Sayward Valley is a low-lying area in northeastern

Vancouver Island Vancouver Island is an island in the northeastern Pacific Ocean and part of the Canadian province of British Columbia. The island is in length, in width at its widest point, and in total area, while are of land. The island is the largest ...

. It is occupied by a

floodplain A floodplain or flood plain or bottomlands is an area of land adjacent to a river. Floodplains stretch from the banks of a river channel to the base of the enclosing valley, and experience flooding during periods of high Discharge (hydrolog ...

of the Salmon River. The soils there have variable drainage and are mostly of loam texture. Upland soils in the valley have clay loam to gravelly loamy sand texture and show

podzol Podzols, also known as podosols, spodosols, or espodossolos, are the typical soils of coniferous or boreal forests and also the typical soils of eucalypt forests and heathlands in southern Australia. In Western Europe, podzols develop on heathlan ...

profile development in most cases. Forest vegetation is dominated by large

Douglas fir The Douglas fir (''Pseudotsuga menziesii'') is an evergreen conifer species in the pine family, Pinaceae. It is the tallest tree in the Pinaceae family. It is native to western North America and is also known as Douglas-fir, Douglas spruce, Or ...

western hemlock ''Tsuga heterophylla'', the western hemlock or western hemlock-spruce, is a species of hemlock native to the northwest coast of North America, with its northwestern limit on the Kenai Peninsula, Alaska, and its southeastern limit in northern ...

and

western red cedar ''Thuja plicata'' is a large evergreen coniferous tree in the family Cupressaceae, native to the Pacific Northwest of North America. Its common name is western redcedar in the U.S. or western red cedar in the UK, and it is also called pacific re ...

. Other large trees include

grand fir ''Abies grandis'' (grand fir, giant fir, lowland white fir, great silver fir, western white fir, Vancouver fir, or Oregon fir) is a fir native to northwestern North America, occurring at altitudes of sea level to . It is a major constituent of t ...

(at its northern limit),

Sitka spruce ''Picea sitchensis'', the Sitka spruce, is a large, coniferous, evergreen tree growing to just over tall, with a trunk diameter at breast height that can exceed 5 m (16 ft). It is by far the largest species of spruce and the fifth- ...

, western white pine,

black cottonwood ''Populus trichocarpa'', the black cottonwood, western balsam-poplar or California poplar, is a deciduous broadleaf tree species native to western North America. It is used for timber, and is notable as a model organism in plant biology. The t ...

red alder ''Alnus rubra'', the red alder, is a deciduous broadleaf tree native to western North America (Alaska, Yukon, British Columbia, Washington, Oregon, California, Idaho and Montana). Description ''Alnus rubra'' is the largest species of alder in ...

and

bigleaf maple ''Acer macrophyllum'', the bigleaf maple or Oregon maple, is a large deciduous tree in the genus '' Acer''. It is native to western North America. In addition to uses by animals, it is of some culinary and woodworking interest. Description Big ...

References

Day, J.H., L. Farstad, and D.G. Laird, 1959. ''Soil Survey of Southeast Vancouver Island and Gulf Islands'', British Columbia. B.C. Soil Survey, Rept. No. 6, Can. Dept. Agric. Northern Vancouver Island Valleys of British Columbia Landforms of Vancouver Island {{BritishColumbiaCoast-geo-stub