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The summer of 2001 saw me in the woods of Nakina, Ontario. The tree planting experience is a strong one and one I'd suggest to everyone during the university years.
The following is a little journal I put together…


May 8th, 5:10am

The alarm clock's pierce brings me out of my sleeping bag slumber and into the waking world of kitchen trailer noise. Pots are clanging, voices rise and fall, and slowly I make my way into a
somewhat conscience state - at the very least I am able to come to the proper realization of where I am: a tent in a work camp in Northern Ontario. It is with this awareness that I grudgingly accept the fact that, yes, I am supposed to be getting up at this unseemly hour. The air is chilled so I waste no time going from sleeping bag to warm clothes. Four layers up top, two layers for the legs, two pairs of socks, and a fuzzy toque are adorned before stepping out into the dark morning. There is snow on the ground - not just frost, but actual snow. Apparently this is not uncommon. I watch my breath float away and wonder if it's always this cold at this time of the morning at this time of year - the only difference being that usually I'd be sleeping through this pre-sunrise chill. Rubbing my hands together I gather my utensils and head out in search of my routine.

I am the first one on the bus. The cafeteria bus, that is. In here I go about preparing my lunch - a couple desert squares, an orange, a banana and two sandwiches (one PB&J and one ham, cheese, lettuce, and cucumber) - and I try to keep up with the energy that the cooks are displaying. I am not made to talk so much in the mornings, but they manage to bring me to a state resembling life.

The breakfast consists of more grease than a Macdonald's deep fryer and I am surprised to find myself eating scrambled eggs, bacon, sausages and a grilled cheese sandwich with very little problem. At home my morning meals usually consist of one toasted bagel (I have one of those as well) and don't come before ten o'clock. This is just one of the very many changes that I expect tree planting to bring about in me.

May 8th, 6:35am

The old school bus lurches forward and we leave the campsite a mere five minutes late. The seats are dusty and torn, the walls are adorned with crude graffiti, the engine is loud, and the roads contain more craters than a lunar landscape. The ride is a jarring affair and, listening to the constant rattling, it is not impossible to imagine the bus simple shaking apart.

May 8th, 8:15am

We arrive on the block for our orientation. For the last hour we've been riding past what seemed like an endless succession of clear-cuts. The logging road we were on weaved like a raised scar through this bruised landscape: a landscape that, despite my environmental protests, strikes me as beautiful in a wide-open, desolate kind of way.

Finally the bus pulls over and all us eager planters-to-be pile out into the cold northern air. To either side of us low, scrubby land falls away from the road and stretches out to the distant tree line. This is far from the manicured fields that many of us had been expecting to plant in. Instead there is tall grass mixed with deep trenches mixed with rocky outcroppings mixed with stands of still-standing trees. And all of this occupies an extremely daunting amount of land.

However, this is just orientation, and the implications are put away. Instead we focus on the routine ahead. As we had done the day before to get acquainted with camp life, we split up into crews and proceed to learn about different aspects of the tree planting process. Yesterday the stations consisted of such things as The Kitchen, K.P. Duty, Health and Safety, The Contract, and General Camp Rules; today we go through Bagging Up, Plotting Your Land, Fire Safety, Quality, and Production.

A typical 8-to-6 planting day, we learn, will go like this: arrive on the block with your crew, get assigned a chunk of land and a cache (the boxes of trees by the side of the road), bag-up (fill your planting bags with trees), plant, return to the cache to bag-up again. Repeat. We are also told of the various bad ways to plant a tree - too deep, too shallow, not in the proper soil, too wet, too low on the trench wall, too close to a natural tree…the list seems endless - and given a few tips on faster production (though it is stressed that our primary concern, especially at the start, should be quality).

Through it all I wait for them to show us how to actually properly put a tree in the ground. When it becomes apparent that they don't plan on doing this (perhaps they assume it is obvious), I humbly ask for a slow demonstration.

It is fairly simple. It does not involve digging a hole as the people who cannot imagine planting thousands of trees in a day would imagine. All that is required is one stab of the shovel and a rotation or pullback to open a slit. Once this is done, the planting hand slides a tree in, the shovel blade is pulled out, and the slit is stamped closed. Repeat this every 7-½ feet and you're golden. Stab, plant, stamp, step, step, stab, plant, stamp…




May 10th, 3:05pm

It's still raining. It's been coming down with varying strength all day. It's a cold rain and we are advised not to stop moving even if we are just waiting at the side of the road to receive more trees. It's the kind of day that sends the first set of rookies home. Yet I am not feeling too bad. The rain is not bringing me down any more than a sunny day would. The frustration that I feel is one that lingers from the day before.

On our first full day of planting I could not imagine how I was ever to make any money at this job. At 8 cents a tree the amount of work I was putting into each seedling seemed ridiculously out of proportion. I cursed when my shovel hit rock. I cursed when I sunk into mud past my knee. I looked to the sky and proclaimed loudly (but in my head) that there was no (string of nasty words) soil to be found anywhere in my vicinity. It seemed so simple when stated plainly - plant a tree, walk seven and a half feet, plant another tree. Yet here I was ready to admit defeat and claim that there were no plant-able spots on my land.

A quick talk with the crew boss assured me that my block was of decent quality and that by the end of the contract I'll be wishing I'd seen more of such land. That was hard to imagine as I walked through swamps, kicked through duff, fought through overgrowth, and banged my shovel against countless rocks. It was only then that I realised that the actual act of planting a tree is relatively easy: it's finding an acceptable spot to do it that comprises the challenge.

Somehow I soldiered on and was rewarded with the end-of-the-day knowledge that most rookies had been through the same thing. On the bus ride home and throughout dinner our bonding took place with the recounting of our frustrating days and how we'd felt beaten by our land.

The funny thing is, most of those stories were told with smiles on our faces and a steady stream of laughter.

May 12, sometime deep into the night

The fire is burning bright but for now it takes a back seat to the Aurora Borealis. Above us and around us the green waves float and dance and leave us hypnotized by its brilliant beauty.

The beers I've drank have me feeling slightly less then coordinated when playing the guitar so it is just as well that I stop strumming and soak up the colour.

This is definitely part of what I came for.

So far it is the people who pull us through. At this point we are trying not to look at this as a job - if we did, the pitiful amount of money we've made so far would be depressing. So instead we call it an experience. An experience to be outdoors and to be cut off from the civilized world. An experience to test ourselves both physically and mentally. An experience to meet new people and share with them our stories and laughter, our frustrations and successes, our beauty marks and our warts.

May 16th, noon-ish

My day did not get far before I heard the dreaded word: replant. The word came from my crew boss and I saw my morning and afternoon slip away. We are only paid to put the trees in the ground once and they have to be done correctly. If the quality of our planted land is not deemed satisfactory, it must be replanted at our own expense.

Throwing a plot is what a check of the land is referred to. The crew boss or company checker will throw a shovel at random across our piece and then stand it upright wherever it lands. From there a length of rope is put around the handle and the checker will proceed to walk a circle around the shovel. Judging by the terrain, he will determine how many trees should lie within the circle area (usually ten) and he will check every one of them. If there are too many or too few or if more than one of the trees is deemed poorly planted, he will throw another plot. If this plot also shows more than one error, the planter will have to replant.

In a way I am fortunate that it was my crew boss and not the official checker who has asked for the replant. It meant that I had not yet been assigned a new piece and therefore did not have to travel back to an old chunk of land - a bigger waste of everyone's time. It also meant that I am not yet known to the checker as a questionable planter. If you can prove your quality early, you're chances of rigorous checks later in the contract will be minimized.

And so I tried to take the replant as a necessary rite of passage. Some will tell you that everyone - no matter how good their planting - has to replant at least once. I'm not sure if I believe that, but, nevertheless, it does console.

May 20th, 9:47pm

The dirt road into Nakina (population 700) takes about half an hour to walk. But it's rare that you have to walk the entire distance. If a car - or more likely, a pick-up truck - passes by heading in your direction, odds are it'll stop to pick you.

"Where can I bring ya?" they'll ask. On the way back it's always the same: "The tree planter's camp." Even on the way in the answer seldom varies. The laundromat. The grocery store. The bar when the Stanley Cup playoffs were still going on. Tonight it was the motel on the edge of town. To us planters this represents the nearest phone.

Most nights both pay phones will be occupied by people touching base with families, boyfriends, or girlfriends. The talks can stretch so a wait is often involved. (The phone across the street at the lonely airport remains unused, as it doesn't have a cabin and the mosquitoes render it impossible to stand still outside.)

Tonight I was lucky. The booths stood empty and not a soul showed up to pressure me in my conversation with my girlfriend. I've been gone a few weeks now and, though we have spoken a couple times since then, hanging up the phone is often difficult. But finally, with hushed voices and soft words, the receiver is replaced in its cradle and the connection floats away.

As I walked out of the light of the motel sign and into the darkness of the road that would bring me back to my "home", I stared at the falling sky that still held a band of pink and I hoped that no cars would pass. Tonight I wanted to walk with only the flickering of the fireflies showing the way.

May 22nd, evening

The rookies are starting to space themselves out. Some are getting the hang of it, others still struggle. Others have quit and left. Despite being part of the first group, I often have to chide myself for thinking of joining the last. But I know I will not quit. I will see this through.

Besides, I am finally starting to make some coin; I am finally starting to stumble onto the once unfathomable ways of speeding things up. Personally I like to bag-up relatively light - it avoids the slow start to planting and has me feeling lighter and stronger throughout the day. Despite the fact that it means I have to bag-up more often - something some people frown upon as it takes up a significant amount of non-planting (i.e. non-paid) time - I enjoy the moral boost I get from bagging out. To compensate I fill my bags as fast I can and eat my lunch and snacks on the way back into my land. I try not to spend too much time by the side of the road. My goal is consistency: it is often said that what separates the highballer from the rest of us is the fact that they can work at the same, fast speed throughout the day, every day, regardless of weather, mood, or terrain. They are, in fact, robots.

May 23rd

I will not be a highballer. But I am doing okay. I finally broke the 1,000-tree-in-one-day mark today. My body aches, I am covered in dirt, my fingers cannot run through my hair. I am a mess. As is everyone out here. The frigid waters of the lake by our campground is the closest most of come to a shower during the week. We are grunge.

May 25th, 8:58pm

My planters claw is starting to set in. I stretch out the fingers every morning and every night, pushing each digit back as far as it will go, holding it for a ten count, slowly releasing it. Up here our hands are our primary tools so we must take care of them as best we can. I bought a jar of hand lotion on my first trip into town and I apply a generous amount every evening.

No matter: the claw is coming. The shovel hand soon gets used to the grip that it occupies ten hours a day and so the fingers begin to take the curled shape as the natural shape. Those who let the claw take over have a hell of time straightening out.

The planting hand suffers other ills. Efficiency rules out the use of a glove so it's a bare hand that is plunged into the earth hundreds of times a day. It's a bare hand that screefs away duff and scrapes against rock. In water, sphagnum, soil, and snow the planting hand takes its own beating. Duct tape wrapped tightly around each finger is the best way to go - rock particles being jammed under your nails will convince you of this. However, for me it becomes inevitable that at least one finger will lose its duct tape cap due to water or some other such foe. In any case the hand at the end of the day is one that you would not recognize on the city street.

May 30th, 6:01am

While preparing my lunch I marvel at the fact that I am up to six sandwiches a day now: three PB&J and three assorted cold cuts, cheeses and veggies. Plus three desert squares, a couple oranges, and whatever else may be lying around the bus counter in the morning. I eat them with hands that would make a mother shriek. It doesn't take long before the rookies forego personal hygiene and find themselves shoving food into their mouths with dirt encrusted hands. It's a clean kind of dirt we tell ourselves.

June 4th

The bugs made a mockery of me today. I have a net in front of my face, a T-shirt around my head, my pant and arm cuffs are sealed with duct tape, as is the neck of my long-sleeved shirt. Still my face gets ravaged. It's because my net lies too close to my skin. It's because I often raise it in order to better see the land. It's because I'm sweating like a hot pig under the 30-degree sunshine. I look down at my white sleeve and it is black with black flies. My pants give the illusion of undulating movement as they crawl all over looking for a place to get in. The only thing to do is to keep on moving, keep on planting.

I'm one of the few who use a very minimum of deet. I don't like what I hear about its effects so I try to tough it out. As a result my face is a bloody mess, to the point where I am the subject of more than one picture.

But I am not always the worst one. Each day seems to bring about a new victim. The armour slips and the flies slide in, devouring the sides of the eyes. I tell myself, and those who ask, that it's all okay; I can rest easy in the fact that I know I will outlive each every one of the parasitic sons-o-bitches.

June 7th, 4:54pm

The grungy bus has become the most welcome sight at the end of the day. After five o'clock I will start looking for it. Though I know I should continue planting hard, that I should look at this time as my last desperate attempt to make money on this day, my pace slows as my eyes continuously wander to the road. Soon enough I will hear the weak horn and see the familiar cloud of dust and I will smile and call it a day. It's hard to believe that such a roughshod vehicle can be seen as something approaching Nirvana. But amidst the dirt and dust and lewd walls, I collapse in my peace.

It is equally hard to believe that I - one who rarely is able to sleep in the smoothest cruising cars - will be able to use the 30 to 90 minute bus rides to catch up on my missed sleep. But this is what happens. The rattles and bumps become my lullaby and only when we are moving will my eyes close and my mind drift away.




June 11th, 3:45pm

I'm taking a break by the cache. My body is starting to fail me. I've collapsed twice already today. The first time was early in the morning and was as much mental as it was physical. I just felt so tired and the bags felt so heavy. Many people confess to crying while on the privacy of their land, and I'll admit that I came close. The task ahead just seems so hard and the body and mind want nothing more than to put down the shovel and rest. When it's just you, the land and an endless task, your inner self rises to the surface with no shame. Some people scream, some people hit and throw things, some people sit down and sob. Me, I took a few steps in, stumbled, told myself to go on, berated my weakness, and then fell to my knees. I tilted my head to the earth, squeezed my eyes shut and waited for the helplessness to pass.

Eventually I was able to pull myself up and continue at a laboured pace.

Then, in the afternoon, my right elbow, which had been bothering me for awhile, flared up in pain after a routine shovel stab. It was intense. I dropped the spade and, again, fell to my knees. I may have blacked out for a few seconds but I cannot be sure.

The repetitious motions of planting trees causes undo strains on certain body parts and it is important to keep them limber and to be as kinetically sound as possible. I know there is something wrong with the way I make my C-cut. I know I am applying unnecessary torque to my elbow.

So now I sit and wait for the pain to subside and go about practicing the proper motion of using your entire body to open the soil.

Down but not out.

June 15th, 7:15pm

Today we planted in a forest. The bus stopped at the side of the road and we all looked around in wonderment. There was the cache but where was the block? There was no perceivable crack in the trees that stood on either side of us. There was nothing but lush green forest as far as any of us bewildered planters could tell.

"There's going to be a little downtime for some of you while I setup the flag lines," our crew boss informed us. "It's pretty dense in there so I'll keep the blocks narrow." With that he took the first planters and disappeared into the growth ahead.

"This is ridiculous." One of the more experienced members pointed out the obvious. Normally down time is to be avoided at all costs. Being paid by the tree means you don't get a dime for sitting and waiting - whether or not it is by choice. But this morning no one seemed to mind. Nobody was too anxious to get into this block and so we sprawled out by the side of the road. Sitting on and around the cache we engaged in mindless chatter and idle games, content with the fact that in our minds the day was already a write off.

Soon enough our crew boss came back and asked who's next. We didn't all answer at once.

I was among the last to be sent into the fray and I had the damnedest time figuring out why exactly we were planting here. Tall trees towered above me, most of the land was covered in underbrush and the few open lanes of tall meadow grass seemed dwarfed by the un-plantable spots around them. I found myself constantly getting snagged on bushes and branches. The wide load of my planting bag and the swinging rhythm of my shovel were forever needing to be wrenched free. The rule of thumb in such places is that if you can't fit somewhere, you're not responsible for planting there. I tried to remember this but I often misjudged my girth.

On the plus side, the narrowness of the blocks meant that we could see and hear the planters on either side of us and perhaps it was the novelty of this that caused the general mood to be light. Life often grants you situations where you can only laugh or cry and today, in that ludicrous situation, laughter could be heard throughout.

"This is fucking ridiculous!" would be the call of choice. Often it came from sources unknown; sometimes it came from the person beside me, sometimes from my own lips, but always with a lightness that overwhelmed the frustration.

So it seemed somewhat appropriate that one of us would get attacked by a grouse. And even more appropriate that it would be the biggest joker among us who stumbled upon its nest. With exaggerated curses and cries James let everybody know that something was up in his neck of the woods. Describing it as part turkey and part tiger, he danced around his block claiming it was in hot pursuit. Occasionally he would stop, turn to face his assailant and emit something between a primal scream and a deranged growl, hoping that his noise combined with his flapping arms would deter the grouse from further action. No such luck. The only result of his display of bravado was a slight hesitation on the bird's part and the continuous laughter of Anita who was "planting" beside him. Finally he wandered off what the grouse deemed to be its territory and he proceeded to flag off the contested land as an indication to the checker that he could not plant there.

"James," Anita said between fits of laughter. "You've flagged off a third of your land!"

"That's alright," he replied. "I'm not taking any chances. If the checker has a problem with it, she can talk to the grouse."

And so it went.

Eventually our crew boss pulled us off the land with a strikingly similar statement.

"If she wants that land planted, she can plant it herself."

I claimed a mere 650 trees today and yet it felt like one of the best.

June 16th, 4:40pm

Today was the day I decided to go for the coveted 3,000 tree mark. As early as two days before the thought had entered my head. I tried to keep it to myself - didn't want to build up any expectations - but when my crew boss gave me a piece of creamy land I could tell that he too thought it might be in the cards. A comfortable breeze to keep the bugs away and the temperature down combined with the motivation that we were being paid tree-and-a-half (due to it being a weekend) had me planting at a 6-7 trees a minute pace. Factoring in the average bag up time and the early 4 o'clock ending for today, I calculated that I was on pace to hit my goal. My crew boss checked in on me periodically and asked me how I was doing. I'd simply say that I was feeling good and planting as well as I could. I tried to downplay the number, but he always left yelling, "Come on, 3,000! It's yours!" And so it was.

I tried to keep it quiet, knowing that it won't be so. Word got out and as is the case when anyone hits it for the first time, the bus was full of congratulations.

"Dude, that's $360 bucks for the day and a 2-4!" As motivation for the week the plant manager was offering a 12-case of beer for those who broke 2,000 for the first time and a 12-case of beer for those who broke 3,000 for the first time. Earlier in the week I'd hit the two grand mark and today I'd just doubled my winnings. I couldn't tell which this planter coveted more: the cash or the beer.

June 20th

The blue sky is finally back. For a week we have had nothing but rain. Each morning we would wake up to the sounds of drops on our tent roofs and our morale would get progressively worse. The Bomb (the propane heater in the mess tent) hasn't been working for a couple of weeks, resulting in most of us running out of dry clothes. Dampness abounds - particularly in our work boots. Yesterday it all culminated in a powerful windstorm that knocked over half a dozen solid trees on my block alone.

But today the sun has again made an appearance. And it is blazing. Before noon I am told it has hit the 30-degree mark. The day becomes a compromise between the heat and the bugs with the only real loser being the planter. Wear too many clothes and the sweat becomes unbearable, have a few openings and the bugs are all over you. It's a slow day but the trees get planted regardless.

When we return to camp the first order of business is to make use of the lake. Within minutes of getting off the bus we are running off the dock, yelling in anticipation of the cold water about to greet us.

June 25th, 8:08pm

I saw a moose today. Not more than 20 meters from where I was planting. At first I thought the sounds I heard were those of my crew boss and his faithful dog coming to check up on me. But when I raised my head from its planting position I was greeted by the sight of a full grown bull moose trotting nonchalantly beside me. It gave me an unconcerned look and disappeared into the forest behind me.

That's not something you see working in an office. That's one of the reasons I often find myself singing the following lines from a Rheostatics song: "…what I do like about this job / is that there's no one standing around / to bring me down / to bring me down…" No one here but me and the odd moose.

June 30th, midnight

The contract is over. People will soon be heading their own ways. Some to continue planting at other camps, some to spend the remainder of the summer travelling, some to make their ways back home.

The euphoria is peaking. And manifests itself in the form of the infamous end-of-contract bonfire parties.

You have to go to know.

July 1st, 4:50pm

Planter's amnesia. The worst cases usually happen around January I am told. The symptoms are simple: all bad memories of planting disappear leaving only the good. The pain, cold, and grueling work are forgotten; the good times, good people, and beautiful outdoors remain. It's what brings many people back for a second year. It's what leaves many of them wondering what they were thinking when they get there.

I'm already getting my first tastes of it. Despite looking so forward to the end of contract, despite feeling that the last two weeks were impossibly slow and emotionally brutal, I have barely left Nakina when thoughts of returning next summer cross my mind. I made some decent cash this first time around, I could really clean up next year, I think to myself. There are a lot of people I wouldn't mind seeing again. I could become part of the clique.

But I know I am just trying to hold on to what just passed. I am 25 years old and planting trees was something I had wanted to do for four years. Now I've done it and I know I can put that piece of me to rest.

I am on a bus - a clean, roomy, travelling bus - on my way back to Montreal when I spot the fellow planter across the aisle. Not someone I've met before, but someone whose hand gives him away. It has dirt built into it and is full of small scrapes and scratches. It's a planter's hand and it will take much cleaning and city living before it begins to fade.

I look at my own and see the same thing. But it feels clean. And it feels strong. Suddenly I am not so sure that I won't be coming back.



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