Decide how a forest gets cut, protected and regrown, and sign your name to the plan.
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Pay, the path, pros and cons and the facts on one printable page. Counsellors: send it to a student from your own email in one click.
Programs in the fields this career usually comes through. Each has its own page: what it takes to get in, the courses you need and what it costs.
The median pay is about $98,000 a year. Across everyone in the job it runs from about $65,000 at the lower end to about $130,000 at the upper end. The source is listed under Sources at the end of this page.
5 to 7 years after high school, on the usual route.
$25,800 to $44,000 all in for tuition, fees, exams and kit. Living costs are not counted.
It depends where you work. You need a licence, certificate or registration in Alberta, British Columbia, Ontario, Quebec and Saskatchewan. Elsewhere there is none to hold, though many employers still ask for training or a certificate.
Limited demand nationally, from government outlook data. Demand varies by region, so check your area.
Or read the whole thing here
What you earn and what it costs to get there.
Median
$98,000
Lower end
$65,000
Upper end
$130,000
Job Bank's national median for foresters is $47.00 an hour, about $98,000 a year at 40 hours a week. The lower and upper ends ($31.39 and $62.50 an hour) are the bottom and top of the range for everyone in the group.
$49.00 an hour
The median in Quebec, the highest in Canada
Alberta is next at $45.88 and Nova Scotia at $44.66. Ontario and British Columbia both sit at $40.00. You are paid a real salary through the articling period, not a student wage.
Roughly, all in
$25,800 to $44,000
Tuition, fees, exams and kit. Not rent, food or travel
The low end is four years of forestry tuition at a cheaper school, about $6,000 a year, plus boots and field gear and the cheapest path through registration. The high end is the same four years at $10,000 a year, better gear, and the full registration process of modules, application and exams. Annual dues once you are registered are usually paid by your employer, so they are not in these figures. Forestry schools are small and compete for students, so scholarships and paid summer field work take a real bite out of both ends.
Forestry schools are small, so ask each one about scholarships. Paid summer field jobs also help cover the cost.
Pension
Provincial ministry jobs and the big forest companies both offer pension plans.
Camp and remote allowances
Paid room, board and travel when you are working out of a bush camp.
Truck and gear
A work truck is standard in field roles.
Employer-paid registration
Most employers pay your dues and the continuing education you need to keep the licence.
The exact path from high school to qualified.
Accredited degree, then a supervised articling period, then registration.
High school diploma
Grade 12
Biology, chemistry, math and geography. Any outdoor or chainsaw experience helps you land the first summer job.
Accredited forestry degree
4 years
A four-year forestry degree from a recognized Canadian faculty. Programs include field schools and summer camps.
Summer field jobs
Every summer
Cruising timber, tree planting, silviculture surveys. Employers hire graduates who already know the bush.
Articling as a forester in training
18 months to 2 years
Paid work under a sponsoring registered forester, plus education modules and assessments. Ontario asks for 18 months of mentored experience, at least 6 of them after you graduate.
Registration
After articling
Pass the registration requirements of your province's regulator and become a Registered Professional Forester.
Biology
Tree species, soils and forest ecosystems.
Math
Volume calculations, sampling and growth models.
Geography
Maps, terrain and your first exposure to mapping software.
Chemistry
Soils, nutrients and fire behaviour.
English
Forest management plans are long written documents that the public can challenge.
In British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Ontario and Quebec you must be registered with the provincial regulator to practise professional forestry (in Alberta and Saskatchewan, on public land). In New Brunswick and some other provinces only the registered forester title is protected, and the territories have no rule. Where it is licensed, only a registered forester may sign certain plans and prescriptions, and people without registration work under one's supervision.
British Columbia
University of British Columbia Faculty of Forestry, University of Northern British Columbia.
Prairies
University of Alberta.
Ontario
Lakehead University in Thunder Bay. The University of Toronto teaches forestry as a master's degree, the Master of Forest Conservation.
Quebec and Atlantic Canada
Université Laval, University of New Brunswick.
In Quebec a forester is an ingénieur forestier (forest engineer), and only Université Laval offers the degree that leads to the licence, taught in French.
Finish Secondary V
High school
Take the Secondary V math and science courses that your CEGEP (public college) asks for its science program.
Science DEC (Diploma of College Studies)
Laval asks for a Natural Sciences DEC at a CEGEP (public college). Another DEC also works if you add college biology, chemistry, math and physics.
Forestry bachelor's at Université Laval
4 years
Forest Management and Environment, or Cooperative Forest Operations. 120 credits in French, with three paid work placements.
32 weeks of supervised practice
During and after the degree
Required by the Ordre des ingénieurs forestiers du Québec (the Quebec order of foresters), under a forester with at least 5 years in the order. Weeks from your paid university placements count.
Ethics training and exam
Every new member takes the order's training on ethics and professional practice and passes its exam before the licence is issued.
Show French, then register
The licence needs an appropriate knowledge of French, through your schooling or the OQLF (Office québécois de la langue française) exam. Then you join the order's roll and pay yearly dues.
Fees of the Ordre des ingénieurs forestiers du Québec (the Quebec order of foresters). Yearly dues are on top, and many employers pay them.
Things you don't need, but that help.
Fire management
Fire behaviour training and incident command qualifications. Fires burned 5.3 million hectares in Canada in 2024.
Forest health and pest management
Spruce budworm and mountain pine beetle work is constant.
Urban forestry
City tree canopies, storm damage and planting programs. Municipal jobs with normal hours.
Carbon and certification auditing
Verifying that forests are managed to a standard buyers will pay for.
Indigenous forestry
More than 11,000 Indigenous people worked in Canada's forest sector in 2021, and First Nations hire their own foresters.
Chainsaw and faller training
Practical credibility with crews and a summer job in itself.
Mapping and remote sensing skills
Satellite and laser scanning data now drive inventory work.
Wilderness first aid and bear awareness
Required on most remote crews.
Truck, boat and all-terrain vehicle experience
Getting to the block is half the job.
French
Quebec and New Brunswick have large forest sectors.
Consulting is where many foresters end up. Small firms of two to ten people do inventory, plans and surveys for private woodlot owners, municipalities, First Nations and companies that no longer keep large in-house staff. You trade the pension for control over your schedule and, if the firm is yours, a share of the profit. It usually takes ten years of employed work first, because clients hire the name on the licence.
Day to day, pros and cons, where you'd work.
Half the year you are in the bush: laying out a cut block with a tablet and a compass, checking that a contractor followed the prescription, measuring plots, looking at regrowth on a block harvested ten years ago. The other half you are at a desk writing plans, running inventory data, answering the ministry and sitting in public consultation meetings where people are angry about logging near their community.
The good
The hard parts
Things people don't tell you.
Natural Resources Canada puts Canada's forest at 369 million hectares, close to 9% of the world's total forest.
Roughly 670,000 hectares of Canadian forest were harvested in 2023, about 0.2% of the forested land. That same year, 563 million seedlings were planted on provincial and territorial land.
The Canadian Institute of Forestry, founded in 1908, calls itself the voice of forest practitioners and publishes The Forestry Chronicle, a journal that has run since 1925.
Since May 1, 2025, everyone applying for full membership in the Ontario Professional Foresters Association must show they meet its standard on Indigenous Peoples, lands and resources. The association points out that forestry happens on treaty or unceded land.
Every list is built from the same numbers shown above, so you can see where this career sits next to the others.
Farming, forestry and fishing first, then the rest of the field. See every career in science and environment.
Last checked October 2026. Pay figures are typical full-time annual amounts in Canadian dollars, based on Government of Canada Job Bank wage data and published salary grids. They vary by province, employer and experience. Tuition is for domestic students. How every figure on this site is sourced and checked.
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