Northern Sask. community loses trees to fire, volunteers replant 30,000
Large-scale tree planting isn’t a common pastime for cottage-goers.
But in the past two weeks, Nathan Pitka and his neighbours have gone through more than 30,000 seedlings.
“It's backbreaking work for sure,” he told CBC Saskatchewan's The 306 in an interview.
Last summer Pitka lost his five cabins to a wildfire that ravaged the East Trout Lake region, a heavily wooded area 250 km northeast of Saskatoon. The community lost about 57 cottages and permanent homes between May 26 and 28, 2025.
Seeing no immediate government plans to replant the foliage, Pitka, a Calgary resident, didn’t want to wait.
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He emailed companies and the provincial government to coordinate support and moved into a rented cabin to get started once the frost melted.
“Residents, including myself, felt quite overwhelmed with the scale of loss, and so I started looking into what it would actually take to begin restoring some of the public areas,” he said.
The neighbours consulted experts on the correct species of trees: white spruce, birch, tamarack, aspens, and “a lot of native shrubs.”
He emailed various government and corporate programs, who provided money and seedlings. The provincial government cleared the area and connected him with other organizations.
But Pitka says covering 40 hectares was rooted in the efforts of everyday people.
Government and corporate initiatives provided Pitka with equipment. (Submitted by Nathan Pitka)
“The volunteers themselves played a huge, huge role in terms of their time.”
Though the fire destroyed 1,500 trees per hectare, the neighbours expect to plant 800 for each hectare, hoping it will make the area more fire-resistant.
'Rebuilding stages'
Nic Swiderski fondly remembers was the area was like before the fire.
He and his father — who is one of the only year-round residents — lost their homes in the fire. The government cleared out trees from populated locations to prevent the fire from returning, so the main area is still treeless one year later.
“What was a beautiful, nicely treed northern Saskatchewan forest with roads and homes is just a mile by mile barren piece of sand in the middle of the bush,” Swiderski said.
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The trees will take decades to reach the height of the previous ones, but he’s optimistic about his community’s efforts to rebuild it, he said.
“It’s been absolutely fantastic and great to see … the initial shock and anger has kind of worn off and everybody is in the rebuilding stages right now."
Pitka said he plans to finish the job in the next two years, and he expects his own cottage will be repaired by August.
But he acknowledges East Trout Lake’s revival is largely out of his hands.
“The major strategy is to count on Mother Nature.”
This article, originally published by CBC News on May 24, 2025, was written by Maeve Ellis with files from Peter Mills and Steve Pasqualotto.