James Bay Cree

About one million square kilometres of Quebec is covered by boreal forest, roughly 70 per cent of the entire province. In the north, where ecosystems are less likely to have been altered by human activity, those forests have been accumulating and sequestering immense quantities of carbon for centuries.

Heather House studies full-time through McGill University’s distance education program, and when she is not immersed in books, she is raising her eight children with her husband in Chisasibi, the northernmost community in Quebec that is accessible by road.

As Freddy Jolly’s pickup truck travels the dusty roads through the spruce forests outside Nemaska, Que., the one radio station fades in and out, and Jolly fills the gaps between country ballads with conversation.