The Men of the Trees

The Toronto Chapter of the Men of the Trees led the planning of Coronation Park. Richard St. Barbe Baker founded this international organization while working as a forest conservator in Kenya in the early 1920s. While there, he built a relationship with the Kikuyu people and worked with them to organize reforestation efforts in their territory. A branch of The Men of the Trees began in England and 1924. The organization quickly spread all over the world. Baker built awareness about reforestation, and his championing of trees and forests led to global replanting efforts.

Although Baker’s grandest idea, gathering millions of people to plant forests in the Sahara Desert, never became a reality, his leadership led to countless other environmental successes. The Men of Trees were influential in protecting redwood forests in California and reforestation efforts in Palestine. Members of Toronto’s Men of the Trees were involved in Coronation Park’s design. Part of their vision was to support peace through planting trees, using trees as enduring symbols to remember the sacrifices of war.

Lest We Forget

Coronation Park is a powerful place of remembrance. When organizers dedicated the military plaques for the park on August 1, 1938, over 200,000 veterans from Canada’s Expeditionary Forces — those who fought abroad in World War I — participated in the ceremony. The park was an important spot for those who fought to remember their comrades who gave their lives for Canada. A powerful image is painted in a newspaper description of the 38th Battalion’s Armistice Day service at the park in 1938, as veterans gathered around the tree named in their unit’s honour:

“At this service, after the wreath to honor the battalion was placed, and the Last Post and Reveille had been sounded, each surviving member of the battalion present passed in front of the tree and saluted it, as a living memorial of those comrades whose sacrifice they were honouring.”

It’s Up To Us…

Coronation Park was threatened with demolition on two occasions. Opposition efforts by community groups stopped both of these plans. Metropolitan Toronto began planning a major east-west highway in the late 1940s, today’s Gardiner Expressway. The project’s planners sought to relocate historic Fort York to Coronation Park to allow the road to pass over the original fort site. The actions of Toronto’s historical societies resisted the Fort’s relocation and stopped the move from happening. Later, in the 1970s, a plan for expanding the Canadian National Exhibition sought to convert the Coronation Park site into an amusement park. Local war veterans challenged the proposal and Coronation Park survived.

Dig deeper…

For more about the life of The Men of The Trees founder Richard St. Barbe Baker, see:

Paul Hanley. Man of the Trees, Richard St. Barbe Baker, The first global conservationist. University of Regina Press, 2018.