The Stewardship Youth Rangers started off our third week with a trip to Rice Bay to learn about forest fires with Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry employee Thomas Pedoniquotte.
We learned how to fight fires, as well as set up pumps and hoses.
The ministry leads firefighting in the north with the aim of protecting our community and natural resources from devastating forest fires.
These tasks require lots of teamwork and determination.
Our teams then alternated between “beaver baffling” at Mitanjigaming First Nation and cleaning up launches at public access points with ministry employee Wayne Nixon.
Beaver baffling is where a long piece of perforated weeping tile is used to pierce a dam and keep the water at a certain height.
The idea is that the beaver won’t be able to identify where the water is escaping, leaving it “baffled.”
We do this to help mitigate nuisance beaver problems such as road wash-outs and unnecessary flooding.
Meanwhile, by cleaning up public access points, we are helping people enjoy fishing, boating, swimming, and more in our beautiful lakes and rivers.
This work also preserves a clean environment for fish and wildlife.
Later in the week, we learned how to identify the types of trees in our area with Rainy River District Stewardship member Tony Elders and ministry employee Sam Hawken.
We then put our new knowledge to the test by spending a day conducting tree inventory along the streets of Fort Frances.
This involved checking the condition of the trees, as well as marking in a log book the tree species, height, diameter, and location.
The focus of this project is to enhance our knowledge and awareness of trees in the community.
It was a beautiful day and a great project to end the week on!
Overall, we learned so many essential skills and gained new experiences this week while having a lot of fun in the process.
