Pain, pleasure, plant
Part two: How to buy the right stuff, maintain the right attitude and not get killed while tree planting
Ian Stoesz
So you got a job tree planting for the summer, did you? Or you’re thinking about doing it next year? Well congratulations, now you need to know what to expect between now and the end of August.
You will be heading off into the bush with nothing but a hockey bag full of gear, and bright, beautiful eyes. You need to prepare for frosty nights, heat stroke, wasp attacks, bear encounters, wicked storms, high tempers, a broken body, depression and exhaustion. These things can be the worst of tree planting and any other hard-labour summer job, and often they get the better of people, but the negative influence that they take on a person is almost entirely under the control of that person. In this second and final installation of this series on tree planting, we will go through what to expect in the fast-approaching season and how to have the best chances of financial success and physical/mental/emotional stability.
Train now or whine later
I have seen three seasons of planting in the B.C. Prince George region, and most of the suffering in the world of tree planting happens because planters inflate that suffering by whining, by surrendering too easily to laziness and self-pity. Excessive complaining is an exercise in pity for yourself. For example, a hailstorm is painful to be in without protection, absolutely, but at the same time there is an immense beauty in this powerful force that our environment will casually dish out. Also, who the hell works in a hail storm? You gotta be crazy to work in that. It’s under these conditions that it’s essential that everybody works together to keep the energy up.
To make it easier to be able to find pleasure in a hailstorm after a week of rain or a month of slash, it is in one’s best interest to prepare as much as possible beforehand. The new season will be starting in May. This means you have the rest of March and all of April to prepare. You need to train, purchase equipment and mentally brace yourself.
In one day, a planter will lift a cumulative weight of over 1000 kg, carry that weight over 16 kilometres by foot, drive a shovel into the ground and bend over more than 200 times an hour and burn around 5000 calories (the equivalent to some Olympic training). If you don’t prepare your body adequately for this kind of treatment, an injury becomes more likely.
According to WorkSafeBC, 11 per cent of planting injuries occurs in the shoulders, 21 per cent in the back, 26 per cent in the wrists and five per cent in the knees. Almost all planting injuries can be prevented with correct preparation, appropriate equipment and avoidance of reckless repetitive motions.
Just one example of a thousand things many planters ignore is screefing method. When clearing slash from the micro site, some planters will screef with their boot swinging side to side. This action causes strain on the knee; it is not a motion that muscles or joints were built to perform 2000 times a day for three months. So instead, screef front and back, which is the natural way for your knee to move anyway.
Speak up, but leave your mace at home
The issue of safety should always be taken into account. This is a dangerous job, and you can be seriously hurt. But if you take proper care of your body and play smart, you can dramatically reduce the chances of injury.
Almost all deaths that occur are the result of accidents on logging roads. If your driver is being reckless or not using their radio to listen for traffic on mountain roads, then say something. As an excuse for speeding, some foremen say they are trying to get to the block faster to increase production for those extra 10 minutes. Since you’re a rookie, an asshole foreman may not hear you, but you can report to a camp supervisor or even change foreman.
Animals are always an issue in camp, on the road and the block. Never store food in or near your tent. A bear that rips open one tent and finds food learns to see all other tents as a source of food. And don’t hang it in a tree either, because that still brings bears into camp, it just keeps bears from eating your food. Use the kitchen coolers provided.
Contrary to common assumptions, bear mace is far more dangerous than helpful. Besides just being difficult to use, bear mace simply sprayed on the ground has been known to attract bears, and it’s easy to drop on the ground and spray yourself, essentially garnishing you.
Women should also be aware that bears are able to smell menstrual blood for miles.
Spending money to make it
The start-up costs are always a big surprise. Between now and your first day on the block, you will need to own a tent ($100-$400), a -10 degree sleeping bag ($80-$150), a sleeping mattress ($30-$70), a planting shovel ($80), planting bags ($80), mountaineering boots ($100-$400), planting clothing ($5-$200), and a bus ticket/gas ($75-$250). The total ends up somewhere around $550-$1,630.
These price ranges account for the price differences between used gear and new gear, and average quality and top of the line gear. This budget doesn’t include personal items or preferred equipment, gaiters, duct tape, day-off clothing, equipment repair, music, lamps, headlights, toiletries or day-off expenses until the first paycheque. All this can easily run into the hundreds.
Beyond initial costs of equipment and such, there are also camp costs to take into account. Camp costs usually range between $20 and $25 per day. Expect to pay about $25 per day for about 60 working days. This would total about $1,500. You don’t pay camp costs on days off.
There are three main types of shovels: the staff, the D-handle and ergonomic. The defining feature of these shovels is the handle type. It’s hard to know before really trying them out which shovel you will prefer, but generally the issues are comfort and size.
The D-handle takes its name from its D shape. It is the most popular shovel as it is easiest to modify into your very own speed-spade, and the familiar handle is easy to start with. Ergonomic shovels are always changing in the desperate pursuit to reduce wrist, elbow and shoulder injuries. They come in hundreds of shapes and sizes. You can buy any type of shovel you feel most attracted to, but in my opinion most wrist injuries that occur from shovel use are a result of planting style and grip form as opposed to shovel type. Your shovel becomes your lover in the bush; give it a name. After all, you’re going to end up spooning it.
If you don’t know the difference between leather and hard shell boots, or Kodiak and Scarpa, then you should study up and ask people who know. Remember, those boots will have to carry your weight and the trees on your hips, climb uphill and downhill, stomp on 2000 shovels, kick closed 2000 holes, and walk in swamps and torrential downpours. Although your feet will hurt regardless of what type of boots you get, it can mean the difference between debilitating planter’s toe, blisters or “trench foot,” and merely a soft soreness.
Guide to your planting time
Wild hippies, law students, engineers, travellers, construction workers and all different types will greet your arrival at camp. Think smart when tarping your tent — your tarp, not your tent, should be absorbing the weather. You will also be expected to contribute to company camp setup of things like showers, latrines, and eating and cooking tents. After meeting the crew, the introductory meeting and a few rides in the planting truck, it begins to sink in that you have arrived.
For your first week of work, you don’t need to worry about breaking the bank: you will focus entirely on learning how to put a tree in the ground and how to tolerate below zero mornings. It is infuriatingly difficult to meet the detailed expectations of checkers and foremen, but learn to appreciate the tight checkers if you care about actually doing a good job.
After the first month almost everybody who will quit already has. The first month may be the worst of your life: The first cheque is always horribly disappointing, which is multiplied by the fortune spent starting up and made even worse by the ever-changing challenges of planting. If you make it to the end of the first month, you’ve suffered the bruises, the rain, the cold, the soreness, the stiffness, the learning phase, the poverty; there is no reason why you can’t make it until the end of the season.
Now, to really make money, you need to motivate yourself constantly to plant, and if you don’t have the motivation, then you just have to do it anyway.
Every now and again you’ll get a day off, which becomes a deeply treasured item. When partying, keep in mind that your body is desperately rebuilding itself. Alcohol is a poison, and the less alcohol you consume the more your body will recover for work. Have fun, but remember that you aren’t invincible.
Days off are your one chance for mounting biking, cliff diving, mountain climbing, kayaking, town time, swimming, library, Internet, etc. The tendency is to run from one place to another trying to get it done all at once.
When you do end up coming into town, clean yourself up. Those planters who don’t shower all week until the weekend are foul in the worst way. The idea is that ‘Oh, I’m planting, everybody stinks.’ Well no. Everybody with that idea stinks, and everybody else is wishing they’d change or clean that rag they call a shirt.
Tree planters are widely prejudiced against in logging towns because so many seem to leave a trail of dirt behind them, smoke joints behind every library and mall, and be the rowdiest drunks. Those planters give the town folk enough reason to get irritated with all planters. Don’t be an asshole.
With so many wild experiences together, the people you work with become intimate friends faster than you might expect. These are the kind of friendships that last a lifetime. It’s truly incredible what hard work, pain and suffering, and the immense natural milieu can do to the way you make relationships with people. For everybody involved these times are hard — but the results are companies full of people all leaning on each other while helping another stand.
By the last week of tree planting, you can feel safe thinking of yourself as a veteran. You busted through the worst of it, you made yourself some money — probably not even close to what you had initially thought, but still more than you could have made in the city with that psychology degree.
After dreaming of home all season it will become time to clean up all the loose ends on blocks, pack up your stuff, bargain off gear and say good-bye — yet you will feel a forceful tug pulling you back to camp. That is planting pulling on your heartstrings. Home just doesn’t seem quite the same anymore. You’ll ask yourself why people are complaining so much all the time. They have it good! You’re now sitting nice; you’re a tree planter.
Forget about the first part of Pain, pleasure, plant? Find it here on the Manitoban’s website in the January 18, 2006 edition.
