The first session focuses on the film Call of the Forest: The Forgotten Wisdom of Trees. Take a walk in the woods with beloved Irish-Canadian scientist and author, Diana Beresford-Kroeger, as she reveals our profound human connection to the ancient and sacred northern forests and the essential role that they play in sustaining the health of our planet.

Botanist, medical biochemist and author Diana Beresford-Kroeger possesses a unique combination of western scientific training and an understanding of the knowledge and methods of a wide variety of traditional and alternative sources. Her books include The Sweetness of a Simple Life, The Global Forest, Arboretum Borealis: A Lifeline of the Planet, Arboretum America: A Philosophy of the Forest, and A Garden for Life. A feature documentary about her work, the Canadian Screen Awards-nominated Call of the Forest: The Forgotten Wisdom of Trees, appeared in 2017.  Her latest book is To Speak for the Trees: My Life’s Journey From Ancient Celtic Wisdom To a Healing Vision of the Forest.

The second session focuses on two short films: Oshkigin: Spirit of Fire by Dovetail Partners and Into the Black by Southern Exposure.

For thousands of years in the Great Lakes Region, Native Americans used fire intentionally to manage the ecosystems they lived in. This short film, Oshkigin: Spirit of Fire (2021) highlights this deep, reciprocal relationship with the land and the role fire plays in that relationship. This story is told by Ojibwe Wildland firefighters, Fond du Lac elder Vern Northrup and Damon Panek, and features Cloquet Forestry Center researcher Lane Johnson.

Into the Black (2019) highlights the necessity of fire on the landscape in the southeastern United States. Many of the ecosystems in Alabama and throughout the southeast evolved with fire. Human ignited “prescribed fire”, also known as controlled burns, are an essential technique to mimic this natural process to maintain and restore critical habitats. With an ever growing population and extensive efforts to restore large areas of native habitats such as longleaf pine, partnerships are critical to provide the capacity necessary to implement fire on the scale needed to accomplish these objectives.

Lane Johnson is a Research Forester at the University of Minnesota Cloquet Forestry Center. His research focuses on the fire ecology of red pine forests in the Great Lakes region where he uses tree-rings and other historical records to better understand the ecological and cultural history of fire-dependent plant communities, and apply this information to contemporary forest policy and management.