They are at the beginning of a long winter of burning, bucking and raking in the snow-covered forests of Jasper National Park, but the fire crew is happy to be here and learning about the ins and outs of forest and fire management.

The six young men and women out in the forest have one thing in common: they’re all of Métis descent. 

The fire crew members are here as part of broader partnership program between Parks Canada and the Métis Nation of Alberta (MNA). The training program has been operating since 2003.

Parks Canada had a previous arrangement with the MNA for a training position on the Park’s initial attack firefighting crew and that link led to the development of an entire Métis group working in the Park, FireSmart program manager Alan Westhaver recalls.

As the implementation of Jasper’s fire risk reduction plan became a reality, Parks chose to arrange its own crew to handle the work rather than contracting the job out.

“We felt that it would be far better to train our own crew so that they understood the ecological side of things,” Westhaver said. Parks suggested a cost-sharing partnership with the MNA through that organization’s “Community Connections” program, whereby Métis youth are given on the job training in a variety of fields.

From the very first year, the partnership as been a major success.

“It’s a mutual benefit,” Westhaver said from the Parks perspective, “good work is being done on an essential project.”

“The quality of work has been excellent,” Westhaver said. Meanwhile, the Métis recruits are getting a firsthand education in the fields of firefighting and forestry management.

“It’s been rewarding to work with the MNA and to see the young people work and progress.”

The crew members are recruited by the MNA with a particular focus on providing opportunities for Métis between the ages of 18 and 30 who live near JNP. The crew members are hired on a six-month contract that runs from October to March. The first month is spent on training and certification, said Westhaver. All crew members take the Basic Wildland Firefighter Course so that they will be qualified to handle the slash fires that they start and monitor while in the field. Chainsaw safety training courses are also part of the curriculum.

This year’s crew left the classroom and headed for the woods during the first week of November. They are supervised by Angela Street and Greg Shore as they prepare and burn felled timber around the Jasper townsite.

“The group has a really good bond,” said Street of the six-member crew. “They work really well with each other and the supervisors...we have a really great time, they’re really high spirited and motivated. Even when it’s really nasty out they are happy to be out and working.”

There’s a fair amount of variety from one day to the next, according to Street, but on a typical burning day the crew spends hours in the bush. In the early parts of the day the group sets out to find the logs and piles that have been left behind by the logging equipment used by Parks to actually fell the trees. The crew sets the piles ablaze, chain sawing logs and clearing undergrowth as required. After lunch, it’s time to rake and manage the fires so that they can be left to smoulder overnight.

The various crew members came to Jasper with various goals and expectations and while it’s still early days, they are enthused about the training and experience they have had so far.

“I wanted to use this program as a step in the right direction to becoming a structural fire fighter,” said Dean Harasymiw, a  20 year-old from Oakville, Ontario.

“All the situations we’ve been involved in have provided training for me.”

Jenna Musselman, a 21 year-old Hinton native sees the possibility of a future in a variety of areas.

“I’m quite interested in the firefighting and the trail crew, I’m also interested in the MNA, getting involved with their administration and organizing things like this for youth in years to come.”

Jassine Bastien, from Whitehorse, Yukon, is keen to get involved with Parks as an interpreter in the future.

That might not seem like the logical next step for someone in a fire crew training program, but Bastien only has to look back as far as 2003 for inspiration. Todd Sikkes, a member of the first all-Métis fire crew, now working in strategic communications for Jasper National Park, parlayed his six-month contract into a successful jump to Parks’ Aboriginal Leadership Development Program. Now in his third year of the four year process, Sikkes is capable of trying out a number of different employment opportunities with Parks that he might not have been able to access in other circumstances.

“Part of the beauty of the program is that flexibility, I can apply for other jobs within Parks right now,” he said.

Every year, Sikkes and the other program participants attend a week-long leadership training session in Whitehorse where they build capacity and make connections with colleagues from all over Canada.

“The people in the program are from all across the country...and from every branch of Parks,” Sikkes said.

Now two years removed from the FireSmart training program, Sikkes is impressed with how the partnership has grown.

“Even in the two years since I was in the program it really has expanded into something amazing,” he said.

For Sikkes, among the most profound parts of his experience came from the cultural component of the program.

“The Métis training program has done a lot for me personally,” he said. “I grew up really not knowing that I was Métis. It’s given me a tremendous opportunity to explore my heritage that I wouldn’t have had anywhere else.”

The cultural aspect of the fire crew training is something designed and managed by the Métis youth themselves. Over the course of this winter the group intends to meet with Métis elders, organize a sweat lodge experience, witness traditional dancing and music and also learn about traditional uses for plants and Métis methods of hunting and trapping.

The fact that they will be receiving a cultural education on top of their practical training has come as a pleasant suprise to some of the crew members.

“I thought we were just coming out here to light fires all winter but it will be good to get inside and learn a lot about Métis culture and history,” said Harasymiw.

“I’m looking forward to learning a lot about the Métis culutre..there are a lot if things that I don’t know and a lot of things I want to know,” said Jesse Meding.

The first step on their journey of cultural discovery happens Friday afternoon, when author and photographer Terry Garvin will make a presentation to the group about  aboriginal and Métis history and lifestyle.

“It will be based on fifty years worth of my photography,” said Garvin from his home in Calgary. Garvin, who is a consultant for the Foothills Model Forest on cultural life and traditions of aboriginal peoples, began documenting First Peoples in 1955. A new book of his photography and writing will be available soon. Entitled “Carving Faces, Carving Lines:People of the Boreal Forest,” the volume will include images of aboriginal people from the Grande Cache and Yellowhead area. Garvin’s presentation begins at 1 p.m. at the Jasper-Yellowhead Museum and Archives. It is open to the public. 

with files from Jessica Gergely