December 21, 2006
By Josephine Cheng / Evening Magazine
KINGS5 News
Thousands of people walk by it, gaze at it in wonder and photograph it.
But very few know the hidden story behind the Westlake Center tree that's one of the biggest symbols of Christmas in Seattle.
The story dates back to May 18, 1980, when Mount St. Helens erupted.
Dick Ford recalls the tragic event all too well. When he heard of the eruption he immediately thought about the Weyerhaeuser contract crews working for him.
"This crew was 15 miles from the mountain," Ford said. "They were thinning trees and they were killed by the heat."
The blast claimed 57 lives and 230 square miles of forest.
"The second thought was, all those trees that we had planted," Ford said. "I had ten years worth of work destroyed."
Ford and his crews tackled the monumental task of replanting in the ensuing years. They nursed thousands of tree seedlings in greenhouses, but the question still remained as to whether the trees would grow in volcanic ash.
"A lot of people were skeptics about trees growing in the blast zone," Ford said, "and questioned whether our efforts would be successful."
The ash on the surface was far too hot to accept fragile seedlings. That meant crews had to dig deep, to root the seedlings in soil beneath the ash. It took two or three times the work.
The plan was a success. In fact, the trees grew better than others planted elsewhere at the same time.
"It's not that the ash provides any nutrients. But what it did do was act like a mulch in the garden, so it trapped soil moisture in that top rooting zone."
The connection to the Westlake Christmas tree?
From the millions of replanted Douglas Firs on Mount St. Helens, one tree became the chosen one. It came from the heart of the blast zone, and at nearly 60 feet tall, it'll crown Westlake Center in the heart of Seattle.
"It's very hard to explain how I feel," Ford said. "The excitement about being able to take some of our work and being able to share that with communities and the world."
Tall and elegant, the blast-zone tree stands as a testament to the triumph of renewal - a little piece of Mount St. Helens in the spirit of Christmas.