Thirty years on, Mr Lemke returned to the forest on Sunday as the National Arboretum celebrated its centenary with food, storytelling and music in the trees.

The forest has stood almost as long as Canberra itself, planted in 1917 on the northern end of what would become the arboretum when the city's planners were still trailing different tree species.

It was Walter Burley Griffin who first saw the potential for cork oak in Canberra's dry climate, and sourced the original acorns from the Royal Botanic Gardens in Melbourne.

Back then, cork was still a roaring trade, used to make everything from floats on fishing nets to decorating the brims of jackaroo hats, and, of course, as stoppers for wine.

But trees can only be stripped once they turn 25, and from then on only once every nine or 10 years.

Arboretum manager Scott Saddler said a second shipment of acorns collected in Spain never made it to the capital - the English ship was torpedoed during the First World War.

"So there's 30,000 cork oak acorns on the bottom of the ocean right now," Mr Saddler said.

In the sunlit cathedral of the forest, Mr Lenke put on a rare cork-stripping show for the hundreds of Canberrans who joined him under the trees, the old axe singing.

"I'm the last one they could find who stripped these trees," he said.

"An old bloke in Portugal trained us and had eight of these axes made from Damascus steel, one for each of us."

The small axe is kept sharp and the trees stripped in spring as the weather warms and the "sap starts to rise".

"It's bloody hard work," Mr Lenke said.

"We did the last job in '87 and we couldn't even sell it, the commercial market for cork just died."

Mr Saddler said the oak plantation now gave Canberrans a window into what the rest of the arboretum would look like in about 20 years time.

While there was more Spanish food than champagne on the menu on Sunday, visitors were treated to live performances under the canopy by Portuguese musicians and Chilean dance troupes as well as guided tours through the trees and "cork craft" for the kids.

"This is the first time we've ever done an event like this," Mr Saddler said.

But the forest has seen its fair share of celebration over the years, with about 20 weddings held under its canopy in the past year.

Canberran Kerrie Oei said she had never been to the forest before Sunday, but she frequently came to the arboretum with her husband and three children.

"They've done it so simply, there's no grand stage, it's just us and the trees," she said.

"The kids are loving it, and the volunteers have been so patient with them."

Walking through the forest designed by Walter Burley Griffin and Charles Weston, Mr Saddler admitted he still got an "eerie feeling".

"If I've had a [rough] day, I come here. It's wonderful."