New Ross giant heads to Boston

By Rachel Boomer
The Daily News

NEW ROSS - If it hadn't been for Alan Broome's father-in-law, the majestic white spruce on his New Ross front lawn would have met its maker 28 years ago.

Broome and his wife, Antoinette, got the land where their house now sits as a wedding gift from Antoinette's parents. While they were clearing the land to build their home, Broome nearly felled the tree, then a puny six metres. His father-in-law convinced him not to.

Turns out fate had other plans for that tree. Three weeks ago, a Natural Resources scout spotted the 12-metre tree, and deemed it worthy of gracing the Boston Common at Christmastime.

The Broomes agreed to donate the tree. Yesterday, the 50-year-old spruce was cut and loaded aboard a truck marked "Merry Christmas, Boston."

"It's going for a good cause," Alan Broome said yesterday. He figures the tree probably wouldn't have lived more than a few more years anyway. "Its time was coming to a close."

Last year's tree donor, Donnie Hatt of Chester Basin, caused a continental kerfuffle by protesting that Boston bureaucrats had labelled his gift a "holiday" tree.

Broome said Boston can call his spruce whatever it wants.

"We call it a Christmas tree here; if they want to call it a holiday tree in Boston, I have no problem with that," Broome said yesterday.

For the last 35 years, Nova Scotia has sent a large evergreen to the citizens of Boston in thanks for their help after the 1917 Halifax Explosion. It probably doesn't hurt as a marketing tool for the Nova Scotia Christmas tree business, either.

To be chosen, a tree must be 12 to 16 metres tall, and have grown in a fairly empty space, so that its needles and branches are evenly spaced.

Boston will hold its tree-lighting ceremony Nov. 30.

rboomer @hfxnews.ca