Saturna Island is one of British Columbia’s quietest and most beautiful Southern Gulf Islands. It is situated in the rain shadow between the rain forests of Vancouver Island and BC’s coastal mountains. This very dry micro climate produces its own premium version of Douglas-fir, the slow growing conditions cause a very fine growth ring with the summer and winter rings of identical size rather than a normal fast growing large summer ring and a slow growing small winter ring found in most other Douglas-fir. This unique growing condition makes this fir much denser and heavier than fir growing elsewhere creating a very hard floor similar in hardness to oak or maple. This dry condition also creates a very high quality slower growing alder. Most of our alder comes from private woodlot owners or residents that consider this wood to be a fire hazard, we selectively harvest the largest trees that have reached the end of their lifespan and remove them before they fall down turning the forest floor into a tinder dry fire hazard in the hot dry season. Alder was one of the first native trees to return after the island was originally logged in the 50s and we are now fortunate to have a good supply of large old growth alder. A nice old growth Douglas-fir would be a 400 to 1000 year old tree so there is obviously not an endless supply of old growth fir whereas a nice old growth alder would be around 50 years old so we will always have these around.