Canadian-American Regional Meeting 2024 in Québec City (Canada)

What is the Canadian-American Regional Meeting?

Canadian-American Regional Meeting (CARM) is THE IFSA event in Northern America. People can attend or host CARM if they are in a northern american local committee (LC), or if they are planning on creating an LC. This  event is hosted once a year by an elected organizing committee. The 2024 edition of CARM was hosted by Laval University’s LC (ULaval)… and it was a resounding success! The 13 members of the organizing committee did a tremendous teamwork in funding, planning, organizing, putting together, and hosting CARM from March 2nd to March 9th, 2024. During this fully-packed week, a diverse group of 24 participants from Canada, United-States and Mexico joined together in the historical city of Québec (Canada) to discuss, share, and learn from one another. As the host committee, ULaval displayed the province of Québec’s (Canada) forests and forestry sector in a comprehensive way. From Urban Forestry to Forest Operations, from Conferences to Field trips, from Geomorphology to Protected areas, from Sylviculture to Sawmill visit, from Woman’s place in the forestry sector to Innu-owned tree nursery, from Québec to Lac-St-Jean, Tadoussac and Charlevoix; the participants were able to discover a plethora of aspects, to visit beautiful regions,  and to compare their experience with their own region’s practices and realities. 

Enrichment of IFSA community in Northern America

CARM is always a good opportunity to meet, learn and share with other IFSA members from the region. It is also an opportunity to meet again with old friends from previous CARM.  It is also a good way to broaden one’s horizons and to forge friendships that will last over time… and distance. As per last year, the profoundness of CARM and the network it creates has convinced some participants to come up with their own LC and to enlarge the IFSA family in Northern America. We are looking forward to welcome New Brunswick amongst Canada’s provinces within IFSA, and we are grateful to have connected and to consider as friends the University of New Brunswick.  Also, this 2024 edition allowed Northern America to weave and strengthen relations with Mexico, particularly CHAUPEA LC, from Chapingo Autonomous University. We can’t wait to see where these new connections will bring us. 

Highlights of the week

The week started out strongly with a guided historical visit of Old Québec, and the Plains of Abraham in one of North America’s historical battlefields. The day ended up with a small ferry trip to the southern shore of Québec’s city to enjoy Old Québec’s and Chateau Frontenac’s view (Fig 1).  A part of the afternoon was also dedicated to Urban Forestry with a field trip and a lecture from Janani Sivarajah, a new professor at Laval University,  and some of her students. We were able to learn from a street-level laboratory on different urban planting beds and their suitability from a tree perspective.

The next day, we had a comprehensive presentation on Québec’s forestry with Alexis Achim (ULaval Forestry Faculty’s vice-dean) and Alexandre Morin-Bernard (new teacher at ULaval and IFSA Alumni). The dynamic pair also guided us through the wood engineering labs, before we had to leave to visit the Sugar Shack. There, we learned about Maple water harvesting, and enjoyed cultural rituals related to the sugar shack. 

On the third day of CARM, we visited a hardwood transformation sawmill, Bois LIB, in the morning (Fig 2). Followed by a full afternoon of conference on the woodland caribou, sylviculture and natural regeneration, and forest operations. We finished the day with the opening ceremony of the 2024 CARM, and an evening of networking with our partners: CEF, Bid Group, Cerfo, Groupe Lebel, etc. 

The fourth day marked the beginning of a road trip around Lac-St-Jean. But first stops: Jacques-Cartier National Park for a hike and guided tour, and the research and teaching forest of Université Laval, the Montmorency forest. At the Montmorency forest, Evelyne Thiffault (teacher at Université Laval) presented some of her research focal points on climate change and forest, and the Regional Council for the Environment of the National Capital presented forest conservation in the province of Québec. The traditional International night gave us the opportunity to share some key elements of the participants’ cultures. 

The following days of the road trip lead us all around Lac St-Jean, to Dolbeau-Mistassini, where Group AGIR, a small scale company where all profits from harvesting is given back to their community, presented salvage logging operations, from the 2023 fire season. Then we visited the Tshissassinnu Tree Nursery in the Indigenous community of Mashteuiatsh before heading to Baie Saint-Paul, where Donald Cayer entertained us on the geomorphology of Charlevoix’s astroblem ; and to come back to Québec for the International Women’s rights Day, where we shared a panel on Women in the forestry sector (Fig 3). 

Author: Marie-Pier Charbonneau-Majeau, Northern America RR

Editor: Florence Bédard, vice-president of ULaval LC