The late Doug Horth left a mark in local forests and in his son Dale's heart.
The senior Horth died in 2019, after a lifetime in the bush. He was a full-time logger from 1961 to 2016 and a faller from 1969.
On March 8, the family erected a rock monument to Doug on the Ray Peters Trail.
"Many trails for mountain biking and the Ray Peters trails exist because of my dad," Dale told The Chief.
The memorial is across from the Squamish Airport at the BC Forest Service Centenary Grove and the Quick Memorial Forest.
Doug had logged the site in 2012 and made an extra effort to take the stumps out and make it attractive.
"My dad loved his woodlot," said Dale, "He loved watching his trees grow. They were his babies. My dad worked seven days a week. If he wasn't logging, he was out there doing some silviculture. He used to put cones over the trees to keep the deer from eating them. My dad just loved the forest... He really enjoyed all of the silviculture work."
The rock monument has a message from Judy, his wife of 52 years.
"May memories blow softly from Heaven and whisper through the trees," reads the inscription.
The memorial idea came about after Dale Horth drove by the lot recently and noticed it was overgrown. He felt compelled to fix it up for his dad and to place the memorial.
He quickly got government authorizations to begin the work, something he attributes to his dad’s reputation as a forester.
"I did all the silviculture work on that block. I cut all the alder, maple, and birch down. I took three trailer loads away. Because elementary school kids planted it, they kind of over planted it, so I had to go in and lightly do a species conversion. I lightly spaced it for proper tree growth. So, now it is a really beautiful forest and my dad's name is attached to it. I felt obligated to," said Dale, his voice breaking with emotion.
Dale said that his personality is so much like his dad's that at times, they bumped heads.
"But at the end of the day, we were still father and son."
Dale, who is president of Doug Horth Contracting, was able to use what his dad taught him when working on the lot and the memorial.
"Getting out and cutting the trees and stuff was really therapeutic for me. I was putting on the logging clothes and running [a] chain saw. I did exactly what my dad would have done there, just everything he taught me over the years. I knew what to do. So now it can be a thriving forest."
