Stopping wildfires with trees: How thousands of aspen seedlings could help protect Whitehorse

Crystal To walked through a barren, burnt landscape — over ash, dirt and the soot-black remains of small charred stumps. 

She slammed a small shovel into the ground, wiggled it back and forth to create a hole, and placed a small aspen seedling into the blackened earth.

"It's not easy," she said. "But it's kind of relaxing."

To is part of a small crew of tree planters who are slowly filling the Whitehorse South fuel break with aspen. It's her first time doing the job.

The goal of the fuel break is to protect the capital city from wildfires by creating a natural barrier, removing all the highly flammable conifers in an 800-hectare area and replacing them with more fire-resistant aspens.

The Yukon government began work on the fuel break in 2020, near the Mary Lake subdivision. It's one of the first such projects in Canada, and the goal is to have it finished by 2032.  

The aspens are being planted by the thousands every summer. This year, 232,000 seedlings will be planted.

For tree-planters like To, each seedling that goes into the ground translates into a paycheque.

"What's interesting about [tree-planting] is that you get paid by the tree, so if you're faster, you get paid more," she said.

The most trees To has planted in an eight-hour shift is 1,620. She says she won't think of herself as a true tree-planter until she tops 2,000 seedlings in one day.

Under her current contract, To is making 16 cents per tree. The pay rate can change, however, depending on how well the trees are planted. 

Planters try to plant as many trees as possible, but they also have to pass a quality check — also known as pay plots.

Kate McDonald and Dakota Crawford, fuel management technicians with Yukon Wildland Fire Management, are partly responsible for pay plotting. Wearing high-visibility red vests, they walk through parts of the burnt land that have already been planted. 

"We're checking that the density is correct and that the trees have been planted well. We give them a score and then these plots determine how much they're paid — so it's a pretty important part of the plant," said McDonald.