A New Kind of Connection
May 15, 2014 4:43 pm Leave your thoughts
Even as a returning adult student, I found myself starting my university career with grand ideas of obtaining an education that would make the world a better place. I began by starting my education with a Bachelor of Science in Biology, learning of the intricate web of connections between DNA to cells to a living being that almost bordered on the spiritual. Biology is an amazing world that lays a foundation for a new understanding of how the world and its creatures work and evolve. However, I found it is very limiting in its ability to actually connect you physically with the world that it is describing.
With this realization I searched through different fields and career options offered by Vancouver Island University and discovered that the Forestry Technician program would be a way to combine many of my passions: science, nature and the connections we, as humans, have with our environments.
So far, my education has expanded my mind onto a totally new realm of how I view my forest environment. On the Island, our forests are grand cathedrals of trees, a way to experience nature as a church and religion. With an education based in the biology and forestry industry of the area, it is incredible to see these views combined into one thought, creating an entirely new kind of internal landscape (see photo 1).
This education does not just include the way I view the forests, but also the way I view the forest as an industry and resource, which is something I had previously found appalling. When I obtained my summer work experience with Tembec through the Green Dream internship, I recognized this as an opportunity to see, at a close range, the way that this balance between nature as both a life source and a resource is managed. As a company certified through the FSC, I feel that this would be the company most suited to helping me fully understand this process of creating this balance, along with many others.
Not only that, but I get the chance to explore the realms of a new forest landscape. The Martel Forest within the Boreal range of Ontario, my summer home, is as different as my temperate rainforest as night and day. Its deep and unexpected bogs, new tree species and wildlife are ever unfolding and wondrous. It is like an ancient world of stunted Black Spruce, the calls of birds seemingly prehistoric in the distance, vast forests spread out over a gently rolling landscape (see photo 2).
Those grand ideas of changing the world for the better on a grand scale may not come to pass this summer, but, through this internship, I may learn how to make smaller changes with big impacts on the natural world. The family of Tembec in Chapleau has been welcoming and interested in helping me to answer all of my many questions of how these many interests and changes are weighed. After decades on this land-base and their efforts towards ever-more progressive environmental management, I look forward to applying this knowledge not only to my new career, but also to my human connection with the forest.