{"id":11688,"date":"2026-07-31T18:00:16","date_gmt":"2026-07-31T18:00:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/diverseproject.uqo.ca\/?p=11688"},"modified":"2026-07-31T18:04:21","modified_gmt":"2026-07-31T18:04:21","slug":"a-road-trip-to-northern-ontario","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/diverseproject.uqo.ca\/fr\/2026\/07\/31\/a-road-trip-to-northern-ontario\/","title":{"rendered":"A Road Trip to Northern Ontario"},"content":{"rendered":"

Driving along the shores of beautiful Lake Superior, the DIVERSE coordinators were struck by the beautiful, lumbering White Pines that proudly stood taller than the rest of the forest surrounding them. As coordinators from provinces other than Ontario, we found ourselves paying close attention to how the landscape shifted around us – here it wouldn\u2019t be long before we saw just how much that could change. We started our journey in Sault Ste Marie, where multiple DIVERSE HQPs (highly qualified personnel, i.e., graduate students and post-doctoral fellows) and researchers met and embarked on a road trip to visit two of our research sites in Northern Ontario. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Chippewa Falls, with the distinct White Pines towering above the rest of the forest canopy.<\/em><\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n
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Beautiful views of Lake Superior and the surrounding forest as we made our way to White River. <\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

Once we\u2019d made our way around Lake Superior, our journey turned north, and the landscape around us gradually changed from dense forests full of many different tree species, to more homogenous stands of black spruce. Those same white pines that had greeted us at the first leg of our journey were now nowhere to be seen. We remarked how, in just a 4-hour car ride, there were such obvious changes in forest types: an apt reminder of the importance for our research sites to span multiple ecoregions across the country. So much diversity exists even within one province, let alone the entire nation. By the end of the road trip, we reached White River, Ontario, where we would be based for the next two nights (and fun fact: White River is the home of the bear cub that inspired Winnie the Pooh!). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our first site visit was the White River DIVERSE Silvicultural Trial Installation (learn more about our silviculture trials like ici<\/a>), which was planted only a few weeks after our tour there, and is now DIVERSE\u2019s first planted Silvicultural Trial. Despite intermittent rain, and endless attention from mosquitos and flies, it was extremely valuable simply seeing<\/em> the actual site. After years of planning and hearing about the site, seeing it at scale up close made the research come alive. For some of our HQPs, it was very important to bring them along to the forest, as many haven\u2019t set foot in a forest plantation before. (Want to read more specific details about the White River DIVERSE Installation? Check out our earlier blog post <\/em>ici<\/em><\/a>.<\/em>) <\/p>\n\n\n

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Above: Stephen Mayor (OMNR) and Scott Seaman (NFMC)share with the DIVERSE group about the White River Installation, near one of the clearcut treatment locations.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

When planning field tours, we often try to ensure we visit non-DIVERSE sites, to learn more about other research and what lessons other projects have learned through their own installation processes.\u00a0After visiting our White River installation,\u00a0we made our way to an Open-Top Chamber Experiment \u2013 not a DIVERSE site, but an already\u00a0established\u00a0trial involving multiple novel species\u00a0and\u00a0assisted migration\u00a0(the deliberate movement of tree species or seed sources to areas better suited to future climate conditions).\u00a0One of our PhD students, Charlotte Grieve, had\u00a0been\u00a0part of installing this\u00a0site years before! It was a special moment for her to return and see how the trees\u00a0she\u2019d\u00a0helped plant had grown since.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n

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Above: Theme 3 PhD student Charlotte Grieve looks upon an open top chamber experiment plot she was part of installing years before joining the DIVERSE Project.<\/em>\u00a0<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

On our second tour day, we drove over an hour to reach another DIVERSE installation at the Pic Forest \u2013 watching the landscape shift around us once again as we went. This installation is being harvested this summer, so the stands were still lush and full when we arrived. We were struck by the dense moss that covered the entire forest floor, making walking through it feel like walking on a soft cloud. Would this moss re-establish after the partial and clear-cut harvest treatments were implemented? How would the landscape look even in a year after the installations were set in place? <\/p>\n\n\n

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Above \u2013 the site to be harvested\u00a0this summer of 2026 to become the Pic Silviculture Trial Installation.<\/em>\u00a0<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Overall, our group left the tour feeling energized and excited to see the rest of our silviculture trials installations\u00a0to unfold.\u00a0If\u00a0you’re\u00a0planning a similar trial yourself, here are some key takeaways from our experience:<\/strong>\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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  • Take extra care to be specific and arrange ahead of time with the contractor what partial retention\u00a0(leaving a\u00a0portion\u00a0of trees standing rather than clear-cutting), slash removal\u00a0(clearing woody debris left after harvest), or other experimental treatments should look like. If possible, be on site when the treatments occur to monitor.\u00a0<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n
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    • Plan well ahead for acquisition or\u00a0growing\u00a0seedlings, as\u00a0atypical\u00a0species for your area may be difficult to\u00a0acquire. Reach out to local tree growing and seed suppliers, the National Tree Seed Centre, Forest Gene Conservation Association, etc. but try to coordinate with other DIVERSE groups that may also be doing so to avoid inundating them with requests. In some cases, you may need to self-collect seeds, which can be\u00a0season\u00a0or location-specific and time sensitive.\u00a0<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n
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      • Give yourself options in case your Plan A\u00a0doesn’t\u00a0go as planned.\u00a0<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n
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        • Many hands make light work. Coordinate with your province’s forest ministry,\u00a0First Nations, and others supporting the project. Work early to foster these relationships.\u00a0<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n

          In the end, this trip was a small-scale version of what DIVERSE is all about: a reminder that no single site, or even single province, can capture the full range of Canada’s forests \u2013 which is exactly why our work has to span all of them. Stay tuned for updates on our other silviculture installations: these first sites we visited are only two out of many more to come across Canada!<\/strong>\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

          <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

          A group of DIVERSE researchers, students, and collaborators made the journey to see two of our silvicultural research trial installations.<\/p>","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":11704,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","footnotes":"","_members_access_role":[],"_members_access_error":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[101],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11688","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/diverseproject.uqo.ca\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11688","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/diverseproject.uqo.ca\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/diverseproject.uqo.ca\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/diverseproject.uqo.ca\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/diverseproject.uqo.ca\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11688"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/diverseproject.uqo.ca\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11688\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11708,"href":"https:\/\/diverseproject.uqo.ca\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11688\/revisions\/11708"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/diverseproject.uqo.ca\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11704"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/diverseproject.uqo.ca\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11688"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/diverseproject.uqo.ca\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11688"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/diverseproject.uqo.ca\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11688"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}