Sharing our roots: Journeys to becoming a professional forester

This segment introduces some of Ontario’s new R.P.F.s and Associate R.P.F.s members by

sharing the personal stories behind their decision to join the profession and their

experience as a professional forester so far. It highlights the wide range of backgrounds

and career paths that strengthen forestry in Ontario and the value this diversity brings to

the profession.

Introducing: Stevie Rae Luzzi, R.P.F.

I grew up in Northern Ontario, where nature wasn’t just a weekend activity — it was part of the air I breathed. Trees, lakes, and bushes, the backdrop of everything. Then, like many young people with restless ambitions, I left. Toronto called, and I answered. For most of my 20s, the closest I got to a forest was a city park — concrete and glass where trees used to stand. Nature was something I remembered, not something I experienced daily. What I didn’t realize was how much that absence was quietly costing me.

A cutblock within the Herbicide Alternative Program (HAP) research trial that was manually brushed.

The pandemic arrived, bringing with it, as it did for many people, an enforced stillness. For me, that stillness became a moment of reckoning. I was in my thirties and on a personal healing journey, doing the difficult, slow work of asking, what truly matters to me? What did I leave behind when I left home? The answers consistently pointed me outward — back toward green spaces, back toward the version of myself that grew up on the shores of Lake Superior. I enrolled in an Environmental Management Certificate at the University of Toronto almost instinctively — not as a career move, but as a question I needed to explore.

Harvesting Cedar for Wahkohtowin’s annual Wigwassi Jiiman (Birch Bark Canoe Build).

What followed was a career shift that felt less like a risk and more like a return home. I registered at Algonquin College’s Environmental Management & Assessment Graduate Certificate program, attracted to its co-op requirement for hands-on experience. That co-op led me to the City of Ottawa’s Parks, Forestry and Stormwater Services, where I worked under an RPF completing tree inventories as part of the city’s Urban Forest Management Plan. Standing among the trees of Ottawa’s parks — the trees that had thrived in the city all along, quietly doing their work — I felt something settle inside me that had been restless for years. I wasn’t just studying forestry; I was remembering something.

Having a laugh with John Saylors, an Elder from Chapleau Cree at Wahkohtowin's Innovation Centre during the Winter Solstice gathering.

That moment of recognition propelled me into the Master of Forest Conservation (MFC) program at the University of Toronto, fully accredited by the Canadian Forestry Accreditation Board and the pathway to becoming an RFP in Ontario. The MFC program required an internship, and mine took me somewhere I never could have expected — 560 kilometers northwest of Winnipeg, to Wuskwi Sipihk First Nation, an Oji-Cree community whose traditional territory sits within Treaty 4. My work focused on supporting the community on cultural plants and examining how these important species have been overlooked in forest management planning.  Time spent on the land with Knowledge Keepers and Land Users didn’t just expand my professional understanding of ecology — it transformed the way I see the world. Plants are not resources — they are relatives. No textbook could have ever taught me that.

Today, I work for Wahkohtowin Development, a social enterprise owned by three Treaty 9 First Nations: Chapleau Cree, Missanabie Cree, and Brunswick House. (A detail I love: I met my boss and mentor at the 2023 OPFA conference — proof that showing up matters). My role is diverse and deeply meaningful. I support Indigenous-led conservation, herbicide alternatives in forest management, implement nature-based solutions, and conduct research on the occurrence and abundance of plants in the boreal forest.

My work will transition to include forest management planning in Ontario (from 2027-2031) as the next part of my journey. It will further support First Nations in setting objectives that translate desired future forest benefits into measurable outcomes – and in the spirit of Ontario’s Forest Policy regime, to establish monitoring to coincide with adaptive management principles. 

Learning how to stitch two pieces of birch bark together using spruce roots to lengthen the canoe hull.

As a new RPF, I am still very much a learner—guided daily by Wahkohtowin’s senior RPFs —and I believe that this attitude of learning is one of the most important aspects I bring to this work. Alongside that, I am dedicated to forming sincere relationships with community members, ensuring their voices are not just heard but placed at the center of everything we do.

The OPFA Code of Ethics emphasize fidelity, integrity, and respect—values I hold close — but I have come to see these principles as extending well beyond our duties to citizens, employers and clients. They also speak to our obligations to the land, water, animals, plants — and to the First Peoples, who have inherent rights and responsibilities to the forests in which we work.

Wahkohtowin Staff and Guardians assist Chapleau Cree Public Works in installing a Stop the Spray near Racine Lake.

I spent years in a city with barely any trees, unaware of what I was missing. Now I spend my days in forests, reflecting how we can better care for them. What I understand now that I didn’t then is this: a career doesn’t have to be the path you chose at twenty. Sometimes it’s the path you finally stop running from.

I fell in love with trees. Then with plants. And most importantly, with the interconnectedness that binds people, forests, and places.

Wahkohtowin is a Cree word that translates to kinship – the importance of relationships and shared responsibility. We are all connected. I didn’t choose forestry so much as I finally let it choose me — and I am deeply grateful I did.

Written By: Stevie Rae Luzzi for The Professional Forester by the Ontario Professional Foresters Association