New program gives free wood stoves to Dehcho residents

A new program will deliver free high-efficiency wood stoves to 350 households across the Dehcho region over the next 18 months.

Jason Collard, the chief executive officer of Gonezu Energy, joined three people hired to administer the initiative last week in launching the Dehcho Wood Stove Program in Sambaa K’e and Fort Simpson.

Collard said that in Fort Simpson, a crowd was waiting outside to get in before the event.

The wood stoves, valued at $12,000 each, reduce dependency on increasingly expensive fossil fuels that need to be transported into communities.

Stove owners can instead use wood harvested locally, sometimes through firesmarting measures, to help warm their homes.

“At a base level, where this came from was really going to community members and community leadership and looking for a project that was tied in tradition, traditional values and ties to the land,” said Collard.

“By installing new or upgrading existing wood stoves, this initiative focuses on energy efficiency training, community engagement, with an emphasis on the health and well-being of the participants,” said Łı́ı́dlı̨ı̨ Kų́ę́ First Nation Chief Kele Antoine.

Chief Antoine shared the idea for the wood stove program at the first annual Dehcho Clean Energy Planning Event, held last summer, and heard from other communities who were interested in participating.

Eventually, they expanded the scope of the project to include all nations in the Dehcho.

“The project overview aims to reduce energy costs, to improve community capacity, but also foster some sort of environmental stewardship across the Dehcho region,” said Antoine.

Antoine said that at the launch event, he heard from people who were looking to replace existing wood stoves, some installed 30 or more years ago.

He said recent house fires in the community may have involved outdated wood stoves and chimneys.

“A big part of this project isn’t just about wood stoves, it’s about the training on how to use them, how to clean your chimneys,” said Antoine.

“We want to train all the participants to do these things, and then we also want to train some of our younger people around the community to learn how to clean and maintain the stoves and the chimneys, because we can’t really have 70-year-old Elders up on their roofs trying to clean a chimney like Mary Poppins.”

This week, Collard and his team have been in Wrigley. They will continue on to Nahanni Butte and Fort Liard.

The team will also visit Fort Providence, Hay River and Jean Marie River in April.

Any Dehcho First Nations members who are interested in receiving a wood stove can attend the launch events or get in touch with their Indigenous governments.