Region Archives: Canada West

Forest for the Trees opens with a birds-eye view of a logging truck, winding its way through the thick forests that surround Prince George. The film then moves to a remote tree planting work camp, where young people from all across Canada spend their days jabbing shovels into clear cut land, with the hope that their hard work regenerates a massacred forest.  Rita Leistner’s evocative and layered documentary provides a detailed look at tree planting life by sharing the stories of people who sign up for this grueling work. But the film is also a fascinating study on perseverance, and the deep connections between body and mind. In the documentary, we meet a dozen or so tree planters, who share how they ended up on the job, and what it’s actually like to go out alone on the cut block and plant 1000 or so trees a day in sweltering heat. 

Alison Long and Kirby

…This season, roughly 5,000 tree planters will fan out across British Columbia to repopulate cut blocks and replant forests charred by wildfire. By the end of the season, those planters will have dropped an estimated 280 million seedlings into the ground, says John Betts, executive director of the Western Forestry Contractors’ Association (WFCA). It’s an industry that has traditionally relied on word of mouth to replenish its workforce — the promise to walk into an adventure and walk away with a lot of money by summer’s end. But getting enough workers to plant those trees has become increasingly challenging. Several tree planting companies Glacier Media spoke to said they had a hard time filling positions this year. Some attributed that to a wide-open job market, most to rising inflation. “We were doing really well. We had lots of applications in February and March,” said Timo Scheiber, CEO of the New Westminster-based Brinkman Reforestation Ltd.

YELLOWKNIFE — A vast northern wilderness that has for centuries been a cultural sanctuary for northern Indigenous people has become Canada’s latest National Wildlife Area. Edehzhzie, more than twice the size of Banff National Park, comprises more than 14,000 square kilometres of forest, lakes, rivers and uplands. Many bird species that migrate south have their breeding grounds there and it is home to animals including bears, lynx, caribou, moose and bison. Edehzhie has been a Protected Area since 2018 and is partly managed by local First Nations through guardian programs. …The federal government is kicking in $10 million to support management and research in the area. 

Registration is now open for the virtual 2022 BC First Nations Forestry Council Conference,June 22-23, 2022. The BC First Nations Forestry Council invites First Nations, industry and government to attend the 3rd annual BC First Nations Forestry Conference – Connecting First Nations to Forest Sector Opportunities. During the two-day virtual event, attendees can take part in panel discussions on relevant policy and legislation changes in BC, celebrate the growing BC Indigenous forestry workforce, and learn more about how we can connect that workforce to forest sector opportunities.

SQUAMISH, BC — Ever look over at the dry log sort on the east side of the Mamquam Blind Channel in Squamish and wonder what its story is? Unless you work in the forest industry or grew up in Squamish, the stacked logs and activity may be a mystery. …Previously, until 1940, the property was used by the Merrill and Ring Lumber Company, which utilized it as a log dump and sorting grounds. …The log sort regularly handles wood from throughout the Sea to Sky Natural Resource District, elsewhere on the coast, and occasionally from the Lillooet Timber Supply Area and beyond. Seven First Nations owning a large majority of timber rights within the Sea to Sky District are dependent on the facilities.

The B.C. government should do a better job of forecasting potential flooding and recognize that activities such as logging, road-building in forests, and the growing threat of wildfires contribute to flood risks, concludes a report by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives. The report — based on interviews with nearly a dozen experts, including a former head of the B.C. River Forecast Centre — calls on the province to enact reforms such as incorporating information on wildfires, logging and roadbuilding into flood forecast models to increase their effectiveness. …“The provincial government needs to listen to what these experts are saying. There are things clearly in the province’s control that could reduce the prospect for devastating floods and provide vulnerable communities with ample warning of troubles that lie ahead,” said the report’s author, Ben Parfitt, a resource policy analyst with the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives.

After a couple of quiet years, the 2021 wildfire season in the Cariboo was another challenging one. The BC Wildfire Service has released a summary that shows that there were 305 wildfires between April 1st, 2021 and March 28th, 2022. That was up from just 48 in 2020 and 51 in 2019. 129,537 hectares were burned, which was also up significantly from just 57 and 189 hectares the previous two years. Of course, last year’s numbers pale in comparison to 2017, which was the worst wildfire season in BC’s history. …Most the wildfires of note were located in the South Cariboo region. …Province-wide, 60 percent of the wildfires were natural caused, 35 percent were human caused and 5 percent were undetermined.

RCMP on Vancouver Island say a man has turned himself in after a pile of manure was left at the front door of Premier John Horgan’s constituency office in Langford last week. Cpl. Alex Bérubé says the man went to the West Shore RCMP detachment on Monday and was released on an undertaking to appear in court Aug. 18. He says the man faces a criminal charge of mischief, however his name won’t be released until the charge has been sworn in court. In a news release from the group Save Old Growth, a man only identified as Richard says he turned himself in and is taking responsibility for what he did.

The British Columbia government wants First Nations to reach consensus before logging is deferred in old-growth forests on shared Indigenous territories. Tara Marsden, sustainability director for the Gitanyow Nation’s hereditary chiefs’ office in northwestern B.C., said consensus represents a “high bar” in a complex process, which was not made clear when Forests Ministry staff introduced the province’s deferral plan last November. “I think the public who are concerned about old growth need to know that high bar, that it’s very challenging to work in this landscape with multiple nations,” said Marsden, the main point contact for her nation on deferrals. Marsden said she had initially understood from the ministry’s messaging that “if you support these (deferral areas), they’re going to be protected.” Instead, there was an “unspoken expectation” from the province that consensus among nations with overlapping territories was needed, she said. Forests Minister Katrine Conroy told The Canadian Press that if consensus on deferrals could not be reached among First Nations with overlapping or shared territories, the province would assess the strengths of their claims.

A process is underway in British Columbia to temporarily defer logging in priority old-growth forests, allowing time for the government to work with First Nations to decide how they should be managed in the long term. The province … identified 2.6 million hectares of unprotected old-growth forests at risk of permanent biodiversity loss… At the same time, it asked more than 200 First Nations across B.C. to decide whether they supported the deferral of logging in those areas for two years. Forests Minister Katrine Conroy has said that overall, about 80 per cent of the total 4 million hectares of at-risk old growth identified by the panel is not currently threatened, either because it was already set aside from logging, it’s been deferred, or it’s not financially viable to harvest in the current market. …for the deferrals to be meaningful, Karen Price, an independent member of the expert panel said they must be within the timber harvesting land base

New research is shining a light on how the Nuchatlaht people cultivated plants for centuries on Nootka Island in B.C. The findings, published in the Journal of Archaeological Science, challenge some commonly held beliefs about plant cultivation in the territory and could have a significant impact for the Nuchatlaht First Nation’s claim of Aboriginal title to more than 200 square kilometres of land on Nootka Island, off Vancouver Island’s west coast. Chelsey Geralda Armstrong, assistant professor of Indigenous studies at Simon Fraser University, says archaeologists and botanists have worked with Nuchatlaht knowledge holders to identify forest gardens, ecosystems of managed plants fruits, berries and root plants. Armstrong says the forest gardens can be easy to spot in dense forest if you know what to look for. 

Shannon Janzen and Robert J. Dennis Sr.

…Since 2017, the Huu-ay-aht have been investing in forestry operations in their treaty territory, which consists of more than 8,200 hectares … on the west coast of Vancouver Island. They’ve bought a …dry-land sort. They’ve struck training and employment agreements for Huu-ay-aht members. They’ve formed a joint venture, Tsawak-qin Forestry Limited Partnership, with Western Forest Products Inc. Western holds harvesting rights in Tree Farm Licence 44, a provincially set harvesting area that takes in parts of traditional territories of 14 nations, including the Huu-ay-aht. …The Huu-ay-aht are trying to navigate a course that protects ancient trees for future generations while generating jobs, income and security for their members. …In April, as a symbol of that intent, they hosted an old growth summit in Anacla, B.C., near an entrance to the popular West Coast Trail. The summit was held in the House of Huu-ay-aht, which was built with old growth logs harvested from Huu-ay-aht territory. [Access to the full story requires a Globe and Mail subscription]

The Province will provide as many as six research grants of $25,000 to university graduate students to help guide effective wildlife stewardship in B.C. and support the goals of the Together for Wildlife strategy. “The more we understand about wildlife and how they interact with the ecosystems around them, the better our decisions on wildlife stewardship and biodiversity conservation will be,” said Josie Osborne, Minister of Land, Water and Resource Stewardship. “This research funding supports students and draws together the expertise of academics, First Nations and other partners to gather the knowledge and data needed to make well-informed, collaborative decisions about wildlife management.” The Together for Wildlife strategy was released in 2020… The $150,000 for these research grants is an important step toward realizing the strategy’s vision.

John Horgan

LANGFORD, BC — Police are investigating manure left at the front doors of Premier John Horgan’s local constituency office in Langford. A release from RCMP Wednesday says officers were called to a report of manure being dumped and signs being posted at Horgan’s community office. It says the suspects are believed to be supporters of Save Old Growth and the incident is under investigation as mischief. Supporters of Save Old Growth claimed responsibility for their action and likened the government’s policies to manure. Mike Farnworth, minister of public safety, said while peaceful protest is part of democratic society, “vandalizing property, preventing people from accessing services and harassing local businesses is deplorable behaviour.” Zain Haq, of Save Old Growth, says… more action is planned beginning June 13.

Vancouver Islanders will have additional car-camping opportunities this summer near Port Alberni with the opening of a new campground on land managed for two private forestry companies. The two companies are also planning to defer logging on 40,000 hectares of old forest for 25 years as part of a carbon preservation plan. The new campground is a basic 27-site campground on Loon Lake off of Highway 4, with views of Mount Arrowsmith. …Since the 1980s, the two companies and their predecessors (Weyerhaeuser formerly owned Island Timberlands holdings) have built campgrounds for public use. In total, the 14 campgrounds provide 365 rustic campsites.

Additional coverage in Mosaic’s Press Release: Mosaic Celebrates Grand Opening of Fourteenth Campground at Loon Lake on its Private Managed Forest Lands

Port Alice hosted the North Island Community Forest Annual General Meeting this year and shareholders were given a dividend cheque for $225,000. After being split three ways, Port Hardy, Port McNeill and Port Alice will each receive $75,000.

The Wells Gray Community Forest is going through a revamp to become more accessible to the public, said George Brcko, general manager, at the District of Clearwater’s regular meeting on May 17. A documentary was produced last year and has received positive feedback, he added. The WGCF website is being reworked to make applying for grants easier, as well as continue to provide information to the public, such as yearly reports, annual harvesting and silviculture programs and management plans. Considering the low turnout from the public to WGCF meetings, Brcko said they hope revitalizing the website will “draw more people in.”