The Yukon. For Europeans like me, it's one of those names that conjures up images in the imagination, evoking fantastical scenes. At the edge of our world maps, among the highest latitudes, lies the Yukon River, a hardy organism, sheltered between two imposing white mountain ranges, but freezing every winter during this merciless season, which is much longer than elsewhere. During this cold spell, the river goes into hibernation and flows very slowly, as if conserving its vital energy until the return of more clement days. In summer, when the white landscapes disappear under the sun, a torrent of life floods the tree's vessels at a rate twelve times higher than in winter! The Yukon River tree is one of those forces of nature that thrive in difficult conditions: a territory where the ground is permanently or seasonally frozen, on permafrost.

At first glance, it might seem that everything sets it apart from the Amazon or the Congo, but these three rivers actually have one thing in common: they are the territory of indigenous peoples, or “First Nations” in Canada, some of whom still live by hunting and gathering. In the Yukon basin, 70 of these nations watch over the river and its environmental condition within the Yukon Watershed Intertribal Council, a remarkable initiative in which the ancestral guardians of these lands and this tree are involved in caring for them. The river needs its guardians: it is home to remarkable wildlife, including three species of salmon—chinook, coho, and chum—which make the longest salmon migration in the world. Sadly, these salmon, prized for their fatty flesh, have suffered a collapse in population over the past 25 years.

This is not the first time that the Yukon tree has attracted human greed: gold was found in its branches at the end of the 19th century. This promptly triggered a gold rush, attracting more than 100,000 people, mainly from the United States and Canada, to the Klondike, a valley in the Yukon basin. This influx led to the proliferation of boom towns whose glory was short-lived, such as Dawson City. Although most of the towns in the region owe their existence to this chapter in history, it was a dark one for the rivers, which were polluted by the brutal and greedy extraction practices that had a devastating impact on the indigenous populations.

The rest of this beautiful white tree is home to a profusion of mammals: caribou, moose, wolves, grizzly bears, black bears, cougars, and coyotes roam its branches, walking in the shade of black spruce, white spruce, trembling aspen, paper birch, balsam poplar, and more.

Speaking of which, the black spruce, Picea mariana, is an ideal tree for the Yukon. It is a symbol of the Canadian Arctic forest because of its resistance to cold—it grows at the northern limits of the taiga—and its ubiquity in the region. It thrives on dry soils as well as in wet, peaty environments, which are flooded by the river when it bursts its banks in the spring. Bonus point: this beautiful tree is used to make a beverage called “spruce beer,” which was commonly consumed in New France and, in earlier times, by Indigenous peoples.

The Yukon spruce, Picea Yukonensis