Halfway tree still standing

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This article was published 16/11/2022 (1084 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The halfway tree is not dead yet.

The tree, which marks the halfway point of the two-hour drive between Winnipeg to Brandon, has been given a reprieve.

Several Manitoba drivers expressed concern on social media on Tuesday when they saw heavy equipment, including a wood chipper, parked beside the iconic tree.

But Shawn Richardson, of Brandon-based Advanced Arborcare Tree Services, said they were hired by the province to help the tree, not take it down.

“It is showing signs of decay and rot, but it has lots of live foliage still,” Richardson said on Wednesday.

“We took off a big dead lead on it. It was a really big limb and it was completely dead.

“It could be awhile before the rest of the tree dies.”

A Free Press story in August said the tree, an 85-foot cottonwood, was one of two trees planted at the site near the Trans-Canada Highway between 1917 and 1919, by a man in memory of his wife and child who died during childbirth.

When the highway was twinned, one of the trees was removed, but the other, now known as the halfway tree, was spared.

The province says while it paid to prune the tree, and will likely someday pay to remove it, there will never be a replacement.

“It’s too close to the highway,” Richardson said.

He said most cottonwoods live for about 60 to 80 years depending on the soil, so the halfway tree is living on borrowed time, and it has had close calls already.

“Part of it looks like it was on fire once,” he said. “There are a couple of spots you can tell it was hit (by vehicles) before.

“Realistically, it would have been best 50 years ago to have been pruning it. But you can’t go back in time.”

— Staff