Can you spot the Boreal Forest?

Our recently mowed field

Scene along the ridge behind our home

Which of the two photos above is of the Boreal Forest? I'll bet everyone would pick the second showing mature cedars and balsam fir. I would argue that both photos are of the Boreal Forest.
The shot of the field is just what the Boreal Forest looks like after a disturbance. In this case I disturbed the vegetation by mowing it with a tractor. The species that are growing there are all natural. Nothing has been planted.
The field was quite beautiful with its native grasses and sedges along with wildflowers such as Ox Eye Daisy, Vetch, Buttercup, Purple Clover, Goldenrod, Yarrow, even a few Wood Lilies. All of these flowers were being visited by bumblebees and butterflies. It might seem a shame to mow them down but the truth is that if I didn't cut the field, all these flowers would disappear in just a few years. That's because the next successional stage would take over: shrubs and shade-intolerant trees. In fact I have been mowing the field especially frequently these past two years since we retired because I am trying to kill off the emerging woody plants which had become well-established while we were running camp. For 26 years I would mow the field each fall but that wasn't frequent enough to stop the relentless growth of the trees.
Each fall the field would be full of Speckled Alders, Bebbs and Pussy Willows, Quaking Aspen, and Redosier Dogwood. They were already shading out the wildflowers. I would mow these shrubs in the fall and then they would sprout up again from the roots in the spring and would grow unabated until I returned the next fall. It was as if I was farming shrubs.
A farmer friend here in Nolalu told me I needed to mow the field three times a year for two years in a row to finally turn back the shrubs. This fall will be the end of the second year and I can see that the mowing has indeed made a difference. There are almost no willows now and far fewer alders although some keep popping up. Mostly the field has gone back to wildflowers and grass.
 It wasn't like this when we first moved to Nolalu over 30 years ago. The whole township back then could best be described as plowed fields that had recently gone fallow. I had expected that the forest surrounding these fields would slowly encroach from the sides, that over time there would be the youngest trees in the center of the field with a graduation of larger trees toward the forest. That isn't what happened at all.
The fallow fields stayed pretty much the same for probably a decade and then suddenly trees started sprouting up everywhere at the same time.
The same farmer that would tell me later about how to get rid of the shrubs explained what was going on. The fungal mycelium that had been ripped apart by plowing had finally grown completely through the soil across the fields. The forest couldn't get started without the mycelium, he said. It was the first time I had heard of this symbiotic relationship.
There is a fascinating book that explains how this works: The Hidden Life of Trees by Peter Wohlleben. Trees use the mycelium network to communicate with each other and pass on nutrients and antibodies. You will never look at trees the same way after reading this book.
Anyway, the mycelium has been in place for 20 years now and if I didn't mow the field the trees would totally take over in just a few years. I only need to look at other fields that have not been mowed over that time. The trees there are 30-40 feet high.
A similar "natural" field-making process occurs from beavers. These big rodents will flood a forest with their dams, killing all the trees. When the food source is gone the beavers move on. The dead trees will fall down alongside those cut by the beavers. The dam eventually gives way and the water will recede creating a meadow. This clearing will remain until the mycelium is rebuilt. The stages of succession that follow will be exactly the same as happen in our field.
Forest fires, of course, also create forest openings that briefly allow wildflowers to flourish (especially fireweed) However, I don't believe the mycelium is disturbed by the fire at all. It is ready to support the new trees right away and the ash acts as fertilizer. The forest returns almost immediately.