Busenbark County Park had no parking lot, no bathrooms, no trails, not even a sign to alert passers-by it was a park. Its amenities were more the natural sort. They included thick woods, with a few trees being at least 500 years old, and a natural spring from which area residents drew water by the…
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s toughest foreign policy challenge will not be climate change, China or even the Syrian refugee crisis. It will come in the form of our relations with the United States — our most important friend, partner and customer. And the Americans can, as past trade wars can attest, make life very difficult…
The number of recovery plans waiting to be put in place for species at risk continues to grow, show documents obtained under a freedom of information request. In 2013, the federal auditor general admonished Environment Canada for its backlog of about 150 cases. As of June 2014, the number had grown to 174, and experts…
Cool weather this past summer kept the number of forest fires in Newfoundland and Labrador on par with the 10-year average of 120 fires. The Provincial Government recorded 128 fire starts in 2015. An early spring on the Avalon Peninsula created a high number of grass fires which kept ground crews busy in April and…
Parks Canada started a four-year project last year with the Unama’ki Institute of Natural Resources and other partners to restore the boreal forest in the Cape Breton Highlands National Park. “We’ve been studying this for 15 years and the scientific evidence is there to show the moose browse has caused the forest to convert to…
It was a relatively quiet year for forest fires in Ontario, with 666 fires recorded across the province between April 1 and Oct. 31, 2015. The Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry (MNRF) said in total, forest fires consumed 39,312 hectares of Ontario’s forests. That’s half the number of forest fires and a third the area that…
Teachers at Stanley Humphrey Secondary School (SHSS) have launched a club to introduce students to jobs in forestry. Members of the Kootenay Forest Connections Club were at the Armoury in Trail on Friday, learning to rough-cut wood with the help of the 44th Field Engineer Squadron and Atco Wood Products. Trent Coombs, SHSS social studies…
Drones flying above wildfires in British Columbia last summer hampered aerial efforts to control the blazes. But around the same time, the province was also using the unmanned aerial vehicles to determine if drones could be used to help fight wildfires. The B.C. Wildfire Service contracted two commercial drone companies in July and August to…
A recent layover in Montreal was an opportunity for tea with friends, now in their 80s, who grumbled that the city was back in the hands of developers just as it was during the pre-Olympics boom of the 1970s. A couple of days later, back in Vancouver, the neighbouring table at a west side café…
Almost five years into his tenure as chairman of Nawiinginokiima Forest Management Corporation (NFMC), Daryl Skworchinski still maintains it’s the right concept to manage the flow of Crown fibre on the North Shore of Lake Superior. Skworchinski, who also serves as CAO for the Town of Marathon, estimates the economic impact to the participating communities…