Events

We start with chainsaw maintenance. During this time, attendees will get hands-on practice doing daily maintenance with a focus on sharpening. In the afternoon, we head back outside and learn to disarm spring poles, how to develop a limbing plan, and limbing and bucking techniques and strategies.


We start with chainsaw maintenance. During this time, attendees will get hands-on practice doing daily maintenance with a focus on sharpening. In the afternoon, we head back outside and learn to disarm spring poles, how to develop a limbing plan, and limbing and bucking techniques and strategies.


Participants of this half-day course will learn about the types of plants that can be found on PEI, from liverworts and mosses to trees and ferns. Using our native plant nursery and arboretum as well as forest trails, we will have hands-on examples to demonstrate how plants grow, how roots systems connect, strategies for survival and propagation and more.

This course will focus on learning hands-on skills that you can take home to your yard to help ensure the vigour and beauty of your trees and shrubs. Over the four hours, participants will learn proper pruning techniques to help maintain healthy, attractive and safe trees.

The course provides outdoor hands-on experience looking at leaves, buds, branches, bark and the basic patterns of native tree identification. We’ll also walk the Macphail Woods grounds to look at specimens of all the native species of trees as well as some of the preferred habitats of these beautiful organisms.

Shrubs provide habitat and food for wildlife as well as a staggering number of ecological benefits from nitrogen fixation to shoreline protection. This four-hour course will take us into the Macphail Woods Arboretum which showcases many of the native shrubs you can find across the province. We’ll also introduce a selection of ferns and wildflowers.

This camp will begin to introduce the campers to the amazing complexity of our native Acadian forests. They will dissect owl pellets, take part in forest restoration planning and plantings and develop their understanding of how we can take positive environmental action.

The campers will delight in learning to use all their senses to understand the natural world, as well as create crafts, tell stories and play games designed to give them a foundation for further inquiry and exploration.

This camp focuses on encountering and describing the natural world. Through the use of art and other hands-on outdoor activities, they’ll expand their understanding of life in the woodlands, waterways, and fields.

These campers will delight in learning survival skills such as one-match fire making, shelter building, rope making with natural fibres, and tracking animals. Touching on plant and tree identification, campers will learn the edible and medicinal properties of some local plants. Our camp will include cooking over an open fire, natural crafts such as making birch bark baskets, basic whittling and an overnight camp.