Mining disturbs large forested areas around the world,including boreal forests after oil sands mining in Canada.Industrial companies are expected to reclaim degradedland to ecosystems with equivalent land capability. Thisresearch showed the value of woody debris for reclamationof dramatically disturbed landscapes with a forest ecosys-tem end land use. Adding woody debris during reclamationcan facilitate recovery of flora, soil nutrient cycling andwater and nutrient holding capacity. Combined with for-est floor material, woody debris can provide native plantpropagules that would be otherwise commercially unavail-able. Sites with and without woody debris on forest floormaterial containing identifiable litter (L), fragmented andfermented litter (F), and humus (H) (LFH), and peat min-eral soil mix (peat) cover soils were studied. Within 2years, woody debris decreased bare ground and createdmicrosites which were positively associated with greatervegetation cover and woody plant density. Woody debristreatments had lower soil available nitrate and soil underwoody debris had a lower temperature range and highersoil volumetric water content than control treatments with-out woody debris. Woody debris did not affect first yearmicrobial biomass carbon or mycorrhizae, but both weregreater on LFH than peat cover soil. LFH was associ-ated with lower bare ground and greater vegetation cover,species richness, and soil phosphorus and potassium thanpeat cover soil, which had greater soil sulphate.