Cottage Q&A
QUESTION
A friend from northern Ontario tells a story about black spruce trees, often lone and exposed and at the head
of a bay, that, when struck by lightning, undergo an alteration of their protein structure that makes them
impervious to rot. Hence these trees can sometimes be found dead and very old but with wood that is unusually
hard and showing no signs of rot. The natives apparently call them sheekos. Can you verify this
phenomenon?
Keith Jones, Oshawa, Ont.
ANSWER
Gee, Keith, that’s a romantic bit of folklore. But, alas, not very accurate. The word is actually chicot, which is the French word for stump. In English, it’s a dull forestry term for a) a dead tree, or b) a dead limb of a tree that may endanger a worker, according to Ontario’s Occupational Health and Safety Act. (I warned you it was dull.) Although a lightning strike may set a tree ablaze, it doesn’t zap it with any magical anti-rot properties, says Chuck Mason, a policy advisor for the Ministry of Natural Resources in Sault Ste. Marie. Forestry workers remove dead trees and hanging limbs (known by some as widow-makers) because, well, they can crash down and kill people, and cottagers would be wise to do the same. But chicots also make great bird and animal habitat, so leave them be if they don’t threaten buildings or people.
The word chicot does have a First Nations connection, however. Back in the 1700s, Metis people were called chicots. Fred Shore, an assistant pro-fessor in the department of native studies at the University of Manitoba, says the reference was probably to half-burned stumps, left behind after land was cleared, that were both light and dark.
Christine Langlois
Published in the July/August 2007 issue of Cottage Life.
