Yunesit'in Chief Lennon Solomon remembers working in the woods by the time he was eight-years-old.
"I did a lot of mistletoe contracting, tree spacing, brushing, timber cruising, lot layout, road layout, everything," he said of the forestry work he did growing up in his community 100 kilometres west of Williams Lake.
With that kind of background, Solomon thought it was important for his community to become a partner with Central Chilcotin Rehabilitation Ltd. (CCR) and they signed on four months ago.
CCR was formed in 2017 by Tsideldel and Tl'etinqox First Nations.
A joint venture company, the CCR website notes its focus is to coordinate and implement large scale forestry programs and initiatives within their traditional territories to provide sustained economic opportunities for their communities and to ensure the long-term sustainability of their traditional forest land-base.
"I wanted to strengthen our nation's forestry activities," Solomon said after a recent board meeting held in Williams Lake. "It will give us the opportunity to develop bigger capacity in the forest industry."
Presently, Yunest'in does logging and silviculture.
"It's much like our other Tsilhqot'in communities - most of our employment comes from forestry," Solomon said.
Since becoming part of CCR, Yunesit'in have been amalgamating some of their forestry activities under the CCR umbrella, but will keep some of them separate and independent.
The main attraction for Solomon is sovereignty, and becoming a sovereign community, he said.
"I think we are on the right track with CCR, we are on the right track."
Yunesit'in was one of the communities most severely impacted by the 2017 wildfires and lost 65 to 78 per cent of its harvestable timber.
Eyeing the future, he said he believes there will be a shift in forest industry.
"It will be slow for a bit, but that just means we are going to be learning more about forestry from the tree up. Learning how to properly manage growing trees to healthy forests."
He is also looking forward to gleaning from the expertise of CCR's rehabilitation programs such as reforestation, wildlife habitat restoration and enhancing the utilization of wood fibre.
"It seems like it's the perfect time to be planting trees, rehabilitating the land and learning about the other side of forestry."
As chief he is a board member, while his community is a shareholder.
He said he hopes more of the six Tsilhqot'in communities will join CCR in the future.
"I joined to give them 50 per cent of the Tsilhqot'in communities," he added, smiling.
Recently CCR was voted business of the year through the 27th Annual Williams Lake and District Chamber of Commerce Business Excellence Awards.
No one was at the awards gala on Oct. 26, so the chamber presented the award to CCR board members in person on Nov. 12.
Chamber president Paul French told them they were chosen out of 77 business nominees.
