42 pages • 1 hour read
Suzanne SimardFinding the Mother Tree: Discovering the Wisdom of the Forest
Nonfiction | Autobiography / Memoir | Adult | Published in 2021A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 8-11Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 8 Summary: “Radioactive”
It has been two months since Simard fought with her brother Kelly at the bar, and neither has reached out to the other to repair their relationship. Simard begins the research experiment that will define her doctoral degree with the help of her research assistant, Barb. Simard aims to study the relationship between birch trees, generally regarded as weeds in the logging industry, and Douglas firs; she hopes to prove that the two species cooperate rather than compete with one another for resources. Simard and Barb use a clear-cut near Adams Lake in Canada for the experiment. They tent clusters of birch and fir to regulate a scale of available sunlight, which will impact the plant’s ability to photosynthesize. Simard believes it is possible to prove “that birch and fir might trade sugar through mycorrhizal fungi” if the amount of sunlight they receive decreases (144). She will use radioactive isotopes of carbon injected into the firs and birches to track the movement of resources between the two plants. Her research goes against the aims of the logging industry and policymakers; if she proves that the two species cooperate with each other, Simard will be responsible for stopping “the madness of the wholesale removal of plants” (153).
Simard checks the growth of the clear-cut plants after a month. The roots of both birch and fir are extensively covered in mycorrhizal fungi, and the Geiger counter confirms that the plants are sufficiently labeled with carbon isotopes. Simard collects samples and studies them in a lab. On her last day there, she notes that she hasn’t been properly tightening the nosepiece of her mask and might have been exposed to the radioactive isotopes.
She continues collecting data and analyzing samples for several months at Oregon State University. The final results confirm that at least five major species of fungi have colonized the roots of birch and fir and that Douglas fir and birch are generously trading resources with one another. She must now make the choice to publish these findings and combat the policy status quo.
Simard receives a call from Kelly’s wife, Tiffany. Kelly has died in an accident with their garage door. Simard immediately flies to Kamloops to be with her family, wracked with guilt over having failed to reconcile with her brother before his death.
Chapter 9 Summary: “Quid Pro Quo”
To cope with her grief over the loss of her brother, Simard focuses on her research and goes cross-country skiing in her spare time, “trying to find, in her] connection to the trees, what [she had] lost forever with [her] brother” (164). The journal Nature publishes an article that Simard submits discussing her research findings. It is the cover story and earns Simard a global audience of scientists and academics who call her theory of cooperative belowground fungal networks “the wood-wide web” (165). However, her article has no impact on the Forest Service’s clear-cutting policies. She spends more time in the forest to heal her grief, especially as her husband Don is living in Corvallis completing his dissertation while she is still in Kamloops. She waits to reunite with him so they can discuss having children.
Simard continues to focus her research on testing the fungal root systems that connect trees in the forest. Birch and fir remain her primary test species, with her interest concentrated on measuring how long birch give resources to fir seedlings and whether fir ever contribute anything back to the birch. Her article receives several published critiques, but not knowing how to handle the academic backlash, Simard chooses not to reply to the criticism. She is also still consumed by grief and her desire to start a family with Don. A colleague, Dr. Melanie Jones, conducts an experiment that supports Simard’s theory of cooperation over competition, saving Simard’s reputation in academic circles.
Don moves back to Kamloops. With his help, Simard uses computer programming to model the life of the trees she is currently studying, finding that on average the firs supported by a close relationship with birch are predicted to live longer. She receives an invitation to give a radio interview. Simard accepts, ready to speak publicly about her research.
Chapter 10 Summary: “Painting Rocks”
Simard is three months pregnant. She is on a solo backcountry ski trip through the Rocky Mountains to celebrate. She goes off route a few times, noticing that there may be wolves following her. While skiing, she reflects on the public nature of her work, concluding that while pregnant she “need[s] to stay quiet to protect [her] child” instead of confronting the academic and scientific establishments (183). She stops to light a candle in the snow in honor of Kelly. Nature has become her greatest place for healing her grief.
She encounters other skiers, who talk about the increasing number of wolf sightings in the area. The clear-cuts attract grazing moose, which draws wolves into the area. The wolves also attack mountain caribou, whose populations are steeply declining.
A month later, Simard is approached by a reporter asking her opinion on herbicide practices. Simard replies: “’Don’t print this, but between you and me, for all the good the foresters are doing, they might as well paint rocks’” (190). The reporter prints her statement in The Vancouver Sun on the day that Simard goes into labor with her first daughter, Hannah.
Chapter 11 Summary: “Miss Birch”
Simard is on parental leave when policymakers react negatively to her comment on herbicide usage. She finds confidence in her new motherhood, conducting interviews over the phone with less worry for her job in the Forest Service. When Hannah is three months old, Simard must present a budget proposal in front of a committee; while doing so, she begins lactating. She receives her budget but at a lower rate than she requested. She returns from maternity leave when Hannah is eight months old.
Alan and Simard organize a two-day conference to better explain their theory of cooperative forest ecologies. They invite academic colleagues, policymakers, and regional foresters. While presenting on the first day, Simard receives criticism from the policymakers that her data is too “new” and won’t impact policy decisions until the trees mature. On the second day, Simard plans to give her talk at the experiment sites themselves, in the forest.
The policymakers concentrate their criticism on what use birch could have in the commercial market if Simard would have them grow birch alongside fir. After her presentation, Simard is approached by one policymaker, who angrily yells at her for trying to disrupt the status quo. She is shocked: “[T]he awful things I’d heard about women speaking their minds—comments made even in my own family—echoed in me” (206). Alan steps in to defend her.
Simard finds it difficult to publish more articles, as academia has come to disregard her research. She is under official reprimand and review at the Forest Service. Simard gives birth to her second daughter, Nava. Alan advises Simard to begin looking for other work before the Forest Service dismisses her. A postdoc friend contacts her about a professorship at the University of British Columbia. Simard wants to apply, but Don is severely against living in Vancouver, preferring to live in the mountains in Nelson. Don believes he won’t be able to find adequate work in Vancouver and doesn’t want to be “Mr. Mom.” Don proposes that Simard pursue the professorship for two years, after which they can discuss again where to live. In 2002, Simard begins her professorship. She enjoys the freedom to conduct her own research, but Don dislikes living in Vancouver. Their marriage grows strained as Simard becomes successful, gaining full tenure at the university.
Chapters 8-11 Analysis
As Simard advances in her career, she gains enough experience to pursue the topics and use the research methods that she prefers rather than compromise her ethics as she did in the weeding studies. She also becomes better at navigating the system, “getting good at hiding the controversial [experiments] among the mainstream studies when I applied for grants” (144). Still, accomplishing her goals requires some sacrifice. Her research exposes her to toxic chemicals and radiation, and the occasional equipment mistakes Simard makes foreshadow her later diagnosis with an aggressive form of breast cancer.
Simard also struggles with the harsh criticism that some of her research receives. If she doesn’t speak out for the good of the forest, policymakers likely won’t change their practices, with devasting consequences. If she is too vocal about her dissent from the institution’s practices, then she will be ostracized from academic and scientific communities and unable to inspire positive change from within them. This positionality is even more difficult to navigate as a woman, as many of the policymakers that Simard encounters are men who do not treat her with respect, such as the policymaker who yells at her on the second day of her conference. Simard here comments on a double bind that many women face in professional settings; male-dominated workplaces often reward assertiveness in principle while also punishing women who speak up or take charge.
Motherhood further shapes Simard’s understanding of Feminism, Scientific Research, and Legacy. Her anecdote about the response when she started lactating during a budget presentation illustrates the particular hurdles mothers have faced in the workplace. Simard suggests women often advance professionally by hiding any bodily functions or experiences that distinguish them from men. Yet, as the term “mother tree” implies, Simard views her experiences of motherhood and her experiences of nature as interconnected. She talks, for instance, about going for long morning walks with Hannah as an infant:
With Hannah in a sling, sleeping on my breast, I’d walk the trails for hours, through swatches of spring-green pinegrass and patches of yellow flowers named butter-and-eggs, and nodding purple and brown chocolate lilies, under the huddles of fir and ponderosa pines and aspens. Somehow, I knew how to do this. I simply could (194).
The implication is again that the scientific community’s approach to nature would benefit from incorporating more conventionally feminine attitudes and practices.
Motherhood is not the only shakeup in Simard’s personal life that these chapters detail; they also explore the unraveling of her marriage and the devastation of her brother’s death. That the latter occurs before she and Kelly could reconcile compounds her grief. Ironically, Simard proves her theory of Nature and Generosity at the same time that her relationship with her brother is “shattered forever,” preventing them from ever reconnecting as the trees would suggest that they should. The forest becomes her place of healing as she finds solace in nature’s resiliency through cooperation. By devoting both her personal and professional lives to sharing in this process, she assuages some of the guilt she feels over having failed to patch things up with her brother: “I […] stopped at a sapling shedding its parka of snow. After I swept the last crust of melded crystals away, its supple stem slowly straightened. We are built for recovery, I thought” (169).
