"After a stint of treeplanting even the healthiest person will get sick easily."
This was one of the first things I read when perusing the treeplanting website recommended to me by my new boss only days before starting treeplanting for my first time in the summer of 2003.
For those of you who don't know what treeplanting is all about and believe I was helping the environment for the summer, let me explain:
Every, some 500 million trees are planted in Canada to establish new forests where trees have been harvested. The people who do this usually live in tents in the middle of nowhere, work eight to 10 hours a day in variable conditions - rain, hail, heat and bugs - and are paid per tree.
Depending on the terrain and the size of the trees, planters in B.C. are normally paid anywhere from 10 to 20 cents per tree. Bend over about 3,000 times per day carrying 50 pounds on your hips and you should make about $300 per day.
Sounds awesome eh? Throw in the fact that tents leak, people quit and the motto is "hurry up and wait," and you've got yourself a grand summer adventure.
No one believed I could survive my first year, least of all me. The veteran planter who sat beside me on the bus trip up to Prince George wasn't any comfort. His eyes grew wide and he told me I "just didn't look the type."
His description wasn't too comforting either: "It's like a peaceful hell."
I grew determined to prove that I could not only do this job, but be good at it. I had no idea the challenges I would face to keep that promise.
First Challenge: Arriving at the bus station and looking around for the six foot six foreman I was supposed to be meeting, seeing him look directly at me and continue scanning the crowd. Apparently I wasn't what he expected either.
Second Challenge: Telling him that I was the one he was looking for.
My first year planting was painful but amazing once I decided to stop counting the challenges. Turns out that's what it's all about, challenging yourself every day - to get out of bed, to put your bags on, to keep going in the rain, to not get mauled by a bear - and overcoming them is actually worthwhile, both personally and financially.
Dead set on never returning to the bush again, come mid-December I had a sudden attack of amnesia, and couldn't remember why I hated planting so much -great people, good food, great bonfires, living outside, good money - why I had been such a wimp?
One day into my second year I remembered and wanted to quit. Two days into my second year I fell in love with my crew, my foreman and the money, and couldn't quit.
The friendships you make planting are the types you never forget or forgo. People are at their worst; miserable and in pain, soaked and cold from working in the rain, pissed off because they didn't make the money they wanted, sad because they miss boyfriends or girlfriends back home, or frustrated that sometimes dirt just won't come off.
It's incredible the pain people will put themselves through, but what's even more incredible is how real and honest the relationships are that develop in such an extreme environment.
Thus my planting days continued - and I would go as far as saying they became more bearable as the years went on, money was easier to make and the bonds with my fellow planters and friends grew deeper.
May is just around the corner and this will be the first summer since 2003 I haven't gone planting. Every day I wake up starting May 1, I'll thank the tree gods I'm not sleeping in a tent outside Prince George but a small part of me will wish I was there.
My friend Pat Clarke-Nolan described it best:
"Have you ever heard of Chinese water torture?" he said. "Well, it's like that, only you're not pestered by one, but a dozen nuisances. Your shoelaces come undone, the edge of your bag rubs your leg, each tree stings your rash, your boss rags you on otherwise petty, these discomforts continue rhythmically and like the poor sack who can't get away from the eternal drip, you too slowly lose your mind."
Yet he has been planting for eight years. Treeplanting really might be the most intense love-hate relationship there is.
