The Canadians have a common saying, that “the white cedar will last aiii will then serve for window-sashes!”1
While “forever” may be stretching the truth, eastern white cedar wood has developed a deserved reputation for its durability and resistance to decay. A number of studies led by E.A. Behr in the sixties and seventies found that while decay resistance varied within Thuja, on average it was more decay and termite resistant than wood from most other tree species and on par with western red cedar. Decay resistance is greatest in the heartwood (innermost non-conducting wood) of the tree just inside its boundary with the sapwood (living conducting wood found between the heartwood and the bark). We have observed this same phenomenon in dead cedars along the Niagara Escarpment. If rot is observed in the tree, it is often confined to die pith (or centre of the tree) and its outermost wood layers.
The principal enemies of decay in cedar are fungi with glamorous names like stringy-butt rot and brown-butt rot. We should be thankful that these aren’t common maladies of the human condition! Decay is accelerated by contact with water and/or soil. Water leaches out the compounds responsible for decay resistance allowing the decay fungi to move in and rot the wood. If the wood is kept dry and out of contact with soil, or away from the fungi that lead to decay, the wood can endure for thousands of years. We found intact 3,550 year-old (radiocarbon-dated) eastern white cedar wood in the rocky talus at the base of one cliff. Submerged cedar wood over 8,500 years in age has been found at a depth of ten metres in the waters of Georgian Bay. Both wood samples showed little evidence of structural change despite thousands of years of exposure to the elements.
The cedarstrip canoe was an essential form of transportation for eastern Canada’s First
Thuja wood is also extremely light weight with an average density of 335 kg per cubic metre of wood. It is also very easy to split. Unfortunately, while both durable and light, eastern white cedar grows much slower than most other species and the trees are small in stature. The lumber is often very knotty. This is probably the reason why eastern white cedar is not one of the principal commercial lumber species in eastern North America today.
The aboriginal peoples of this continent, however, took full advantage of the unique properties of cedar and used it in all manners of construction. The most enduring image of the First Nations peoples is the cedarstrip canoe. Henry Hind described the construction of a cedarstrip canoe in his 1869 essays on the Dominion of Canada, “The framework consists of numerous single ribs or laths, bent like an ox-bow, and terminating in the gunwales; all which, with the bow and stern-post, are made of white cedar (Thuya occidentalis) the lightest and most durable wood our forest affords. The few bars which maintain the opposite gunwales in situ are of maple, elm, or ash – cedar not being strong enough – but they are attached, through holes bored in their ends, by a seizing of young roots, (instead of being framed in) so that they can be readily replaced.”2 Spruce roots were boiled and used to attach the white birch sheathing while a pitch made from resin and tallow was used to seal the seams and make it watertight. Sometimes white cedar bark was used for the sheathing if white birch was unavailable.
The cedarstrip canoe was the ideal vehicle for navigating the Canadian wilderness. Before rail lines and roads carved up the landscape, rivers provided the only viable transportation corridor between destinations. The canoes were lighter than any other vehicle of equal strength thus facilitating travel on dry land. Only half the crew was required to carry it, thus freeing hands for cargo. The elastic nature of the wood withstood moderate collisions or contact with rocks hidden from view and, if not, the repair shop was never more than half the width of the river or lake away! Better yet, the canoes also served as shelter at night. Hind writes, “every attempt to improve upon it, by substitution of tin or otherwise, has failed.”3
Cedar stems and cedar bark were also popular construction materials because of their durability. They were used in the construction of palisades and permanent structures like longhouses. Sieur de Cadillac described the construction of dwellings by the Ottawa and the Huron at Mackinac and writes that they, “entwine with these large poles, crosspieces as thick as one’s arm, and cover them from top to bottom with the bark of fir trees or cedars, which they fasten to the poles and the cross branches.”4 Cedar bark was the most popular choice for covering all manner of dwellings although it was flammable, leaving entire collections of villagers vulnerable to fire. The stringy bark was also used to weave bags and make baskets and was stuffed into pillows and upholstery. It was rolled up to serve as torches and rubbed to a powder, ignited and used to start fires.
Iroquoian longhouses were constructed almost entirely from white cedar. Even cedar bark was used to tie cedar posts together.
White cedar (background) is so durable that it was the principal wood used for posts, rails and fences (foreground). Cedar rail fences still dot the landscape of southern Ontario. Note the forest of cedars in the background.
In winter, the Huron First Nation used cedar to construct a type of sledge known as an arocha. The arocha was constructed of long boards of cedar wood upon which the load was placed. It was then attached to their feet and pulled over the snow. The young branches were also used as brooms, and the twigs and leaves were used as green dyes for clothing and objects. Cedar boughs were also thought to ward off insects and the Huron slept on cedar boughs that were thought to repel snakes. The light cedar wood was favoured especially for armour and helmets, and cedar was often the wood of choice for arrow and spear shafts. The Huron made huge shields out of cedar that covered most of their bodies.
Like the First Nations peoples before them, the first settlers to the Great Lakes Lowlands took advantage of the robust and resilient white cedar wood – split-rail fences being the most obvious manifestation in southern Ontario. An 1863 lease signed between George Peavoy and Charles Connolly for the use of land in the Township of Erin in Wellington County, stipulated that ten acres of land be cleared each year for five years “and to fence with a lawful fence each ten acres into fields with cedar rails...and the cedar not required for rails to be piled unto piles.”5 In some areas cedar rail fences are still a prominent part of the rural landscape. Some fences have endured nearly 150 years of exposure to the elements but still serve as effective barriers for livestock. Unfortunately, not everyone was appreciative of their usefulness. Naturalist Philip Henry Gosse wrote in 1840 that “the white cedar...from the facility with which it is split, but chiefly from its great durability, almost incorruptibility...is in great request for the rails that compose those unsightly zigzag fences, so offensive to the eye of one accustomed to the verdant and blooming hedgerows of England.”!6
This 1947 photograph shows a load of cedar destined to become fence posts. Courtesy of the Archives of Ontario: Department of Lands and Forests photographs of fire-fighting activities and fish hatcheries, RG1-610.
Gosse’s disgust, however, did not limit eastern white cedar’s popularity as the wood of choice for fence posts, pickets and rails. It was also popular for telegraph poles, shingles, siding, beams, docks, piers, railway ties and lime kilns. An intact tramway of cedar rails laid nearly fifty years prior at a now abandoned mill on the Bruce Peninsula was proclaimed by W. Sherwood Fox to be a “tribute to the workmen who laid them and to the lasting qualities of our native white cedar.”7 Fishermen discovered that the wood was great for building their boats and settlers used it for a wide variety of household items including pails, tubs, churns, sugar-making spiles and brooms because the wood became smoother and whiter with increased use.
The varied appearance of four different cultivars of eastern white cedar.
A hone-powered cedar shingle saw. Courtesy of the Archives of Ontario; Tourism promotion photographs: RG 65-35-1.
Cedar shakes were commonly used on exterior walls and roofs such as on this Tobermory house. Courtesy of the Bruce County Museum and Cultural Archives. A16/83”34.
Barns were also shingled with cedar. Cedar shingles was preferred habitat for several moss species. This layer of moss kept the barn dry because it absorbed moisture when it rained and expanded to seal cracks and holes. On dry days, fanners could look up to their roofs and see light through the cracks even though the bam interior was kept completely dry in wet weather. In 18th century United States, cedar was cut from swamps in New Jersey to meet the demand for cedar shingles. When the supply was exhausted, long-dead cedar trunks floated to the surface and they were in turn “mined” for shingles. The wood was dried and found to be equally effective. A layer of cedars nearly twelve feet deep was found in some of these swamps. This buried wood was used to construct the roof of Independence Hall in Philadelphia.
Eastern white cedar wood is still useful today for products that come in contact with water and soil, items such as: poles, posts, fencing, shingles, boats, particle board, boxes, crates and water tanks. It is the first choice for fence posts by most farmers, but the introduction of pressure-treated wood and chemical wood preservatives such as creosote, has limited the current usefulness of Thuja for railway ties, docks and piers. It is popular for log cabins because it is an efficient insulator, has a low shrinkage factor, and a low moisture content. The Forestry Division of the U.S. Department of Agriculture ranks it as one of the three best woods to use for exterior construction. The wood is used for fishnet floats and imitation minnows because of its lightness. One company claims their eastern white cedar cat scratching posts are ideal because “white cedar has the claw-pleasing roughness cats crave....so soft they can easily dig their claws in for maximum scratching exercise and satisfaction.” No doubt! Extracts from Thuja occidentalis are also used in cleansers, disinfectants, hair products, insecticides, insect repellents, deodourizers, perfumes and soaps.
Thuja occidentalis (including its many cultivars) is also the most popular ornamental tree species in North America. They are grown individually or easily transplanted and moulded into thick hedges for privacy or windbreaks and they are one of the best tree species for stabilizing eroding banks or shores. They are seen as attractive because they assume such true lines and their natural tapered form appears to have been trimmed or clipped.
There is a noticeable abrupt transition along the Niagara Escarpment between the cliff-edge white cedar forest and the plateau deciduous forest.
