A 1300 ha wildfire burned in the Gosnell Creek watershed in August 2010. This valley has high value grizzly and black bear habitat due to abundant salmon, avalanche tracks, huckleberries, and ridgetop stands of whitebark pine. Drier sites within the burned area are suitable for whitebark pine restoration plantings.

We selected two contrasting sites in the Gosnell Valley for our first restoration trial in 2011:

1. The Crystal Road site is a dry rocky ridge (ESSFmk/02a site type) that was severely burned by the wildfire.
2. The Joshua Road site is a dry glaciofluvial outwash terrace (ESSFmk/02b site type) where the lodgepole pine overstory was killed by mountain pine beetle. The wildfire was spotty and of low severity at this site.

In June 2011 we planted 50 whitebark pine seedlings (mixed non-local seedlots grown at UNBC) and sowed seed caches (Mount Sidney Williams seedlot) at each site. We return to the site intermittently to measure the survival, growth and condition of the planted and seeded tree seedlings and to remove competing vegetation. We expect the seedlings on the severely burned Crystal Road site to grow faster due to full sunlight and nutrient release after the burn. One half of the planted seedlings received one cup of soil taken from beneath a mature whitebark pine tree growing nearby in order to inoculate the soil with appropriate mycorrhizal fungi. Laboratory research conducted by Hugues Massicotte and Linda Tackaberry at UNBC suggests that mycorrhizal inocula may improve the growth of young whitebark pine seedlings.

At the Joshua Road site we found dozens of naturally regenerated whitebark pine growing beneath the dead lodgepole pine. These trees apparently grew from Clark’s Nutcracker seed caches. We have flagged these seedlings and are following their progress to determine whether they are able to release and grow to maturity following death of the overstory lodgepole pine.  Most of these naturally regenerated seedlings are infected with white pine blister rust.

Five years after planting, the largest, healthiest seedlings were planted in a small burned clearcut. Seedlings planted beneath burned snags in a severely burned forest were intermediate in size. Seedlings planted beneath mountain pine-killed overstory trees in a lightly burned forest were smallest because they experienced minimal nutrient release from the fire and the most competition and shade from surrounding live and dead vegetation. Survival was excellent except in very shallow burned soils at the top of a south-facing rock outcrop where a few seedlings died from heat injury and drought in the first year. Some seedlings located at the base of snags (mainly germinants from direct seeding) were damaged by sloughing bark.

In 2004, a wildfire burned on the shoreline of Kidprice Lake adjacent to the Nanika River falls within what is now Nenikëkh/Nanika-Kidprice Provincial Park, co-managed by BC Parks and the Wet’suwet’en Nation. The wildfire killed many large whitebark pine trees. Although Clark’s Nutcrackers are commonly seen at Kidprice Lake, a regeneration survey found only a few, tiny whitebark pine seedlings growing in the burned area. Lodgepole pine and subalpine fir regenerated well after the fire and are growing much more rapidly.

The BVRC has been working with BC Parks and the Office of the Wet’suwet’en to restore whitebark pine stands within the Nanika wildfire. Seedlings grown from seeds collected from a young stand on the shore of Kidprice Lake directly opposite the wildfire were planted on rocky outcrops within the wildfire in 2014 (340 seedlings) and 2017 (1500 seedlings). All of the parent trees from whom the seeds were collected were free of active white pine blister rust, and we are monitoring their offspring for evidence of blister rust resistance, both in the Nanika wildfire and in field and laboratory trials conducted in the US and in southern BC. At this site there was some early mortality of seedlings planted in the most shallow, rocky soils in both years (2014 and 2017) and some uprooting of 2017 seedlings by a bear.  Monitoring results from September 2019 indicate that seedlings that survived their first summer are growing well and there is no evidence yet of white pine blister rust infection at this site.

The 2012 Atna wildfire burned an extensive area in Morice Lake Provincial Park including significant stands of whitebark pine. The BVRC worked with BC Parks and the Office of the Wet’suwet’en, who co-manage the park, and the BC Wildfire Service to identify suitable sites for restoration with putatively blister rust-resistant whitebark pine seedlings. Seedlings grown from seeds collected at Kidprice Lake (see Nanika wildfire) were planted on a remote rocky ridge above Atna Bay by firefighters from the Burns Lake Unit Crew in 2014 (340 seedlings) and 2017 (3300 seedlings).

Additional seeds were collected from rust-free parent trees on Nanika Mountain within Morice Lake Provincial Park to continue this restoration project.

Monitoring of the Atna wildfire restoration trials (most recently in September 2019) has indicated outstanding survival and early seedling growth in this wildfire. There is abundant Ribes in the wildfire area and 5% of the seedlings planted in 2014 have already been damaged (1 killed) by white pine blister rust. It appears that some of the largest and healthiest seedlings were the first to be infected and damaged by the rust.  While this mortality is unfortunate, it was not unexpected, and it will help us to determine which of the seed families are most susceptible and most resistant to white pine blister rust under field conditions.

Since 2012, the Wetzin’Kwa Community Forest near Smithers has collaborated with the Bulkley Valley Research Centre to include whitebark in its planting operations. In 2017, contract planters planted 1400 seedlings from local rust-resistant parent trees at a high elevation cutblock above the McDonell Lake Road.

Pacific Inland Resources, a division of West Fraser Inc, planted its first 214 whitebark pine seedlings at a high elevation cutblock located north of Reiseter Creek.