Daniel MacIsaac
Northern News Services

NNSL (Jun 28/99) - The Tree Canada Foundation is hoping to is hoping to turn three Northern teens into tree-huggers -- of the educated, knowledgable variety.

In fact, the Ottawa-based foundation has selected 13 "youth ambassadors" from around the country to participate in its Let's Root for Canada summer program.

"The goal of Let's Root for Canada is to promote youth, unity and the environment by providing young people with an appreciation of Canada's urban and rural forests, cultural diversity, sense of community and history," said foundation chairman John Hreno.

The six-week tour kicks off with Canada Day celebrations in Ottawa this week before heading North.

Foundation president Chuck Geale said the root program began in 1997, but had never before involved the Arctic.

"I sat down with our ambassadors at the end of the 1998 tour and the ones from the NWT and Yukon said they live in the North, but no one ever goes there and ends up thinking it's a terrible place," Geale explained. "So then I said we will go there -- and everyone's been ecstatic about us coming to the territories."

Yellowknife's Nickie Fox was chosen as the NWT's ambassador after she wrote an essay on the great outdoors.

"I wrote about what I've done environmentally," said the 16-year-old, "and what attracts me to nature -- like being out camping in the forest when it's quiet and just serene."

Fox said that on the tour she's most looking forward to meeting the other territorial and provincial representatives -- and also one of the planned Nunavut stops.

"They're sending us out to Arctic Bay for traditional Inuit bannocks, tea and discussion," she said. "I just like talking to people from other cultures."

Already in Nunavut is Grade 10 Kugluktuk high school student Oliver Kadlun -- representing Canada's newest territory on the tour.

"I've spent a lot of time on the land and go out a lot now because it's spring time," he said, describing his attachment to the natural world. "It's fun to be out there because the weather's nice and you can just sit back and relax."

Kadlun said he thinks seeing Ottawa, his first southern city, will be the highlight of the project.

"I just want to explore the city and see what it's like down there," he said.

But Kadlun added that simply working with trees will be equally as exotic.

"It's a pretty weird idea to go plant trees because I've never been around them very much," he said.

The foundation's Geale said the Nunavut portion of the tour will focus mainly on culture and ecosystems while the majority of the planned tree-planting will occur in Yellowknife and Inuvik.

Chairman Hreno said youth ambassadors have planted around one million trees since the root program began and that this year's total should approach 20,000 seedlings -- making the North a greener, lusher place.