Boreal Ecology & Education
601 63532 RR444 T9M 1P1 Cold Lake, AB, Canada

Winter light can be challenging to photograph, but with patience and warm clothing, you can gain excellent results. Canada's northwestern Boreal forest is an amazingly beautiful place.

Boreal Wetlands and Woodland Caribou share a longterm association. Part of our Northern Rivers series

Love this! Biodiversity is crucial to our survival.

Vaccinoum vitis-idaea or as it is commonly known as Bog Cranberry and also Lowbush Cranberry ( in some northern regions), is one of the most nutritious and tasty berries of Canada's northwestern boreal forest. The berries ripen in the fall and can be distinguished by their dark red colour and the 'inny' or depressed area, where they connect to their stems. Their rolled-under shiny dark green leaves have dark dots on their underside. Distinguished from the dull (more orange-re...d) white, mealy tasting fruit of Arctostaphylos uva-ursi or Bearberry 'Kinnikinnick', which has an 'outy' at the end of the berry where it connects to their stem. Both are efible, but Cranberries are fabulous in everything! Highly nutritious and loaded with tons of vitimins, they are best picked just as the frosts begin. Considered a starvation food, the berries remain on the stems (are persistant) and can help you stay alive if lost. *The Lowbush or Bog Cranberry also make fabulous cranberry sauce! P.s. Dont forget to add a bit or orange peel and nutmeg and allspice in with the cinnimon when you prepare the sauce. These berries can also be dried as a nutritious natural sugar fruit snack or added into your homemade gerky. Delicious Pemmican.

Here it is. Our last outdoor photo workshop of the year. The Magic of Photography...and no you do not have to be afraid of getting outdoors and taking photos i...n the winter. Good for a family outing....or the budding photographer. Email or call for details. Pre-registration required. * Reasonable pricing Dress warm. Grab your SLR or cellphone and come on out. And I do have to say this....COVID precautions in place.

Canada's northwestern Boreal Forest provides many Ecosystem Services and naturally renews itself in many ways. Harvested remnant tree stumps, can still be found along old roads, and close to old cabin or homestead sites. These stumps were left behind by early Euro-Canadian Homesteaders, Metis Scrip and First Nations people who lived within the isolated regions of the boreal forest. There, our grandfathers and great grandfathers cut large mature trees to clear their small iso...lated small clearings and tracts of forest in the late 1890's to early 1900's, and built their simple log homes, barns, and cut and sawed-up firewood to keep themselves warm during the long cold winters. These old decomposing stumps also provide vital ecosystem services for other organisms, within the forest, and are farmed by Black Bears, who rip open the cellulose vegetative material to reach nesting ants, other insects, cocoons, and larvae living within. These high protein food sources help bears gain fhe extra weight they need to survive their long winter hibernation. Bear dung is also full of berry seeds, minerals and other plant matter, which also returns to the forest as it decomposes. Old stumps, also act as hosts to provide mineral rich parent material, which in turn helps the next generation of living trees to grow and thrive. Squirrels break open spruce cones, while sitting on a large stump and some seeds fall within cracks in the surface. Their they germinate and grow, relying upon the rich minerals contained in their host stump to provide vital nutrients. Other stumps provide homes for an amazing variety of lichens, fungi and mosses - all of which help break down the cellulose structure of vascular plants, to return carbon, nitrogen, phosphorus and other vital minerals to the nutrient poor soils of the boreal forest. And every year, the cycle of life continues.

Fungi are incredibly interesting. They also play an important role within the Boreal Forest in terms of assisting with the sharing of nutrients, which are necessary for plant growth. Complicated and often-times strange in appearance, Fungi also have many edible members. Mid to late summer is a super time to collect 'mushrooms', as the fruiting bodies of fungi are often called. For those who truly want to know more about these unique organisms, the Mycological Society of Alber...ta. They can be located at www.albertamushrooms.ca www.albertamushrooms.ca/about/www.albertamushrooms.ca/about/ https://www.for.gov.bc.ca/hfd/pubs/Docs/Tr/TR104.pdf

For those of you, who find and enjoy bracket fungi, attached to trees and other surfaces, this excellent resource publication shared to BEE, was published by the Govn't of British Columbia. Included is excellent information about what bracket fungi are, a fungi key [valuable for field ID]. It also has excellent identification photos, and descriptions of these unique biota. (Family: Basidiomycota) Many individual species from this group are also found within the NW Canadian Boreal Forest.