![]() ![]() “And we put them in the fridge, and we started Googling, and praying for one tree,” she adds.Įver since then, Maloney has documented the acorns’ progress online, through a Facebook page she created called “ Shubie Tree Acorns Updates.” “(I thought) let me grow a memorial tree for my grandson,” Maloney recalls, “it just felt right.” “It carries a certain history in its genetics, and (so) we gathered those little acorns, and I just had a split (second) thought.” “I’m looking at this tree that’s been here long before any of us, long before Nova Scotia,” she says. Maloney went to see the tree with her grandchildren, who then spotted the acorns scattered on the ground from the great red oak. “And my sister, April, said, ‘Let’s go and look at the Shubie tree, it went down,’ and we were all feeling this sort of melancholy.” And I knew in my heart it was time to let him go.” “The last few years, I had the teepee poles still standing from his sacred fire,” says Maloney, who is a member of the Sipekne’katik First Nation, “and then Fiona came along and took down the teepee poles. That demise came in the fall of 2022, when post-tropical storm Fiona tore through the province, destroying homes and downing countless trees –- including the iconic “Shubenacadie tree” beside Highway 102.Īt the time, Maloney was still dealing with a very personal loss -– the sudden death of her 9-month-old grandson Tyren in January of 2020. “If the tree died, it would take us a long time to cut it down and clean it up,” he said, “because I’m sure there'd be a period of time when the community would mourn the loss of that tree." More than a decade ago, then CTV News At Five co-host Starr Dobson did a story about that tree, often dubbed “the most photographed tree in Nova Scotia.”Įven back when the story aired in March 2010, farmer William Versteeg, whose family bought the land the tree stood on, knew that its eventual demise would be deeply felt among those who cherished it. “The magnitude of starting out with an acorn, and then sitting here with trees from this 300 year old, iconic piece of Nova Scotian, Canadian history,” she says, “and it’s something that means so much to everyone.” For 10 months, Cheryl Maloney has been the caretaker of two dozen tiny red oak seedlings, grown from acorns from Nova Scotia’s famed “Shubenacadie tree.” ![]()
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