Dispatch: From the Heart of the Boreal

We drove 14 hours north of Thunder Bay to reach the reforestation camp. The road ended 80 kilometres before the site. The last stretch was by float plane.

What we found was both heartbreaking and hopeful. Thousands of hectares of charred landscape—the aftermath of the 2024 fire season—being slowly, painstakingly replanted by crews of 20-somethings earning $15 per hour in conditions that most Canadians would find unbearable.

The Scale of the Effort

British Columbia's interior reforestation program plants approximately 250 million seedlings per year. That sounds impressive until you learn that the province loses an average of 300,000 hectares of forest to fire annually—far more than replanting can offset.

"We are running to stand still," says camp supervisor Diane Blackwater. "The fires are getting bigger and more frequent. We plant more every year. And every year we fall further behind."

The seedlings themselves are changing too. Nurseries are increasingly selecting for heat and drought tolerance, planting species that are native to regions 200-300 kilometres south of the planting site. It is a tacit acknowledgment that the boreal forest of the future will not resemble the boreal forest of the past.

Despite everything, there is an unmistakable sense of purpose in the camp. These young planters—many of them students working summer jobs—understand that they are engaged in something larger than employment. They are rebuilding a forest. And in doing so, they are staking a claim on the kind of country they want to live in.