{"id":51024,"date":"2025-08-07T02:55:26","date_gmt":"2025-08-07T02:55:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/51024\/"},"modified":"2025-08-07T02:55:26","modified_gmt":"2025-08-07T02:55:26","slug":"reforestation-project-in-n-w-t-presses-on-with-1-5-million-trees-planted-near-behchok%c7%ab","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/51024\/","title":{"rendered":"Reforestation project in N.W.T. presses on, with 1.5 million trees planted near Behchok\u01eb\u0300"},"content":{"rendered":"

Roslen Washie, a 25-year-old man from Behchok\u01eb, N.W.T., hopes one day he can point to the forest around his home and tell his children about the key role he played in restoring the burn area and bringing caribou to T\u0142\u0131\u0328ch\u01eb lands.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“I wanna be able to tell my son, ‘you see these trees? Your dad planted the majority of them,'” Washie said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

A total of 13 million trees are being planted on T\u0142\u0131\u0328ch\u01eb lands in the next\u00a0five\u00a0years as part of an ambitious project aimed at fighting climate change, restoring ecosystems, bringing back boreal caribou habitat\u00a0and creating jobs.\u00a0<\/p>\n

It started with an agreement between the T\u0142\u0131\u0328ch\u01eb government, Let’s Plant Trees and\u00a0Tree Canada, signed in 2023 to plant 1 million trees<\/a>, and expanded in 2025 with a $53-million investment \u2014\u00a0the bulk of that coming from Canada’s 2 Billion Trees program \u2013\u00a0to plant another 12 million<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"AA tree planter and a dog walking down the access road to Russell Lake, near Behchok\u01eb\u0300, N.W.T. (Liny Lamberink\/CBC)<\/p>\n

The T\u0142\u0131\u0328ch\u01eb government has described it as the biggest tree-planting initiative to ever happen in the N.W.T.<\/p>\n

A camp that was set up in a sand pit near Russell Lake outside of Behchok\u01eb\u00a0last month consisted of about 110 people, including 80 crew members from the south, and 30 T\u0142\u0131\u0328ch\u01eb people. Together, they\u00a0put the project’s first spruce, tamarack\u00a0and birch trees in the ground.\u00a0Over the course of three weeks,\u00a0they planted 1.5 million trees\u00a0in all.<\/p>\n

However, the effort was marked by tragedy in its opening days.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Joshua Patenaude, a pilot with Great Slave Helicopters, was helping support the reforestation project on July 14 when his chopper crashed<\/a>.\u00a0He died despite first responders’ efforts to save his life. Many of those who rushed to the scene were part of the tree planting project.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Max Zoe, a climate change research co-ordinator with the T\u0142\u0131\u0328ch\u01eb government, who’s helping co-ordinate the tree planting project,\u00a0said the crew was given time off after the incident<\/a>. Counsellors were also brought in to help people deal with what had happened.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“We tried to recover the best we can,” he said. “How do you move on from such tragedy? You just kind of have to, like, hold that stuff into your heart and, like, remember them and remember that the work is important.”\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"AMax Zoe, a climate change research co-ordinator with the T\u0142\u0131\u0328ch\u01eb government, is helping co-ordinate the tree planting project. (Liny Lamberink\/CBC)<\/p>\n

Noel Football, who helped collect seeds last year<\/a> and who is now working on the\u00a0project as a bear monitor and occasional tree planter, expressed sorrow too.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

“I’d like to say sorry about the chopper crash,” he said. Football said a lot of the people involved were shocked about what had happened, and some needed time before they were ready to work again.<\/p>\n

And with a narrow window to accomplish the work, he was also impressed by the team’s capacity to get all the trees in the ground while processing their grief.<\/p>\n

“They really are professionals,” he said of the tree planters from the south. “Watching them, the way they move, I can’t believe it. I don’t know how they do it.”\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"AThe seedlings were grown in southern nurseries from seeds that had been harvested on T\u0142\u0131\u0328ch\u01eb lands. (Liny Lamberink\/CBC)Tree planting as an industry for the N.W.T.<\/p>\n

One of the tree planting teams was a crew of T\u0142\u0131\u0328ch\u01eb people, trained this summer to do the work.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“It’s a great experience,” said Washie, one of the locals, as he moved through the brush next to the Behchok\u01eb Access Road on a Tuesday morning last week. It was the final day of planting, and he still had a few bundles of seedlings stowed in the planting bags hung around his waist.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“It’s good for the land, it’s good for the environment,” he said. And with how the wildfires have burned a lot of T\u0142\u0131\u0328ch\u01eb land in recent years, he said, “it’s a good opportunity to let these trees regrow for the future.”\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"ARoslen Washie, 25, hopes one day he can point to the forest around his home and tell his children about the key role he played in restoring the burn area and bringing caribou to T\u0142\u0131\u0328ch\u01eb lands. (Liny Lamberink\/CBC)<\/p>\n

Washie also sees a future in tree planting \u2013 for himself in the short-term, and for the N.W.T. in the long-term.\u00a0<\/p>\n

He’s hoping to plant trees with Spectrum Resources Group again next year as the project continues, and said it’s an industry other regions of the territory could pursue as well. Washie envisions people from around the N.W.T. coming together and starting up their own tree planting company.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“That would be great to see, as a young adult, for myself. I think that’s a great employment opportunity for the Northwest Territories’ residents.”<\/p>\n

The project pivots\u00a0<\/p>\n

Josh Quaite, a reforestation operations division manager with Spectrum, said part of the plan had initially been to plant 500,000 seedlings around James Lake this year.\u00a0<\/p>\n

That’s about 23 kilometres from the Russell Lake area, where the tree planting camp had been set up and where the trees were being kept. Helicopters were being used to get trees and personnel out to the remote planting site.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But grappling with the unexpected tragedy and a reluctance to fly, Quaite said Spectrum changed gears a bit.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"BoxesBoxes of black spruce trees along the access road to Russell Lake wait to be taken to where they’ll be planted. (Liny Lamberink\/CBC)<\/p>\n

“To get into\u00a0a helicopter after an event like that, it’s pretty tough. And, you know, we just weren’t ready to do that right away,” he said.<\/p>\n

Half the number of trees were planted around James Lake, and more \u2013 for a total of 1.25 million \u2013\u00a0were planted along the access roads into Behchok\u01eb and Russell Lake instead.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Spectrum has planted trees for the purpose of post-fire and habitat restoration before, said Quaite, “but to do it on this scale is something else.”\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"AJustin Issler, who has spent most of his 2-year tree-planting career in British Columbia, puts down a piece of flagging tape to mark where he’s planted a spruce tree. (Liny Lamberink\/CBC)’These ones are here to stay’<\/p>\n

Football said learning to plant the trees felt good, having spent his life cutting them down for wood.<\/p>\n

“I like doing this kind of work,” he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Football also said he couldn’t believe his eyes when he saw the seedlings for the first time this summer, after helping collect cones from trees on T\u0142\u0131\u0328ch\u01eb land last year so they could get a head start in southern nurseries.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“And here I am, planting it? It’s really nice.”<\/p>\n

\"ANoel Football, who helped collect seeds last year, is now working on the reforestation project as bear monitor and occasional tree planter. (Liny Lamberink\/CBC)<\/p>\n

Justin Issler, who has spent most of his two-year tree-planting career in British Columbia, likes the work as well.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“This is my first time in the Northwest Territories,” he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

It’s flat and there’s more rock and wetland areas to navigate in the N.W.T., he said, but the soil is nicer. He also appreciates\u00a0the opportunity to plant what he described as “forever trees” \u2013 meaning the seedlings are intended to grow and reproduce on the land naturally, instead of eventually being chopped down by a large\u00a0forestry industry.<\/p>\n

“These ones are here to stay,” he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Roslen Washie, a 25-year-old man from Behchok\u01eb, N.W.T., hopes one day he can point to the forest around…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":51025,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[49,48,295,66],"class_list":["post-51024","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-environment","tag-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51024","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=51024"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51024\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/51025"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=51024"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=51024"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=51024"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}