Studying the relationship between forest and fire
Malcolm Gorrill
Northern News Services
Sunny Lake (Aug 11/00) - Fire means new life to old forests.
It's one of the lessons learned by a dozen Delta youth gathered here last week to learn more about the relationship between fire and the forest.
| Seeds of learning
A week at Sunny Lake was a learning experience for youths.
One of the participants, Donnie Greenland, of Aklavik, gained a better understanding of the forest even before the Sunny Lake Fire Ecology Camp had ended.
"I learned how trees grow, how they start from seed. How they come out of the acorn through fire," he said. "I planted some trees. I learned how to plant them."
Greenland also learned about the important role insects play.
"If they were gone, a whole lot of other animals would disappear. It's the main course of food for some animals."
Also attending the fire ecology camp was Roberta Alexie of Fort McPherson.
"I'm enjoying myself," she said, "and I'm learning lots."
A nature walk was held Aug. 1, and on the next day they studied insects. Also that day, the students learned how to measure the height and diameter of trees, as well as take core samples to determine the age of a tree.
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"We're bringing them out here to give them an understanding of how the forest works and how, in particular, from our point of view, fire plays an important role in that," Asbjornsen explained.
"Most people sort of see (forest) fires as a really catastrophic thing, and actually it's not. Actually, it's really, really important," he said. "Forest fires play a very important role in the natural life of the forest."
Those at the camp were there to learn about the life cycle of a forest.
"The goal of it is basically to help kids get an understanding of how the forest grows and how fire relates to it, and how in particular up here in the boreal forests we have, how it's absolutely crucial to have fire. 'Cause if we don't have a fire, the forest grows old and dies, and then we're stuck with tundra, essentially," Asbjornsen said.
"There's very little wildlife of any kind (in an old forest), because there's so little of anything left to eat," he said.
"You end up with a forest which is not able to support a great deal of life."
After a fire, that all changes.
"You've got snowshoe hares, which come in to feed off the new shoots.
"You've got lynx, which are on the boundaries of the fire, using the old trees as cover, but moving in to feed on the snowshoe hares. You've got moose that are coming through three to five years afterwards. They like the big wide open spaces."
Asbjornsen explained that as part of learning about the life cycle of the forest, students learned about the role played by insects.
"Insects break down things. It's sort of interesting in that, what a forest fire does, insects kind of do as well.
If you don't have a forest fire, then as the trees grow older, insect infestations can essentially do the same thing -- kill off all the trees and help them decay. So it's just nature backing up itself."
