The woods can be thick with spruce trees on Prince Edward Island and they often grow tall and skinny, so what to do? Healthy wood lot management on PEI means you have to become friends with your chainsaw and thin out the forest, allowing certain trees an opportunity to meet a healthy maturity. It is an endless amount of work, but is probably the best physical workout you can ever experience, and once you invest in a chainsaw and safety gear, it’s free, unlike a monthly gym membership.

PEI pioneers did not have the luxury of a chainsaw and so many modern tools that help cut down on time and effort. How did early PEI settlers manage in this new world with just basic axes and simple tools? I can work for hours in my woods clearing an area and building my somewhat unique pioneer stockade, but no progress seems to have been made. How did the pioneers do it?

My ‘stockade’ isn’t quite finished and I’ve only been working on it for about four years, mind you, I can go months in between a day of cutting down my thin spruce, which are nailed vertically into place. It’s quite the sight if you stumble upon it by chance in my woods. I imagine early settlers from the Isle of Skye in Scotland would have assembled similar structures upon their arrival in eastern PEI, on Selkirk’s ships, in August of 1803. Hopefully I have the time to finish it this year. It’s almost done, but it all depends on where it falls on my list of priorities. There’s always so much to do when you’re living the PEI dream.