On this northern B.C. plot, that seed is taking root. Located 1,000 kilometres north of Vancouver, on the traditional territory of the Gitxsan Nation, the site is ground zero for launching Seed the North , a project that aims to regenerate large swaths of land in an effort to sequester carbon and fight the climate crisis.
It’s a long way from Kuperman’s urban Ontario upbringing. Born and raised in Toronto, she studied architecture at Cornell University followed by a master’s degree in real estate development at York University. After time spent working in Canada’s north, she settled here a year ago.
Her experience in large-scale infrastructure development may feel far removed from forest ecology, but there’s a connection, she says: “You could say this is the single largest infrastructure there is, which is our forests.”
Kuperman’s long-term vision is massive in scale.
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Seed the North will collect seeds, combine them in biodiverse seedpods and drop them using drone technology over thousands of hectares. The project will target areas disturbed by both natural events, like wildfires, floods and landslides, as well as those impacted by industry. It is grounded in three pillars: traditional Indigenous knowledge, the scientific community and what Kuperman describes as the “brawn” of technological ingenuity. She is the facilitator — the thread that brings them all together.
It’s a big endeavour. But don’t call it a solution, Kuperman warns.
“There are no foolproof solutions,” she says. “This is harm reduction. This is mitigation. And that is the best thing that we can do with our lives.”
The effects of climate change can be seen here in northern B.C. where forests have in recent decades suffered drought, wildfires and pest outbreaks, such as the mountain pine beetle infestation.
The region is sparsely populated. Its largest city, Prince George, has a population of less than 75,000. The entire northern two-thirds of the province is home to only six per cent of B.C.’s total population. To paraphrase renowned ethnobotanist Wade Davis, it’s a place where you could hide England and the English would never find it.
It’s also a place where you could store a lot of carbon.
But rather than seeing this vast region as a carbon bank, governments have long viewed it as a source for withdrawals. The north is heavily relied upon for its resources — traditionally forestry and mining, and increasingly oil and gas extraction and transportation .
In addition to increasing carbon emissions, the impacts to the landscape reduce its ability to act as mass holding tanks that pull carbon from the atmosphere and slow the warming climate.
That’s where Seed the North comes in. It represents an entire rethink of how we approach forest regeneration. The concept is huge — but it all boils down to one small thing.
“At a certain point, let’s just focus on each seed, and how we can get it to germinate,” Kuperman says.
Germination
It’s early spring. The days are warming, and freeze-thaw cycles have encased the Kispiox Valley in a crust of ice and snow. Kuperman sits on a log that will form the foundation for a cabin to house workers from remote Indigenous communities employed by the project.
Squinting against the sun’s glare, she reaches into a white sack and produces a fist full of seeds, placing them gently in piles on the log between us: birch, alder and rocky mountain maple — species not considered valuable to the forest industry but an important part of the local ecosystem.
