So I am currently writing this from a little cabin the the mountains beside a tiny mill. Sounds pretty romantic doesn’t it?
This past week we’ve been in Mcbride, BC, about 2 hours away from Jasper and it has been one of the most interesting and hardest weeks of my life.
This post is going to come off as negative and it is for a reason but there has been some really good times. So let me set it up.

Spring plant ended last week and what tends to happen is that you get a giant break inbetween spring contract and summer. You can take a break like I did last year or you can work and luckily my crew has found work finishing up contracts for other companies(we’re still working for Spectrum but Sprectrum is acting as a sun-contractor)
So we got sent to Mcbride and we really had to no idea what was coming up. Regardless we got to stay at a small cabin with two bathrooms and a huge kitchen and we actually had beds to sleep in and the town was right beside us. The downside to this is that we had to buy and cook our own food and you spend so much money on food. Aswell, when you just spent 10 hours planting in hell, you do not want to cook your own food…you want it ready for you and you want a lot of it.

So we get to a clearing on the first day and we got to take a helicopter to the block!!! I was so excited. The road up ahead was full of huge holes and rivers and it was a 2km hike to the area we needed to plant so we had to take a helicopter in. We land and the only thing we see around us is a raging river, massive snow capped mountains and forest. To our disappointment, we found out that we had to plant the forest…up the mountain. Usually they clear cut area’s and then get rid of the vegetation before it’s planted. In this case the loggers came, cut down only the biggest tree and all vegetation was left. So we are planting a forest, uphill and there are tons of weeds, devil’s club(a spiny vine that grows in patches and lodges it’s needles into you) and trap doors(when you go to put your foot down on what looks like solid ground and you fall through a hole)
I cannot give this justice. It was the toughest planting i’ve ever done and it was harsh. We went from planting 2000-3000 tree’s a day to struggling to plant 500-1000. We normally get 11cents a tree for normal to bad land and here we were making 24cents a tree! Imagine hiking up the rocky mountains, straight up, no path with 60 pounds on your back…oh and for anyone who has planted before, we were planting 132 boxes of spruce!
To make it that much better, it took us much longer than we originally thought so after the second day we didn’t have a helicopter anymore and we had to do that 2km walk in. Everytime we had to cross this river and everytime the current got the best of me and glacier water rushed into my boots. Did I mention the bears?

All in all it’s been a good week though. We made no money, froze in the rain and planted some of the worst land you can plant but we stayed in a cabin instead of our tents, we spent this week in the rocky mountains and believe me…it’s so beautiful here and we got to hangout with just our crew. Mcbride might eat the souls of tree planters but I don’t regret coming out here.

From here on out it’s a little uncertain. We still have a week till summer plant and we hopefully will find some more planting work and if not we can so basil spray for a week. After that I think i’ll go do summer plant. I think I can make ok money and that is important. I also don’t want to leave my crew early…we’ve had a lot of good times this year.

I stayed up till 1am last night writing out what I was going to talk about here and I completely forgot my notepad in the motel room!
It was quite the interesting week…infact i’d say it was one of the most eventfull weeks in recent memory. Snowstorms, hospital visits, money and golf.

It was a 5 day shift that began with a snowstorm and ended in a snowstorm. Day 1 we arrive and it’s snowing outside, we hike in 2 km and get to work. We made tons of money. Day 2 was really nice except for the rain and we made tons of money. Day’s 3 and 4 we took hour long breaks, sat down for most of the day and made little money and day 5 was spent making tons of money again.

Day 2 was a fill plant. So a fill block is an area of land that was once planted and for whatever reason many tree’s died. Your job is to go in and fill those holes. Sometimes you need to put in 300 tree’s and sometimes 20. Either way you get paid as if you had planted all the tree’s that are already there. I planted around 2000 tree’s that day and made 3 times more money than what I planted.
Day 5 was the last day of our spring contract so the entire camp planted together to try and get rid of the extra tree’s lying around(about 60,000 tree’s) We get to our block in the morning in a huge snowstorm and the ground is completely covered in snow! Luckily the skies cleared and it all melted but it made for an interesting couple of hours. Normally on the last day of contract you make very little money because everyone is competing for tree’s and no one really wants to work but I actually worked hard for the first time on an overflow block and made decent money.

The craziest part of my week would have to be my trip to the hospital. On day 2 Sam and I were trying to finish up our peice on the fill block at around 7:30pm when our foreman drives up to us and tells us to get into a car, drive back to camp and get help because someone had flipped a quad! It turns out that our checker(the person who checks our tree quality) was going too fast on the quad, hit a rock and flipped the quad over the road. A few of us were there and we put her on a stretcher and Sam, Ailin and I sat on the floor holding her down as Nick drove us out of the bush and to a hospital an hour away.

So spring plant is over but planting is not. Infact we have some exciting times ahead. Today the whole camp is going golfing on the company and that should be a blast and in 2 days time my crew and a few others leave for Fort Mcbride, BC. We are going to be staying in some cottage near a mill and it seems that we will be taking a helicopter to work in the mornings! It’s going to be tough land but we are going to get to take a helicopter to work! It’s a 100,000 tree contract on rough ground so it should take us a week to finish and then I might go and try to find spray work and make ridiculous amounts of money(you might notice that i’ve mentioned money a few times and it’s just because we got paid and it’s on my mind)

It was brought to my attention that my blog tends to point out the negative aspects of this job(thanks) Michelle. Although this job is not easy, it is obviously worth it. If you can deal with the bugs, the extreme cold, the extreme heat, the physical aspects and the misery of a cold long rain shower, this job is do-able. And even with those hardships comes friends and trips to the beach and golf games and good food. The good times definitely outweigh the bad ones. Plus…just think about the money! The money is good.

Money.

 

So let’s talk about weather. It’s been nice in Montreal I see. Sunny and hot. I hate you all.
This week started off with a snow storm! It hailed all day and then as we were finishing off a block it just started snowing and hailing so hard. We are walking out of the woods when all of a sudden lighting hits our block, followed by the loudest thunder i’ve ever heard! We all dropped our shovels and ran for the trucks.
So that was that and it was followed by two great days and that all ended yesterday. We were planting up high yesterday and it was cold. Normally you work up a sweat and take off layers very quickly but I had a sweater and jacket on all day. At around 12:30pm it just started pouring rain and the wind picked up and it was terrible. My hands went numb and I had to take shelter behind a large tree for several minutes to let my hands warm up(it didn’t do much good)
The rain let’s up a bit but it’s still drizzling, cold and windy and all I see are Tim. Dilon and Will all wearing nothing but underwear and screaming out loud. So what is a sane person to do but join them?!? So here we all are during one of the coldest days of the year, in the rain almost naked, running up and down this hill screaming. It definitely turned into a great day. It was so terrible to start with but with everything when you are out here, it can quickly turn into an amazing day. And now I lived it and have a great story to tell.

So spring plant is almost done. One shift left and then my crew is going to go do some small planting work and other odd jobs for the company. I think i’ll be sticking around trying to make as much money as possible untill August. Spectrum is a great company to work for because once planting is done you can do so much more work that pays even better then planting.

So we have a 5 day shift coming up and I will be sure to let you know how it goes very soon. …Enjoy the warm weather!

 

I am still alive. I am in a lot of pain but still alive…
A lot has happened over the last two weeks. We moved camp first of all, which led to a wonderfull 3 days off! We are now planting off the Kluskus, near Vanderhoof…the worst fucking town ever! I hate that town so much.
Since we’ve been there the weather has been so terrible. It has been super cold and it hailed on us for three days in a row and even snowed yesterday!

The upside is that we got our first paycheck! It’s alll worth it for that paycheck. It would take me 2 and a half months of work back home to make what I made in one paycheck here. I love bushwork!

I haven’t mentioned the wildlife yet. It’s amazing to go from a city where you see nothing in terms of wildlife to seeing what I see daily. On the 2nd day of this shift I saw a Moose, Fox and Bald Eagle and we just discovered that 4 bald eagles are nesting right near our camp. I’ve also seen so many bears that i’ve lost track of how many.

I miss home but i’m considering staying even longer now. Who knows? I will hopefully update some more in a couple of days.