Expert maps the trees of many Bellingham parks, WWU campus

John Wesselink has never found a wild goose plum tree in his extensive travels across United States, but he doesn’t consider his search a wild goose chase.

After all, the retired Bellingham letter carrier has personally seen and identified some 760 of the 780 or so species of trees in the country while visiting all 48 lower states.

“There is often not a hard line as to what differentiates a tree and a shrub, but I’d say I have seen all but about 20 species in the United States,” he says.

Wesselink, 70, became fascinated by trees just over a decade ago because Elizabeth Park was on his mail route and he met then-city arborist James Luce.

Over time, Wesselink became a self-taught dendrologist — someone expert in the botanical study of trees and other woody plants. He has created tree maps of Elizabeth Park, Broadway Park and Bayview Cemetery — “My magnum opus,” he says, “with 67 species among something like 1,000 trees.” — and followed up with tree maps of Bloedel-Donovan, Memorial and Fairhaven parks.

He also created a tree map of Western Washington University, his alma mater.

“They thought they had 70 species on campus, but I found 65 more,” he says. “I hunted trees all over the campus for about a year.”

Beginning in 2008, after his retirement from the Postal Service, Wesselink divided the U.S. into three sections he needed to explore further, even though he had earlier traveled the country and about 40 other nations during his many years of youthful wanderlust. He visited the Southwest first, followed by the Southeast and the Northeast, with a six-month trip in his Volkswagen camper each year, shooting thousands of photos along the way.

“I stayed in only one motel, for an overnight repair in Scottsdale, Ariz.,” he says. “Otherwise, I would camp out or stay in Walmart parking lots. I drove about 120,000 miles on those three trips, equivalent to crossing the country and back about 20 times.”

One of his biggest thrills was finding a late leaf oak near the Rio Grande at Big Bend National Park in southwest Texas.

“I had heard stories, but I think there is only one or two north of the Rio Grande,” he says. “It was wonderful to finally find one.”

In the five years since his cross-country trips ended, he has given numerous tree tours and talks locally.

“I once started a tour at Whatcom Falls Park,” he says. “It was supposed to last about one and a half hours, but it wound up about four and three-quarter hours. I thanked all of the 13 people who lasted for the entire tour.”

This story was originally published November 9, 2015 at 10:01 PM with the headline "Expert maps the trees of many Bellingham parks, WWU campus."