Friday Afternoon and Evening, August 22, 2003
Friday afternoon teachers experienced a hardwood forest management tour on Klocks Road with staff from both the Nipissing Sustainable Forest License, and the Ministry of Natural Resources. The Klocks Road tour taught participants about planning, values identification and protection, tree marking, forest operations and harvesting.
Dinner was a traditional lumberjack dinner at Myrt's Restaurant.
Klocks Road Forest Management Tour
The Klocks Road area between Mattawa and Algonquin Park is part of the Nipissing Forest. The Nipissing Forest extends over 11,932 square kilometers and has a permanent population of approximately 86,000. The total managed productive land base is approximately 578,000 hectares.
At this site, we had several stops where teachers learned about silvicultural systems. On the Nipissing Forest three silvicultural systems are used: hardwood selection/shelterwood, pine shelterwood, and clear-cut with standards.
The first stop we visited was a 46-year old stand planted in 1958 with 40,000 white spruce, 25,000 red pine, and 15,000 white pine. About 3,100 hectares have been pre-commercially thinned from this stand over the last four years according to prescriptions which determined the optimal densities for the stands.
Further along at the second stop, we saw how tree marking was practiced in a red and white pine stand prescribed for shelterwood and selection harvesting. Prior to harvesting, qualified/certified tree markers mark trees according to the forest operations prescription developed for the stand and certified by a Registered Professional Forester.
Next up was a visit to a recent shelterwood harvest so that teachers could see what that silvicultural system looked like.
At the harvesting stop, teachers observed a harvesting operation by Hec Clothier & Sons. Hec Clothier & Sons have been harvesting in the area since 1960. On the tour they demonstrated a Feller Buncher machine being used for selection harvesting in a red pine stand.
At another stop, teachers got to see for themselves natural red and white pine regeneration in a shelterwood harvest area. Teachers were given the challenge of counting regeneration seedlings to determine the number of seedlings per hectare. The most accurate estimate was awarded a prize.
The last stop before dinner was in a sugar (hard) maple stand marked for uneven aged selection management. Here, manual harvesting by chainsaw had been conducted over the summer. Poor past logging practices in the hardwood stands have left many of the tolerant hardwood stands across the Nipissing Forest in poor condition. In stands with numerous unmerchantable stems prescribed to be harvested, "stand improvement" is paid to fall the undersize material. The timing of the harvest is also important. The rich soil conditions in these stands are prone to rutting so many of these areas are either harvested in the driest part of the summer or during the winter when the ground is frozen.
The Nipissing Forest is managed by Nipissing Forest Resources Management Inc. which was issued a Sustainable Forest License for the Nipissing Forest by the Ontario Minister of Natural Resources. NFRM is a partnership of five local forest industries: Tembec Industries, Grant Forest Products, Goulard Lumber, R. Fryer Forest Products, and Hec Clouthier & Sons in addition to eleven other independent operators.
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