Archive

Dianne Saxe, the Environmental Commissioner of Ontario, visited Parry Sound and the French-Severn forest last Wednesday. In the morning, Westwind Forest Manager, Barry Davidson (far right) attended a breakfast hosted by the Georgian Bay Biospshere Reserve in honor of the visit from Dianne Saxe (far left).  Parry Sound-Muskoka MPP Norm Miller (second from right) along with Parry […]

On Monday, Westwind hosted our annual operator’s meeting. Operators working in the French-Severn Forest gathered at the Magnetawan Community Centre. Staff from Westwind and MNRF provided updates on health and safety, planning, licensing, billing, and the annual work schedule. Operators also looked over harvest allocations for the 2019-2029 plan.                Everyone also […]

Yesterday, our forester intern, Margaret Scott, participated in a Hemlock Wooly Adelgid Training Tour. Participants travelled to Rochester, New York to learn how to identify and survey for Hemlock Wooly Adelgid (HWA) from staff from Cornell University and New York’s Department of Environmental Conservation. Discussions also involved detection and treatment strategies. Although HWA is not currently found in […]

On Friday, February 23, 2018, the University of Toronto Master of Forest Conservation class visited the French-Severn forest to learn about single tree selection, tree marking, and active harvesting. Tom Bryson, Senior Forest Technician, and Margaret Scott, Forester Intern, discussed the different silviculture systems, forest management planning, prescriptions, compliance, and audits with the students. The group had an […]

Westwind staff attended the Forests Ontario Annual Conference – “The Ripple Effect” last Friday, February 9th in Alliston, Ontario. There was a major focus on climate change at the conference with topics including seed transfer policy, the impact of climate change on animal species, carbon offsets, forest fire management, and adapting to climate change.  It […]

Happy Holidays and Happy New Year from Westwind! Our office will be closed from December 25th to January 1st but we will be back on January 2nd. We hope you have a safe and happy season and we look forward to working with everyone again in 2018!

John McNutt from Westwind’s Board has a starring role in this Forest Products Association of Canada video on forestry and climate change.  If 0.3 seconds can be a starring role, he steals the show. Using sustainable forest products can help make a substantial difference in our climate change future.

Today, our forester intern, Margaret Scott, was at Northern Wilderness Outfitters teaching a grade 12 class about forestry and tree identification. The group learned about silviculture systems, tree marking, protecting wildlife habitat, forest management planning, and possible career paths in forestry. The presentation was followed by a tree identification walk where the class identified over 10 species […]

While completing a harvest audit this week, Westwind staff stopped at an old J.R. Booth log pile. The pine logs would have been harvested in 1910 or even earlier. Pine logging was a very important part of the history of this area but also lead to the degraded forests that we are left with today. The […]