Feels Like Planting Weather

Weather is getting warmer now. It’s about this time of year when I remember my 5 summers of treeplanting—where I earned money to go to college and university each year. We’d always be in some God-forsaken place like Fraser Lakes, Smithers, Valemount, Williston Lake (Itusk), Meziaden Junction/Stewart, Fort St. John or Deese Lake but usually we started in Prince George. Up there, in May, when we started the season, they had the same kind of weather as we have down here in March and April—same smells and temperature in the morning. I can still remember waking up in the tent—ya, we lived in tents—and getting ready for the day. Put on my (usually) damp boots and get to the mess tent and make lunch, wolf down breakfast (bacon and eggs and all that good stuff) and then get to the block (that’s what they call the field we planted in). My fourth year I was a foreman and fifth year I was an assistant foreman (ended up I did hardly any work and still got about the same pay as being a foremen—or more!). We did a lot: drove BIG trucks (7.2 litre engines), had a couple of helicopter contracts (where we got choppered into and out of the block everyday) and shot a bear each year (them things can get dangerous around camp). You really learn how to make do (the nearest town might be 30 minutes to 4 hours away) and work hard (it’s all piecework, paid by the tree: about 10 to 20 cents each, if you can believe it). Anyways, not that I miss it..I just remember it. Even near the end of my fifth year I wondered if I should return for one more…then I thought, “Naaaaah.”

Time to work in my warm, dry office now.