Season Four

Season Four – Tree Planting

Last modified on 2018-10-06 18:13:26 GMT. 1 comment. Top.

I was visiting MEC today with some friends, buying some stuff for our bikes and other tidbits(it’s so easy to spend too much money at that store) when I overheard someone talking about going out planting. We chit-chatted for a while and I got to thinking that I haven’t mentioned the fact that I’ll be leaving for season four of tree planting in a little over a week. Season four, can you believe it? I can’t. It seems like yesterday that little, overweight Jeremy nervously planted his first tree. I still remember the first piece of land I ever got. It was a beautiful, flat, trenched piece. I had no idea what I was doing and planted against the trenches. For those reading this who have no idea what I just wrote, sorry.

I leave on May 3rd and I have so much left to do. See doctor, see friends, get gear in order, fix tent, etc. All of this with an exam next week(on my birthday!)
As usual I will be writing throughout the season and this year promises to be good. My writing skills have greatly improved, I will still be dealing with being a vegan tree planter, I’m in better shape going in than ever and fingers crossed, will make good money.

One Week In

Last modified on 2018-10-06 18:13:20 GMT. 0 comments. Top.

The sun was shining on the day I left. Running to the bank and dollar store before heading to the airport left beads of sweat running down my face. Even as thunder clouds started making noise in the distance, I relished in the warmth of my Montreal home knowing full well that the one place in the country not enjoying the same treatment was where I would be spending the next 3 months.
And how right I was.

The mornings are cold. The mornings are cold enough to freeze the water in our bottles, freeze the pipes carrying our dish/shower water, cold enough to freeze wet dishes together and leave a thick coating of frost on every truck window. We don’t expose our hands and most of us drink the awful coffee not for the taste but so our hands can touch something a little warmer than the inside of our pockets.
While the mornings are hard to bare, the days have been nice. You quickly undress as you begin your day and apart from the few flakes of snow, we’ve been lucky enough to see mostly sunshine.

We have a lot of new people in our camp this year. It’s really interesting to watch them plant and think: “was that really me?”
The best thing about having a camp of rookies is that everyone gets along. No cliques are made, everyone enjoys the campfire and tries to remember everyones names(this is with the exception of one crew which has completely isolated itself from the rest of camp for whatever reason)

And it should be noted that unlike last year, the food in great and the cooks are wonderful! While I hoped to really focus on life as a vegan tree planting, I have not made that a focus on this blog. The first 2 seasons we had a wonderful cook who really took care of me as the only vegan. Last year…well I will sum up last year with a quote from the cook to myself:
“if you think we have a problem, I’ll fucking headbutt you, then we’ll see who has a problem” Needless to say, we didn’t get along and when he didn’t refuse to feed me, I still ended up going to bed hungry.
This year has seen a return to the great food one should expect from the cooks. The soups are vegan, the bread is vegan and delicious and the options have been wonderful.

Tree Planting & Guns

Last modified on 2018-10-06 18:13:20 GMT. 0 comments. Top.

He asked the question knowing that no matter the response, the follow up would be the same,
“Ever shot a gun?”
The answer was no and the follow up was, “Well do ya wanna shoot one?”
Mike, missing front teeth, built solid and lacking in the ability to include the letter G at the end of words like ‘fishin’, ‘shootin’, ‘goin’ and his two friends had decided to join our camp as we celebrated our night off. Natives of the Nazko Valley, we met them with certain apprehention but mostly thought nothing of them.

Mike led me to his truck where his two friends we sitting inside. Obviously drunk at this point, Mike pulls out a .303 rifle, loads it with a bullet and hands it off to me. This was probably when I realized that maybe these weren’t the type of people who should be handling firearms. Any doubts in my head were quickly erased as I watched all three of them do excessive amounts of cocaine. Being the friendly folk that they are, they offered and I flatly refused.
“Anyone here do hard shit or are they all pussies smokin’ weed? Tell them we got extasy for sale”

My nights sleep was lovely and included getting woken up at 4am by gunshots, yelling, threats of fire, threats of theft, fist fights and car tires screeching off. When would this ever be normal except for tree planting?

This was a week before our 6 day shift to end our first contract. Our final day ended in a small blizzard but was made up for by 3 days in the city and a hottub at our motel.

We find ourselves in Vanderhoof for this contract and can be found at kilometer 124 on the Kluskus. This puts us 2hrs away from the nearest town.
The atmosphere in our camp is tense. If an Elementary school Model UN Club and the participants of the Special Olympics formed a group and were given pointy sticks and duct tape, it would very much resemble our camp rivalry. We are divided into little suburbs of tents and war has been declared between my Republic(led by me) and Fuzistan(which is led by Fuz and includes Zakrak and Timdia)
It started with me stealing Fuz’s flag, was followed by Fuz spreading toilet paper around my tent and ended with me locking Fuz out of his tent. While a treaty was brokered for night off, I fully expect to come back to the burnt remains of my tent later today.

Hospitals

Last modified on 2018-10-06 18:13:47 GMT. 0 comments. Top.

It began with a dull pain and was promptly filed under the “it must be a bug bite” category. After our final planting day in Vanderhoof we took our day off in Prince George and spent some much needed time doing absolutely nothing.
When a bump appeared above my bellybutton and the pain continued, I became worried. We set up camp in Hixon, I planted for two days and was told to stop working until I could see a doctor. So I spent a boring day as a tree checker and grabbed a ride at night into the Prince George Emergency Room.

I entered the Emergency room and signed in with the nicest and admirably patient nurses I have yet to meet. Passing two elderly woman on a stretcher as I went to take my seat, they whispered, “Boy, he’s gonna be here a long time”
It may be a function of an emergency room at 10pm but a room of such sickly people, I had yet to witness.
There were the sickly looking native woman, the sickly looking mustached man, the sickly/pasty looking kid, the obese woman squeezed into chairs, the football jock with a concussion and the constant flow of homeless men. All the while the silence is pierced by the television playing some insidious kids show and the room is made unbearable by the stench of booze.

Before my eyes have time to adjust the sickly/pasty looking kid gets to his feet and projectile vomits onto the sickly looking mustached man. This is the point where I realized would be in for a sad and long evening.

Two hours pass and people have come and gone. The sickly/pasty looking kid has vomited several more times and replacing the obese woman in front of me is a prison inmate and his prison guard. While the prison guard keeps making little remarks about his companions lack of freedom, the prison inmate, while mild mannered, keeps loudly referring to the prison guards salary and current overtime status. This goes back and forth for most of the night.
The football jock was knocked out and does not remember anything from that day. The entire night he repeats the same four or five lines ad nauseum.
“The only thing I remember was watching the UFC last night.” “When does our season start again?” “I feel like I just woke up from a dream.” “It’s funny because I normally have a great memory.” “I watched the UFC last night but don’t know who won.” “My memory is normal so good, this is frustrating.” “What day is it? When does our season start again.” “All I remember is watching the UFC last night.”

At midnight as I’m left wondering, ‘If the kid vomiting over everyone and the jock with a terrible concussion haven’t seen a doctor, when will I’?
I finally get called in and am told not too worry, to return to work but to keep an eye out on my issue and return if it gets any worse. So the doctor doesn’t know whats wrong with me but it’s not a herniated muscle, which would require surgery. He seems to want me to leave his examination room asap and with good reason but I left with the good news I wanted. Good enough I guess? If I am dead within the week from internal bleeding, we all know who to blame.

Can’t Maintain

Last modified on 2018-10-06 18:13:20 GMT. 0 comments. Top.

Much To Do About

Last modified on 2018-10-06 18:14:11 GMT. 1 comment. Top.

Flying from Vancouver on a small plane powered by propellers and flying low, the landscape is littered with fire lines. The 400 fires, most of which are burning in the area I’m about to go work in, have left the air smokey and barely breathable.
We were all laid off in early July and I went back to Montreal for a much needed break. I biked, saw friends and ate too much food.
Now I am back in British Columbia to spray herbicide into clear cuts, a job that isn’t as evil and awful as you might think(and we should discuss the reasons why tree planting isn’t wonderful for the environment one day)

There is a saying in Forestry and speaks volumes; “Hurry up and wait”. We spend so much time waiting, sitting in motel rooms, drinking coffee, flying across the country only to find out that work doesn’t start for another 4 days and none of it is paid. But when you do work and life is miserable and you are dreaming of home but you remember how much money you’re making, it’s all worth it.
So far I’ve flown in, had a day off , floated down the river on a mattress, worked one day and now have another day off.

We had a 3 hour drive yesterday to get to a cut block. We drove into the mountains and passed by little towns with three residents, closed down mills, general stores that have been long abandoned. Even in bigger towns in Northern Canada you realize how unpredictable life and money are. These cities have been built on the back of a dying industry and little by little, the jobs and people leave. These small, quaint, lovely towns suffer from drug problems, theft, prostitution and violence that only gets worse as the market plummets.

Tree Planting Freaks

Last modified on 2018-10-06 18:14:10 GMT. 0 comments. Top.

Welcome to the land of grown ups. We all leave our homes, live our lives, do terrible things, good things, things we want to forget or capture and 3 months later, we return from tree planting to another form of our grown up lives.
If you are a tree planter/forestry worker or are thinking of joining the ranks then it’s important to note that this job requires a complete interruption of all normality for the summer and each subsequent summer you return, and you probably will return.
Relationship? It’ll end. Friends? You will return to them with stories they can’t relate to and experiences you’ve missed out on.
As pessimistic as this may be, I do truly believe that the positive aspects of this job and experience have greatly outweighed the negatives. My friends are still my friends, I’ve gained a lot of experience and have many stories to tell on top of making lot’s of money, new friends and getting in shape.

I must say, we’ve got quite the motley crew working right now. We are a bunch of dirty and tired broadcast sprayers and we have not spent much time in civilized society(and this dirty 20$-a-night motel is not civilized)
When one of our crew members parents heard of our plight, they did the unexpected and invited us all over, all 16 of us, to a BBQ at their family home.
Boy, what a ratty bunch we were, I cannot stress this enough. We rolled up, dressed in our Sunday best. A ratty pair jeans and a black polo, the nicest western shirt Fuz could find, a Canucks shirt and a black Hot Water Music shirt(the band, not a Bukowski reference)

Merlot(pronounced: Mer-lot) was served, steaks were cooked for each of us and we succeeded in not being a complete embarrassment in the civilized world. We all walked around afraid of staining the white carpets, swearing in front of the parents, who swore more than any of us and we all made sure to use our forks and knives.
I don’t know if I’ve ever felt like such a fish out of water.