January

Berens River Forest Blowdown Damage Viewscape Analysis

Organization
Whitefeather Forest Management Corporation

Author
Marcel Morin

ESRI Software
ArcGIS

Data Sources
Digital Forest Resource Inventory

Description
In the summer of 2004 a violent storm and tornado raced across the Whitefeather Forest within the ancestral lands of Pikangikum First Nation in Northwestern Ontario.  The storm destroyed approximately 15,000 hectares of valuable northern boreal forest. As part of the planning process for the Whitefeather Forest Initiative (www.whitefeatherforest.com), Whitefeather Forest Management Corporation directed the preparation of a viewscape analysis of how the blowdown would be seen from various vantage points along the Berens River and what the zone would look like if forestry operations had occurred in this area instead of the tornado.

Acknowledgements
Glenn Loveng (World Construction Set Image generation)