By Stephanie Froese

The next generation of natural pros

Aug 14, 2011 | 8:28 AM

Another year of graduates are now equipped with skills, knowledge and certificates to pursue careers in the field of natural resources in the province’s north.

Fifty-eight students graduated from the Saskatchewan Resource Rangers (SKRR) program on Friday.

“The intent of this program is to instill that confidence in them to pursue a career in resource management,” said Cliff Buettner, a forestry program director with the Prince Albert Grand Council.

Buettner said there are quite a few people in the field getting close to retirement age so getting young people involved is extremely important. He said encouraging northern youth to pursue integrated resource management in their own communities makes more sense than trying to bring in people from outside.

“Integrated resource management is something we recognized provincially as a co-ordinating body that we had very few students of aboriginal decent in integrated resource management.” said Buettner, referring to a trend he noticed six years ago when the SKRR program started.

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The six week work program gives 16 to 18 year olds training in fields like forestry, fire management, environment, health and safety, mining, cultural awareness and traditional ecological knowledge.

“It’s a good program. You get a lot of certificates that people don’t usually get. It’s actually pretty fun. I’d recommend it to other people,” said Dwayne Halkett, one of the Prince Albert participants.

Five Saskatchewan communities gathered funds to send teams of 10 through the six-week summer work program including Pelican Narrows, Prince Albert, Stanley Mission, La Ronge and Beardy’s and Okemasis First Nation.

Mika Carriere, provincial co-ordinator for the SKRR, said they present a curriculum and each community raises funds to put their own youth through the program. The number of communities and youth involved changes each year in accordance to available funding.

On Friday Carriere, put the teams to the test as each group completed a relay competition that showed off the new skills and knowledge that the youth have gathered over the past few weeks.

The groups then each presented a display they put together on what they had been learning to judges.

Graduation ceremonies took place at the end of the day where each ranger was presented with certificates for their hard work.

“A lot of the rangers that had gone through the program are able to get into post-secondary studies. We really encourage them to get into SIAST in their natural resource technology programs and we’ve had success in that,” said Carriere.

Carriere was appointed to the resource ranger program in 2008. She said helping northern youth is a passion of hers.

“I see a lot of opportunities for them and running the Saskatchewan resource ranger program is just one thing that we can help them do something in the summer, getting a summer job and having a really awesome summer job.”

Carriere said it’s amazing to see that they are making a difference in these youths’ lives and creating the next generation of natural professionals.

sfroese@panow.com