Mandy Gull-Masty

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 Pope Francis's visit to Canada shifts east, Indigenous leaders say their communities deserve to hear him on Quebec soil beg forgiveness for the sins of the Catholic Church in that province.

It's no coincidence that a wave of Indigenous women have won leadership roles previously held only by men, say leaders and advocates.