Grapes a new harvest in Wabigoon Lake

Grapes are now being produced along with tree seedlings at Wabigoon Lake Ojibway Nation’s tree nursery.
“We’re looking into other areas to offset some of the costs during the off season,” said Tyson Gardner, director of lands and resources with Wabigoon Lake. “We’ve experimented with tomatoes, peppers, grapes, other vegetables and they do very well. We have a nice grape vine in there — it’s some pretty amazing tasting grapes.”
The grape vine was planted about three years ago in one corner of the tree nursery, which began operation about 12 years ago.
“We grow about six million trees a year,” Gardner said, noting the community has a partnership with Domtar to produce seedlings for planting in area forests. “Last year we had an amazing crop. The mortality rates were next to nothing and if you actually go out in the field and speak to some of the planters, we have the best.”
Gardner said the community has a “one stop shop” for road building, harvesting and replanting and a contract to provide those services to Domtar, which operates a pulp mill in Dryden.
“It’s nice to be able to build your own road, harvest your own allocation and replant the forest,” Gardner said. “We have Tigercats (forest harvesting equipment) and John Deere grapples.”
About four staff work at the tree nursery year round but other staff are brought on as required during planting in April, thinning during early summer and wrapping of the seedlings in the fall.
“The trees we are shipping are last year’s trees,” said Pamela Wetelainen, tree nursery supervisor. “These trees will get wrapped in October, put into the freezer and shipped out next year.”
Wetelainen enjoys her work at the tree nursery.
“It’s awesome,” Wetelainen said. “Being traditional, it’s about putting something back, right.”
Wetelainen said the current greenhouse began operations in 2006 after the previous one collapsed in 2005 due to heavy snow.
“It was sad — I cried,” Wetelainen said. “It was down in like 20 seconds. It was like dominos, but we were only down one year.”
Wetelainen said the new greenhouse is smaller than the old one, due to a new design that employs smaller bays and roofs that allow the snow to naturally fall off between each section to prevent too much build up.
The planting stage involves 10 people working with a seeding machine that inserts seeds into pellets of soil packed in trays.
The thinning stage involves about 10 people looking at the pellets to make sure there is only one seedling in each.
The wrapping stage involves about 50-60 people separating the pellets of seedlings and wrapping them in plastic-lined cardboard boxes.
The tree nursery is currently growing black spruce seedlings this year, but normally they grow three species: jack pine, white spruce and black spruce.