Up until a month ago, Cat Lake First Nation’s brush with the forestry industry in northwestern Ontario had been nothing more than some seasonal tree planting jobs, said Chief Russell Wesley. When Domtar ran the Dryden pulp mill, Wesley said locals did find employment through independent planting contractors, but nothing that created long-lasting sustainable jobs for its members. Cat Lake’s location, 180 kilometres northwest of Sioux Lookout, has had something to do with it. With only a seasonal access road, the fly-in community is too far north to be involved in the extraction of fibre. The community leadership now pins its hopes that a memorandum of understanding (MOU) signed last month with PRT Growing Services is their entry point into the region’s forestry industry. …Down the road, Cat Lake would like to duplicate the nursery operation that the B.C. company runs in Dryden by having one established in their own community at some point.