Young and old gather in Marysville to help the Nashwaak River

About 30 volunteers gathered along the Nashwaak River on ahot Saturday afternoon to help protect the river and its bank.

Two hundredyoung silver maple trees were planted along the bank in Marysville, which Marieka Chaplin hopes one day will provide a towering tree canopy to the former hay field.

"Over time, they are going to provide canopy closure, so they're going to transform the retired hayfield into a forest," said Chaplin, the executive director of the NashwaakWatershed Association.

"The tree roots are going to hold that bank together to help better protect the riverbanks and the shoreline."

The oldhay field is currently owned by the city of Frederictonand is prone to springflooding. Chaplin said this will help with that.

"A mature silver maple can uptake 220 litres of water per hour, so that's just incredible from our perspective," she said.

The trees come from the association's nursery. The grouptries to plant 1,000 trees in the area each year.

Young and oldshowed up at the Nashwaak riverbank to help out with the tree planting. KlaraSharpe was brought to the tree planting by her mother who wanted to do an act of kindness since it was Becca SchofieldDay.

'It helps the world'

And KlaraSharpe was happy to help.

"It's nice planting trees. It helps the world," she said.

The money for the trees wasraised by Fredericton adventure shop Radical Edge, and one of their suppliers, Oboz Footwear. The company donated a tree for each pair of shoes sold at the shop.

The idea to partner with the Nashwaak Watershed Association came from shop employee Brian Conoly, who uses the trails along the river and often paddles there.

"That watershed is a really iconic part of the province, has great history, is beautiful, but you know, like anything else is suffering from human impacts," he said.

The trees planted Saturday ranged in height from two to seven feet.

Chaplin said there is some risk planting young trees in an area that often floods, but she saidthe benefits and the potential outweighthe risk.

Chaplin said the silver maple is a good tree for the areabecause it's durable.

"It bounces back a lot better than any other tree you could plant there," said Chaplin.

"Even with the extreme flooding this year, a lot of those trees that were knocked down by the ice sprouted at the base, so we have a very multi-stemmed regrowth."