Inside Our PEI Family Forest: 800 Trees, One for Every Family Member

Most people do not get to say this, but somewhere on Prince Edward Island, I have a tree.

Actually, pretty much everyone in my extended family has one.

In 2002, my great-uncle Howard undertook an incredible family project: he planted approximately 800 trees, with individual trees representing members of our extended family across roughly five generations.

That includes my parents, brothers, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins and, yes, me.

The property has become known within our family as the Hancock-Macdonald Forest, tucked away down a rural dirt lane among blueberry fields on PEI.

It had been a few years since we last visited, so during our 2026 trip to the Island, Grace and I went back to find my tree and see just how much the family forest had grown.

Watch the video below, then keep reading for the story behind the forest, how we actually find our individual trees and why this unusual family project means more to me as the years pass.

This was not something I signed up for.

I was simply fortunate enough to be part of a family where someone had a very ambitious idea.

In 2002, my mom’s uncle Howard decided to create a living family tree in the most literal way possible.

He planted hundreds of actual trees and assigned them to individual members of the extended family.

Instead of drawing names and lines on a piece of paper, generations of our family became rows of trees growing together on Prince Edward Island.

Around 800 were planted in total.

More than two decades later, they are still there.

And they are still being maintained.

That is the part I find increasingly impressive.

Planting hundreds of small trees is already a major undertaking. Creating a system to identify them and then continuing to care about the project decades later turns it into something much more meaningful.

The forest is in rural PEI, reached by travelling along a dirt lane surrounded by agricultural land and blueberry fields.

It is not a public tourist attraction, and I am deliberately not providing exact directions.

This is a family property and a personal project rather than somewhere I would encourage visitors to simply show up.

For us, though, the drive into the property is part of the experience.

PEI is filled with rural roads where farmland, woods and small communities blend into one another. Following one of those roads toward a forest where you know there is literally a tree bearing your place in the family is a fairly unusual feeling.

With approximately 800 trees, simply saying “mine is somewhere over there” would not work particularly well.

Thankfully, Howard thought of that too.

There is a detailed map on the property showing where the trees are located.

Each position has a letter-number combination.

Find your name.

Find your coordinates.

Then start walking.

It turns searching for your family tree into something resembling a very low-stakes treasure hunt.

For someone who has not visited in several years, the map becomes even more important because the trees no longer look like the small plants we remember.

Eventually, there it was.

My tree.

And I’m pleased to report that it appears to be doing well.

In the video, I was particularly impressed with its progress. It had grown into a healthy, substantial tree since my previous visit.

Naturally, this also created an opportunity to compare mine with my brothers’ trees.

My oldest brother’s was looking a little thinner.

Mine?

Nice and solid.

Healthy tree.

I am not saying there is a competition.

But I am also not saying there isn’t.

One of the neatest parts of the layout is that members of our immediate family are grouped together.

Along the same row we found:

• My mom’s tree
• My dad’s tree
• My oldest brother’s tree
• My tree
• My younger brother Cody’s tree

Standing there makes the concept of a “family tree” suddenly feel very literal.

Some of the trees throughout the property have individual markers identifying whose they are.

Ours currently do not, so we need to return with markers of our own.

Thankfully, between the map and the family row, we can still identify everyone.

The visit became more reflective when we found my grandparents’ trees.

My grandmother, Kaye Macdonald, passed away in 2002, the same year the forest project began.

My grandfather, Gordon MacDonald, passed away in 2018.

Their trees remain here.

That gives the project a significance that is difficult to fully appreciate when the trees are first planted.

In the beginning, they are small plants assigned to names on a family map.

As the decades pass, people age. Families change. Some people are no longer here.

The trees continue growing.

There is something comforting about that.

Not every family member can travel back to PEI to inspect their tree whenever they feel like it.

Some of my cousins live in Ontario, so while we were walking around the property, I stood between their trees and sent them an update.

Your trees are still here.

They’re growing.

Everything looks good.

It is a funny little message to be able to send someone.

But that is what makes the project so interesting.

The trees have become physical connections between family members who now live in different places.

The last time I visited, many of these trees were considerably smaller.

Coming back in 2026 made the passage of time much more obvious.

What began as hundreds of individually planted trees is increasingly becoming what Howard intended all along:

A forest.

When trees grow slowly, you do not notice much change from one day to the next.

Leave for several years and return, though, and the difference is obvious.

The branches are fuller.

The trunks are larger.

Rows that once felt clearly separated start becoming surrounded by greenery.

It makes me want to visit more regularly rather than waiting another long stretch between trips.

I imagine the forest felt very different in 2002.

Back then, it would have been easier to focus on the novelty of it.

Someone planted hundreds of trees and gave everyone one.

Cool.

But 24 years later, the project has accumulated its own history.

Children represented on the original map have grown up.

People have moved across the country.

Older generations have passed away.

The trees have been growing through all of it.

What started as a creative family project has turned into a living record of several generations.

And unlike a traditional family tree stored in a book or on a computer, this one changes every year.

This probably will never be the article on our website that helps someone plan a conventional PEI itinerary.

You cannot buy a ticket to the Hancock-Macdonald Forest.

There is no gift shop.

There are no opening hours.

But I think it belongs among our PEI adventures because this is another side of what travelling back to the Island means for us.

I grew up on PEI and lived there for 26 years.

So when Grace and I return, we are not only visiting beaches, restaurants and tourist attractions.

We are revisiting family.

We are returning to familiar roads.

We are going to places tied to my own history.

And sometimes that means driving down a dirt lane to check on a tree with my name attached to it.

The concept itself is remarkably simple.

Take a family tree.

Make it a real forest.

But actually executing that idea required someone to:

• Research the extended family
• Organize hundreds of names
• Plant roughly 800 trees
• Lay them out in a meaningful way
• Create a map so people could find them
• Continue maintaining the property afterward

It is difficult not to appreciate the amount of work behind it.

One viewer of our YouTube video summed it up nicely, praising whoever thought of the project and, more importantly, actually made it happen.

That distinction matters.

Plenty of people have ambitious family ideas.

Howard planted 800 trees.

Our 2026 visit left me thinking that I probably should not wait several more years before coming back.

Part of the enjoyment now is being able to see the progress.

My tree looked healthy this time.

Hopefully, the next time I visit it will be even larger.

Eventually, these individual trees may become so established that it becomes difficult to remember what the property looked like when they were first planted.

That is exactly what is supposed to happen.

Grace and I make videos about many of the places we visit.

Some involve famous attractions.

Some involve restaurants.

Some involve long road trips, wildlife or beaches.

This one involved finding a tree.

And somehow it is one of the more personal adventures we have shared.

The Hancock-Macdonald Forest is a reminder that family history does not always have to live in old photographs, genealogy records or stories passed from one generation to another.

Sometimes it can be alive.

It can grow.

And if you’re lucky, you can return home to Prince Edward Island every few years, walk into a forest and see how your own little piece of it is doing.

Mine is looking pretty good.

My brother might need to step it up.