The artist's concept proposal states: “Burnaby was a forest not too long ago, and Douglas firs were everywhere alongside ancient Hemlock, Cedar, and Spruce. The Coastal Douglas fir can live for up to 1,000 years, far beyond the age of this young city or the scale of a human life. A cross section of a tree allows us to zoom out on time and see the years as seasonal cycles affected by natural and human-made events. Each year a tree forms new cells, beginning in the spring with light-coloured earlywood and into the summer with a darker wall of latewood. Environmental conditions are recorded by the tree like a history ledger; for example, a drought produces a thinner ring and a fire produces a scar. Once the tree is cut down it reveals this internal history, exposing a record of its life and the life surrounding it.”