[Reporter] Wetlands like muskeg
have often been overlooked as wastelands.
But many Saskatchewan northerners
know that the muskeg is actually bursting with life.
And this is really good for your hair
this plant.
And if you go to a new place
and you have allergy reaction to the place
you wash your skin with this
and these are such small ones.
[Reporter] Knowledge Keeper Eleanor Hegland says
she doesn't need a pharmacy
that there's plenty of medicine out on the land.
Now what is this plant here girls?
[Reporter] The muskeg is intertwined
with local Indigenous culture.
It is used by gatherers, trappers and hunters.
It is rich with mushrooms, berries and of course
the plant commonly known as Labrador tea.
[Hegland] It's a medicine drink
and we bottle it, old ladies make their tea
and they send their kids to the muskeg
'Go find some good tea.'
[Reporter] But these medicines
and the muskeg that houses them
are under threat.
[Commercial] At Lambert Peat Moss
we believe in what we do.
[Reporter] Lambert Peat Moss
a Quebec company
is proposing an 80-year harvesting plan.
It wants to lease four sections of the muskeg land around La Ronge
just over 2,500 hectares of land.
The company would clear the land
harvest the peat
and then sell it for use in potting and garden soil.
If people dig it all up what do we have?
A war zone here, nothing?
It's -- you killed it.
If they do the peat moss
what will we have left?
There'll be no medicine for our grandkids.
[Reporter] The acidic peat bogs
are a special kind of ecosystem.
They take centuries to form
made up of layers and layers of decaying matter
they're sometimes several metres deep.
The spongey bogs store water
and on the surface
they host passing animals like woodland caribou
and they're also home to rare plants.
Muskegs are also one of the world's best carbon capture systems
storing more carbon per area than forests.
But disruptions like peat harvesting
eliminate that natural carbon sink
and harvesting also means that those large amounts of carbon
are going to be released into the atmosphere.
We can't afford that in our time and age.
I'm always, like, we're in the climate crisis
and people don't treat it as a crisis.
[Reporter] Miriam Körner is one of many community members
trying to share what's at stake
if the proposal goes ahead.
She fell in love with the land two decades ago
and never left.
Körner is now helping lead the fight
against muskeg mining.
The ultimate goal is like
the short-term goal is to stop Lambert peat mining from coming in here
and harvesting peat
but I think the long-term goal would be
to ban peat mining period in Saskatchewan.
[Report] Many of the people using the land
that's targeted by Lambert in this proposal
are members of the Lac La Ronge Indian Band
one of the largest First Nations in Canada
representing about 11,000 people.
If we don't have our land we don't have anything.
[Reporter] The band has expressed
fierce opposition to the project.
When industry comes in like this
and government wants to permit
this type of activity
it does trigger duty to consult
and we have, you know, denounced it through that process.
Because once we kill everything else
we're gonna die too and there's --
[Reporter] One band member
who is also a teacher
says she was shocked
when she learned what could happen to the land.
[Barreda] I started to look at videos and stuff of what it looks like when they
harvest the peat moss
or mine it and like
all of this would be taken away and
cleared and then drained
and then they vacuum it up with these big machines.
[Reporter] She shared what she was learning about peat harvesting
and the wonders of the muskeg
with her Grade 7 students.
Like how the wet bogs are a natural fire break
critical for a community like theirs
often threatened by fire
including this summer.
They decided to act.
[Barreda] We thought well let's do a petition
and then
we thought maybe we'd get like 1,000 signatures
and we got like over 20,000.
[Reporter] This peat harvesting proposal
has not yet received the green light
to go ahead.
The provincial Ministry of Environment
will review the company's environmental impact statement
and public feedback
but those fighting for the muskeg
say the process should be stopped now.
Try to keep our land for our future generations
and if the young ones are saying that they don't want this
I don't know why we're not listening
to their voices.
[Reporter] Lambert did not respond
to our request for comment.
But the company has previously promised
that it would restore the land.
Lambert says the bog won't regain
the thickness and depth we see today
for hundreds of years.
[Reporter] And for people who rely on the land
for its offerings and its teachings
that thought is daunting.
That's why people like Eleanor Hegland
say she won't let the land go
without a fight.
[Hegland] You're destroying our culture by
taking the muskeg away.
You're really destroying who we are.
It's not just the muskeg
you're destroying a culture.
And this is used for medicine, too.
[Reporter] And she knows her allies
her fellow muskeg warriors
are walking beside her.
Kendall Latimer, CBC News
near La Ronge, Saskatchewan.