Sask. groups fight province to prevent clearcutting of vital old-growth forest

A pile of softwood lumber at a B.C. sawmill. (Jonathan Hayward / CANADIAN PRESS)

This story originally ran in the Prince Albert Daily Herald. It’s paid for through federal Local Journalism Initiative funding and shared under a Creative Commons licence.

Members of a group fighting the province’s efforts to ramp up clearcutting in the boreal forest made their case in a meeting with government officials last week.

Protect our Forest, a coalition of First Nations, Métis and other community members who live in the parkland and boreal region, held the meeting on March 19 in Crutwell — a hamlet located just northwest of Prince Albert.

They argue forests in that part of the province have important cultural value and house heritage sites along the North Saskatchewan River.

Carol Friedhoff-Nelson, a member of both Métis Local 66 and the Forest Protection Network in Crutwell, said her neighbours opted to join the meeting when they learned the forest in their area was slated for logging.

“We had as many members of Local 66 as we could,” Friedhoff-Nelson said. “We had a lot of our neighbours from around the area and interested people who use the forest that is up to be cut.”

The group says the area is highly important for passing culture on to the next generation. This is the area where the historic fur trade Hudson House was located, including a cemetery.

“It would be right behind Holbein,” Friedhoff-Nelson said. “There are about three or four little pockets of old growth forests left. It’s all there and if you looked on a map, it’s all kind of brown all around. There are just little patches of green on the north side of the river. Those are what we’re trying to protect.

“That is where the animals go to have their young. It’s right down by the river. It’s like the last little haven for so many creatures.”

Stakeholders who attended the meeting included a man who practices with his dog team in the area, people who hike and cross-country ski in the area, and members of Crutwell Local 66 who hunt off the land.

Friedhoff-Nelson said her friend Linda Day, who picks wild berries for medicinal purposes, also attended, along with Candace Campbell, whose father Herman had a trap line in the area before he passed away.

“It was good, at the meeting, to hear so many stakeholders,” Friedhoff-Nelson said.

Friedhoff-Nelson said she understands the economic benefit of logging, for jobs, but the way they are cutting is not sustainable.

She said the way the trees are being replaced is not like after a fire, where all plant life returns after the fire. Instead, loggers replace everything with a single type of tree.

“Their science says they are just mimicking a forest fire because that’s what they’re going to protect us from,” she said.

“When they go through clear cutting, everything is destroyed. Everything is destroyed and then they churn up the land and they come back in a few years and they plant one kind of tree. They call it a forest, but it’s a monoculture plantation,” she added.

“We’ve seen the devastation in behind Crutwell. We used to have a big, beautiful forest there too. A lot of the neighbours are worried about the drought, irrigation problems, land, (and) soil loss. With the drought that we have, things will just blow away. They call it the island forest because our area is a fragile ecosystem growing on sand, so when they removed the trees it’s hard for anything else to grow.

According to Friedhoff-Nelson, there were four forestry representatives from the provincial government present at the meeting. She says the people they dealt with over the last two years are gone, and the new people were not present for previous discussions.

“That’s why we’re trying to get everybody who uses the forest [involved],” Friedhoff-Nelson said. “We’re all saying, no, no, don’t cut. Leave something standing.

“We just want our forest to stand,” she said. “We just want it there.”

Friedhoff-Nelson said they’ve had fires come through before and are prepared to deal with that. For her, keeping the forest the way it is has personal meaning.

“My heart is in it and my soul,” she said. “My daughter has walked those forests all of her life with my grandchildren. They were out there, too, in the bush. They were cutting teepee poles out there. Now it’s my great-grandchildren. There won’t be anything to go to.

She also pointed to archeologists working near Sturgeon Lake First Nation north of Prince Albert, citing findings at a site that show evidence of long-term settlement in the area.

In a press release on Feb. 3, archeologists said the site shows signs of being a permanent settlement, and not a temporary hunting camp. Findings include stone tools, fire pits, and lithic materials used in toolmaking. The site also includes bison remains, which provide insight into early hunting techniques, and the evolution of the species. There is also evidence the inhabitants practiced fire management.

“We’ve got to protect the forest to protect the land so we can get in there and check our history out, because once the machines go in there, it’s gone. It’s going to be trampled and smashed, so there are a lot of irons in the fire here — a lot of things going on.”

She said Métis Local 66 and Protect our Forest believe saving the land around Holbein and Crutwell is also part of reconciliation.

“How are we to pass it on like we’re supposed to be able to, to teach our history and our culture and who we are to our children and our grandchildren? How do we teach them when the classrooms are being destroyed, when they’re being sold?”

The Ministry of Environment previously stopped plans to clear cut trees in the Holbein and Crutwell areas northwest of Prince Albert in January.

In a statement, the ministry said its staff at the March 19 meeting agreed to “take all feedback,” including a requested three-year moratorium on clearcutting, into consideration during its review period, “which is still ongoing.”

“Public engagement is an important part of each level of planning. The ministry welcomes all input, including traditional knowledge and local information about the potential impact of the proposed plans, as they are developed,” the ministry said.