Tree Planting What You Need to Know

This summer job is brutally hard but rewarding

Bruce Montcombroux, The Manitoban (University of Manitoba)

WINNIPEG (CUP)—Whatcha baggin’?
You make your deuce? Considering tree
planting as a road to summer riches? It
can be done, but it takes a lot of hard
work.

Before moving on to other, greener
pastures of summer employment, I used
to plant trees. In fact, over my numerous
seasons, I have planted some three-quar-
ters of a million trees from Ontario across
to Manitoba, Northern Alberta, British
Columbia, and the upper regions of
Vancouver Island. All those summers add
up to about two cumulative years of living
in a tent.

Apart from the actual monotonous
planting of the trees and harsh working
conditions, it was a pretty good summer
job—definitely a worthwhile experience.
On the downside, tree planting is not all
about carefully renewing old-growth
forests or reclaiming forest fire-ravaged
wilderness. It is mostly “tree farming’”—
planting clear-cuts on lumber
company-managed land for later harvest.

Tree planters form part of a unique
culture of workers engaged in seasonal,
migrant labour across North America.
Because of the small and usually tight-
knit communities that evolve over the
summer months, tree planting is often
described as the best and worst experi-
ence one can have. If you can stick it
through a full season, you may find your
character changed and your horizons
slightly broadened.

Like any job, tree planting has its own
jargon, rules, and code of ethics—how
one chooses to follow them is entirely up
to the individual. Unlike road-construc-
tion workers, hydro-electrical
maintenance crews, surveyors, or loggers,
tree planters can spend weeks isolated in
the deep bush, northern forest regions, or
atop Canada’s western mountains while
living in fairly primitive conditions. In
addition, tree planters usually pay a “camp
cost” of about 30 dollars a day just to get
fed and driven to work.

Because of the nature of the job,
workplace safety and health regulations
are often bent to get things done—not to
mention the notoriously spendthrift silvi-
culture companies’ quest to save money.
But this is a reality that is hard to avoid
when working in the bush.

Machinery is often taxed to its limits
and repaired in any manner possible.
Workdays are often longer than anything
you have encountered—one can expect
the “workweek” to drag on for weeks at a
time. Breaks are self-administered and
often non-existent if you want to be a

March 9/2005

“high-baller”—meaning that you make a
“deuce,” or $200 or more a day above
camp costs. And, as a rule, the hot-water
heater always breaks right before it is your
turn to shower. As any old-timer will tell
you, the bush has its own set of rules—

 

 

 

 

that do not fit into
policy-makers’ formulas.

The small solace is that good company
owners and camp bosses are, for the most
part, no-nonsense—although not always
honest—individuals that deal with prob-
lematic situations swiftly. After all, the
dollar is the bottom line and they rely on
good workers and a sound season for
their profits.

The owner of the company I worked
for was nicknamed “Full Metal Jim,” pre-
sumably after R. Lee Ermey’s unshakable
character, Gunnery Sergeant Hartman in
Stanley Kubrick’s movie, Fu// Metal Jacket.
Company owners also have the uncanny
ability to look you straight in the eye and
lie to you without batting an eyelid or los-
ing their convincing smile. But then, often
that’s okay. All you really need to know is
how many trees you put in the ground
that day.

Among the many factors that affect
the hybrid environment of reforestation,
are company finances and changing con-
tract deals, which, behind the daily grind
of sticking trees in the ground, can alter
everything at a moment’s notice. In reali-
ty, tree planting is tree farming, and much
like agricultural production, weather and
prices affect the level of production.
Reforestation companies are often under
contract to complete jobs within specific

ones neatly

periods and are tempted by big-dollar cor-
porate and governmental bonuses if they
finish early. Sometimes these incentives
are passed on to the planters, and some-
times they are not. It all depends on the
company.

Morale is everything in the bush.
Camp conditions can go from good to
bad in a matter of moments. Rain, bad
food, cold showers, theft, and arguments
can send a whole camp on a downward
spiral. It takes a certain presence of mind

 

oe

to hold it together in times like these,
because, after all, making the most money
as possible is the main objective for put-
ting up with all the discomforts. It is an
odd symbiotic relationship among one-
self, the environment, and the company.
The monotony, physical strain, and some-
times-harsh conditions are realities of the
job.

For some, the drudgery is quelled by
engaging in one of tree planting’s more
notorious reputations. Planting is one of
the few jobs out there where you can con-
sume as much marijuana as humanly
possible and not lose your job—so long
as you actually keep doing your work, of
course. Although, given the current ille-
gality of cannabis, no reforestation
company would ever openly admit to tol-
erating such activity—and some actually
do not.

Despite the organic nature of the job,
planting is a capitalist venture through
and through. Rookie or “green” planters
will most likely find themselves planting
new harvests on land clear-cut by lumber
giants such as Weyerhaeuser, Abitibi-
Consolidated, and Slocan Canfor. The
daily witness of deforestation on such a
massive scale combined with the knowl-
edge that what you plant is eventually
slated for toilet paper, serviettes, and junk
mail is discouraging to say the least.

 

When one experiences first-hand the
after-effects of logging and its environ-
mental damage, it can fundamentally alter
your denial about the negative impact of
excessive consumerism. Arguably, we do
need lumber and paper products, but
issues of consumption and sustainability
come to the forefront. Lumber companies
do engage in some sustainable practices,
but given growing ecological concerns,
one has to question if it is enough.

It is not all ugly, however, there is a sil-
ver lining. After my first season, I began
working on isolation crews that were
often flown by helicopter to remote loca-
tions to replant areas for conservation.
These areas were usually naturally defor-
ested by fire or had been cut decades ago
and abandoned. The beauty of these con-
tracts was that whatever was planted was
left to nature’s management system and
not boardroom decisions.

Living in the pristine wilderness, with-
out toad access, where the water is
potable and the immensity of the land-
scape dwarfs your own sense of existence,
prompts a sense of stewardship and
responsibility. I am not one to openly
espouse hard ecological views, but living
and working among old-growth forests
and its many natural denizens, brought me
as close as I will ever come to being a tree-
hugger.

I highly recommend tree planting as a
summer job. Sure, it is brutally hard work,
but you can make good money if you
work hard—and I mean really hard. It
does, however, take a while to learn to
avoid the dreaded re-planting of ill-plant-
ed trees—you do not get paid the second
time around. Obviously the full brunt of
insects, wild animals, torrential rain, knee-
deep mud, freezing cold, snow in the early
season, broiling temperatures, and exces-
sive UV levels must all be contended
with—but you will adapt.

The scope of characters you meet and
the friends you make may last a lifetime;
mutual manual labour has the tendency to
bond people together. Some of the more
influential people I have known, I met
tree planting; their character, calmness,
and response to adversity and emergen-
cies left me with a deep sense of respect
for their self-control and awareness. The
stories one accumulates, both personal
and shared, range from the hilarious to
the tragic, but lead towards a fuller under-
standing of humanity.

If you last the season, the goodbyes
are the hardest part and make you want to
do everything over again—apart from
actually putting the trees in the ground.

Nature is in constant change. What is
good one day is not the next; the same
applies for reforestation companies. I
hope you find a good one. Still, if you take
my advice, you will probably curse me at
some point this summet.

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