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Today, FPAC announced that Janet Lane of Domtar Corporation in Dryden, Ontario and Marc Bédard of Resolute Forest Products in Montreal are recipients of the Lifetime Achievement Award.

Today, FPAC announced that Fabian Glowalla of Mercer Celgar Pulp in Castlegar, BC is the recipient of the 2021 Innovation Award.

Today, FPAC announced that Senator Diane Griffin and Marc Joron of EACOM Timber Corporation have been honoured with the Forest Community Champion Award.

As National Forest Week is celebrated across the country, Forest Products Association of Canada (FPAC) is seizing the opportunity to announce the recipients of its annual Awards of Excellence program – which recognizes the outstanding men and women across Canada who have made exceptional contributions to the forest sector and to forestry communities.

I was hired as a Woodlands intern with Weyerhaeuser Grande Prairie, which meant that I would be working within silviculture, operations, and planning in a split role. My summer was filled with all sorts of different jobs, such as boundary layout, block re-ribboning, drone flying, road maintenance, and many other jobs that continuously kept me on my toes.

I got a set list of blocks that were to be sprayed, and I needed to walk them to ensure that all waterways had 40-meter buffer boundaries flagged off and check to make sure that all other ephemeral streams were either dried up or not flowing. The last thing we want is to get chemicals into a waterway!

Normally I wouldn’t volunteer to wake up at 5am to sit in a truck for three hours or so but its beautiful around Smithers and I thought it would be a nice change from the endless burnt blocks and fire weed around Fraser Lake. Plus I was in good company with my two bosses and fellow summer student.

I’ve seen firsthand the effort that is taken to ensure that harvesting is done in the most sustainable way. Recent cut blocks are surrounded by multi-age stands, varying from 20 to 60 years old, ensuring that a large span of land is never cut at once. Having multi-age stands is important in ensuring that wildlife and biodiversity still have room to grow while we fulfill our wood needs.‍

The diversity present in nature has also helped me be more okay with myself. Nature shows me that diversity is a natural part of life and doesn’t make me any less.

That's why I knew I was going to stay in Lac-Saint-Jean. In Saint-Thomas, the plant is beautiful and the atmosphere is very pleasant. It's very easy to work with the people here, they are dynamic and want things to work. I am very happy in my region and I want to continue to develop here, in my region.