it's going to be a pretty special moment." 

Connaught Square art project

Meanwhile, with the first anniversary of Fiona drawing closer, the City of Charlottetown has launched a call for proposals for a new permanent art installation that uses reclaimed wood from historic trees that fell during Fiona. 

"The theme of the project is resilience, reclamation and regeneration," said Doug Dumais, the city's culture and economic co-ordinator. 

"I think people are looking for these kind of messages of hope and resilience because, in the aftermath of the storm, we lost up to 600 city trees.

"We're hoping to get some interesting proposals from artists to bring an event, which was obviously very impactful, very damaging to our city's urban forestry, to something that's a bit more positive, a bit more interesting,"

Dumais said Connaught Square, one of the city's five urban squares, was chosen because it doesn't currently have a piece of public art. The square also lost historic trees in previous storms.

He said the goal is to have the new piece installed by the spring of 2024.

The deadline for submitting proposals is Friday, Sept. 8 at 4 p.m.