Forest History Ontario at The Forestry Conference 2025

ForestsCanada hosted their first forest conference under their new name and mandate suitably titled The Forestry Conference on February 19th-20th, 2025 in Toronto. It was a very jam-packed day, with a full room of as many as 400 attendees, and the Forest History Ontario moderated session was held just after lunch and started and ended on time. The armchair chat was moderated by FHO Chair Jim Farrell and included 2 panelists Caroline Mach, recently retired Dufferin County Forester and Lacey Rose, Renfrew County Forester (both dedicated FHO members). The theme was celebrating 10 years of Women in Wood a grass root s network of women supporting women who work in, with and for the woods. It is hugely successful, and credit needs to be given to Lacey Rose and Jess Kaknevicius (CEO ForestsCanada) for getting it stated 10 years ago. The format was a brief introduction by Jim and then questions posed to each of the panelists on their experiences of being a woman in forestry ...'then and now' with a rolling presentation of pictures of women working in the woods. The first few questions were prepared but with the benefit of a Q&A app called Slido the audience was able to post questions that I, remarkably, picked up on my phone and posed to the speakers. It worked out very well with far more questions than time to answer them. After the session I presented each speaker with a copy of 'A History of Forestry in Canada' by Gilbert Paille.

FHO was also well represented by Terry Schwan who organized, managed and staffed a very popular used 'book store' selling a range of forest and environmental related books with the proceeds going to the Frank MacDougall Memorial Fund. Terry was well 'backed' with the coming out party for our new banner and was able to distribute copies of our new pamphlet. Thank you, Terry.

It was a very successful session, and I am personally very grateful to Jess and ForestsCanada Team for inviting us and supporting us so consistently and graciously.

Congratulations Women in Wood on your first 10 years of history. Terry at Booth