Fire for Well-Being: Use of Prescribed Burning in the Northern Alberta Boreal Forest

Abstract

Aboriginal peoples of the Northern Alberta Boreal Forest have used fire knowledge and burning practices to maintain their environment for generations. Prescribed burning is vital to Aboriginal peoples’ relationships with the environment, and was essential to their hunting and gathering subsistence. Research has been limited on Aboriginal peoples' use of fire not only to manage resources but to maintain their health and well-being. The research paper suggests that burning also allowed management of these medicinal plants. Such plants growing in open clearings or near water such as streams, rivers, or lakes were fired in order to maintain and manage Aboriginal peoples’ health and well-being in the boreal forest.