How I Ended up Planting Trees in Northern Alberta, Canada
"This is where they send the crazy people. Russia has the gulag, Canada has... Us." I was sitting at a trestle table in a large army-style mess tent introducing myself to two tree planters. I had just arrived at a tree-planting field camp in Northern Alberta - and these guys, with wry smiles, tattered clothes and dry wit, represented an accurate introduction to their fellow arboreal crusaders. "What are you doing here?" They asked me. Good question.
So why did I end up back in North America for the first time in almost 15 years, halfway up the gigantic province of Alberta and past the point where agriculture turns into... Well... Trees. A crapload of trees.
For starters, my sister Sophie has been volunteering as a research assistant in the foothills of the Rockies for the spring and summer (see her blog for squirrel-based hilarity). Then, in April I met a Canadian in a Manila hostel when I was travelling the Philippines with some friends from Yangon. We got on well (even after a 14 hour bus ride) and ended up hanging out for a week, discovering that he had worked as a treeplanter probably less than 50km from where Sophie was based. That's a pretty big coincidence for a country like Canada, where roadside signs give triple-digit distances as standard and you cross time zones instead of county borders.
Lucas had an infectious enthusiasm for his home that was for me completely alien, but immediately engaging. I guess I have to admit harbouring a lingering, weird distrust of people who can claim to love their hometowns and homelands - perhaps borne out of my own uneasiness towards the concept of 'home' and the whiff of nationalism and parochialism it sometimes exudes. However, it was clear that this guy was neither of those - he loved the land, its beauty, the ability to work outside, and the relative freedom that seasonal work can afford. I had decided in the spring to spend July in Greece on a working holiday, but when I got home from the Philippines I changed my mind, booked some budget flights to Calgary, and took the opportunity to see my sister, a new friend, and a new country.
Which is how I landed myself in a camp of self-deprecating 'dirty hippies' armed with good-natured camaraderie in the face of wet boots, merciless mosquitos and early alarm clocks.
So that’s why I was there - but why were the planters there? Logging is a huge business in Canada, but lumber and paper production companies are required to reforest the areas they cut each year, which is where the planting companies come in. They compete for contracts with the sawmills, hire tree planters and pay them for each tree that they plant to strict quality and density standards. Tree planting is strenuous and seriously tough work - you can use the caloric equivalent of a person who has run a marathon, having to schlep heavy bags of saplings hooked to your belt all day while you dig, plant and repeat for ten hours, on a four days on, one day off rota. The appeal? You are paid for as much - or as little - as you plant. If you’re efficient, you can potentially make enough cash during the season to live, or travel, for the rest of the year - as long as you are prepared to rough it in a field camp for 3-4 months.
The core of the camp consists of a sizeable canvas kitchen tent, mess tent, office tent (complete with cheerful dog, folding camp chairs and scattered mud-stained maps), shower tents (heated, but rumoured to break on freezing wet days). Other available amenities are freshly-dug outhouses (affectionally known as shitters) and a noxious ‘drying room’ where a wood burning stove makes a valiant, yet ultimately futile attempt to dry waterlogged hiking boots and soggy long johns.
On a day-to-day basis, people wake around 6am with a call to breakfast at half 6ish. Breakfast is hearty, with porridge, bread, cereal, hot options and fruit. Jenny and Alyssa’s work never seems to be done: the two cooks prepare delicious food daily for the entire camp (about 50 people), in huge rustic gas ovens, but always have time for a warm smile and a chat in the kitchen. At the same time as brekkie, a massive array of sandwich fillings is laid out for the planters to prepare a packed lunch with. Hummus, pickles, tuna mayo - even gummy worms for a much-needed 3pm sugar boost.
By about 7 the planters traipse slowly into their teams and head with their assigned foreman to the area they'll plant in. “Thunder’s crew, to the pad!” yelled the camp director, prompting a small group of labourers in mismatched clothes to troop zombie-like towards a cleared, raised section of grass. Transport out of camp is by helicopter or weatherbeaten yellow school bus. At this company, the former comes in two varieties: a modern model, and an old clunky, flying antique with Vietnam-war-style sliding doors (“I hope to avoid going up in that one,” said Lucas). The latter comes in one variety: mud-splattered, with old analogue photos featuring tree planters of old taped above the windows.
When they reach the ‘block’, or area to be planted, each worker is assigned their ‘piece’, and they proceed to plant as much as they can (getting paid between 11 and 16 cents a tree), then are picked up in the late afternoon and taken back to camp. The aforementioned kitchen warriors prepare 'appies' (appetisers, aka soup and salad) for those too ravenous to wait, then dinner follows shortly after. The veggie options were prolific and I drooled over (then ate) stuffed mushrooms, quinoa salad, kale and more.
So there's your general set-up, but what about the people who actually live there? As soon as we arrived, Lucas exchanged affectionate greetings with everyone who came his way and introduced me to about half the camp - most of the names promptly flew unceremoniously out of my short term memory like disobedient carrier pigeons, but I can't say I didn't try. What was memorable was being welcomed with open arms by everyone I met. Lucas' close friends had seemingly heard much of me - nerve wracking!
The camp feels like a combination of an extended music and arts festival, a forced labour detention centre, a survivalist's pet experiment, and a loving home for all the wanderers, vagabonds, artists, students, musicians, lost souls and great thinkers that make up the employees. One of my favourites was Ryan, a tousle-haired guy from Winnipeg raised in a Mennonite family, home schooled with an encyclopaedic knowledge of world affairs that ranged from the Kachin Independence Army in Myanmar to informed opinions on Brexit. Holed up there in the bush are some of the best kind of people in the world, and their endearingly dirt-smeared faces will be ingrained in my memory for a while to come.
Two of the highlights of my visit were attempting to plant some trees, and taking on the weighty responsibility of quiz master for camp's 'Simpsons Trivia' on their equivalent of a Friday night. The company director Cal, weathered in the face with a shaggy shock of blonde hair, asked if I wanted to give planting a try. At first I thought he was joking - when it was clear he was not, there was no way I'd say no.
The following morning, I sat with a bag of borrowed gear by my feet, at the front of the big yellow school bus Lucas was driving with one hand on the huge wheel. Cal poked his head in the door: "It's customary to smoke marijuana before, during and after the job" he quipped (sincerely). James, a Brit with a double nose ring, looked at Lucas with sardonically raised eyebrows: "She's coming planting? She must really like you, man!" On the seat behind me, a girl cuddled her dog, who snoozed in her arms before a dreamy day on the block. I bet all dogs wish their owners were planters.
All aboard? Lucas driving us to work.
Despite threats of bug swarms and swampy mud, I was lucky - it was a near perfect morning, and after watching Lucas plant what seemed like a tree every 0.03 seconds I was let loose with a shovel and bags The most important things are making sure the tree is: firmly in the ground, and not just resting in mulch, straight, and well-spaced in relation to the other trees. Overseers make the rounds intermittently, like Dave, a tall, tanned planting veteran who looked like he had been shipwrecked on his way to an office job in a full-sleeved button down smart shirt and pants, both stained a flattering khaki brown. We chatted and he checked on me for a while, explaining the random spot checks, like running a rope in a circle to count and check if the spacing of trees within that area is correct. If you mess up, you have to replant. Ouch.
Me modelling a sweat-reducing hairstyle and planting bags
The work itself is repetitive and exhausting, but it has a somewhat meditative quality to it, especially being outside in such a remote, solitary environment. I can see why it appeals as you gain experience, becoming more attuned to the varying landscapes and what they each require of you, and learning how to optimise your task. The weather can range from blasting heat to pelting hail. By the afternoon, our field was waterlogged from rain and Tim trudged down the road to help Lucas on his piece.
Tim is a large broad-shouldered guy with long hair, a huge bushy beard and intricate ink snaking up his left arm - lyrics to a Pixies song, he said when I asked. Plastered with mud in the heavy rain, he had taken his shirt off and, brandishing his shovel, looked uncannily like a Viking about to charge into battle. ‘Battle’ is an apt description of what he does with the uneven, debris-filled land: being a high earner he likely hits a tree almost every 5 seconds. Planters keep track of how much they earn by peeling off the tags from each box of baby trees they finish, and handing them in at the end. By the end of my stint (before I holed up in the bus from drizzling rain), I managed to plant about 350 spruce trees. By the end of the day, Lucas had hit well over 3000. Room for improvement, although I was told I did a good job for a noob.
Lucas counting box tags - motivation!
What the planters endure in brutal working conditions they make up for in their friendships and the social nature of the camp. Without 3G or wifi, entertainment goes old school: from costume parties, ‘Half Christmas’ homemade gift exchange (which was celebrated the day I left), to anything involving general nudity - that is, if Lucas had anything to do with it.
I was invited to help present a quiz game by Ryan, the disarmingly gregarious and knowledgeable foreman I mentioned earlier. It was on a Day 4, which means a day off followed so there was fun to be had that evening. I helped compere the comically absurd ‘Simpsons trivia’ competition with him, Becky, Luke and Scott as contestants. Lucas was scoreboard, arming his left hand with a whiteboard pen and wearing the board around his neck, recording names and points from upside-down and assigning ‘Ass-terixes’ (*) to the tally of anyone being especially unruly (he later acquired an ass-terix to the face after slamming a makeshift ice-pack gavel on the table and squirting its goo over all the contestants). Lucas’ mischievous friend Milo provided comic relief and tagged in with him when I retired (may or may not have been due to excessive Crown Royal whisky consumption).
The evening passed riotously, with me hamming up my accent, exchanging banter, and watching an inexplicable yet singularly brilliant 8 minute dance-off to the B-52s 1970s hit 'Rock Lobster'. I also had no idea it was possible to know so much about the Simpsons.
The remains of the scoreboard the following day - and a ‘Half Christmas’ poem in the background.
Leaving the next day was hard. I felt like I had been initiated into something special that I had barely begun to experience. Returning back to Edmonton with Tim the planting Viking, I found myself missing the bush, Lucas, and all the faces I’d met so briefly.
The tree-planting life, for all its obvious hardships, holds inherently valuable qualities: its irreverence for the norm, its bucking of convention, its sense of community and fellowship, and the absence of the distractions that tend to pull us humans away from each other and the natural world, and, I believe, our happiness. As a teacher, I think it would be beneficial for kids to learn about alternative styles of living - of people making their own way in the world, rather than just the dominant narrative. Perhaps there are city workers in call centres counting down night shifts who would be happier working their long hours in the bush, then enjoying the off season. Who knows - maybe there will be a time when I head into the wilderness for a stint.
For some brilliant photos that capture the life well, check out http://jpmarquis.ca/one-million-trees/
There’s even a TV series that sent some whiny British kids off planting and documented the results: the episodes on YouTube, I watched a bit of it and found it pretty accurate. The kids are a bore though.
Accommodation - anything, as long as you provide it yourself! Ranging from Lucas' reliable 2-man tent, to Jess and Tim's lovingly hand-carpentered converted yellow school bus home, to beaten up vans and larger tents with porches and tree-draped tarps.
Shitters - affectionate and apt term for the camp latrines. Bush-style.
Block - the field where the planters are working
Piece - your particular assigned area to plant, sometimes demarcated by tracking tape
Plug - the dirt and root of the tree that needs to be put straight in the ground
Close - sealing the ground around the tree after it's been inserted - usually done with the boot in about .5 seconds, or, for extra style points, a bended knee.
Cache - a makeshift tarp storage area for tree boxes on the block, allegedly[?] to keep them cool. Also doubles as shade for weary planters / chill spot for slackers
Leggings / tights - unisex field gear / bug deterrent: the more outrageously patterned and torn up the better.
