Charlie’s Tree: A Veteran’s Remembrance

Most people zoom past without a second glance. Charlie Perkins’s Tree stands at a slight bend in Highway 1 where Surrey and Langley meet. The tree is now an old stump, wrapped with ivy and faded Canadian flags. A white cross is nailed above a sign reading: 1919. Charlie and four friends used to swim in a hole near what was then a towering Douglas fir on the Perkins’s family farm in the years before the Great War.

Charlie’s tree, a landmark on the TransCanada Highway. Courtesy of Mark Forsythe

All these young men went off to fight, but only Charlie returned home alive after serving as an instructor for the Royal Flying Corps at Camp Borden and Fort Worth, Texas. Two of his brothers also served and survived. In 1919 Charlie planted ivy at the base of what his family called the “Big Tree,” a fitting tribute to his friends and others killed in training flights or while serving overseas. Many years later the Trans-Canada Highway was being surveyed through Surrey, and here historian Chuck Davis picks up the story:

Then, in 1960, Highway 1 began to be built through Surrey. Its proposed route would put it right through the little glade Charlie had cleared. The memorial tree would have to go. Charlie, now a senior citizen, protested, and friends and neighbours joined him in that protest. They were heard by Highways Minister Phil Gaglardi, and the highway engineers curved the road to go around the tree. This is perhaps the only instance in Canadian history where a major highway was diverted to avoid harming a tree. You can see the bend in the road to the right of the eastbound lanes of the Trans-Canada between the 176th Street and 200th Street exits.

Charlie’s tree was set on fire by vandals and consequently was topped at twelve metres. Each Remembrance Day a wreath is placed there by members of the Whalley Branch of the Royal Canadian Legion. Travel just a little farther east, almost to the 264th Street exit, and you’ll see a new sign marking the Highway of Heroes, a tribute to Canadians killed in Afghanistan.

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