Treeplanting #7: Horrifying Summer Trees, Hitchhiking, and Mutiny

  After a dramatic turn of events, I am now planting in the Clearwater camp mentioned in the previous blog. We’ll back up only to the point where I hitched a ride out of Nelson.

James and Ellie drove me into Nelson on the morning of the Clearwater camp’s day off. I had all my gear packed into a backpack and handmade cardboard sign reading “KAMLOOPS”. James had lent me a tent, blanket, shovel, and bags as well. After a quick breakfast at Oso Negro, we drove to one of the intersections outside of town. All three of us were completely silent.

“It’s for the best, Anneke,” he says as he and Ellie walk across the road with me, trying to sound comforting. Don’t you tell me it’s ‘for the best’, I think angrily, my glaring eyes glaring venomously at the road beneath my feet, This is all you.

“Good-bye, Ellie,” I say quietly as she walks toward me. She refuses to look at me, just like I’m refusing to look at James, but she leans into me and wraps her arm around my legs. I wrap her in a hug and we stay there for a second.  For a few moments, we are just a small group of sad, awkward-looking people refusing to make eye-contact with each other. Then they leave.

A couple seconds later, James runs back across the road toward me, holding out a plastic bag.

“The muffins!” he calls cheerily, “you’ll want something to eat along the way!” He’s trying to make this better, I think bitterly, biting back a snide comment. I take the muffins and he heads back across the street.

Even while they’re driving away, I think, they’ll turn back. He’s not actually going to leave me here. He’ll come back. But he doesn’t and, before long, an old man stops beside me and offers me a ride up to Slocan, the next town up. I throw my stuff in the back, hop in, and watch as Nelson disappears behind us in the side mirror.

Both he and the next person who pick me up are extremely quiet old men. This is absolutely perfect, considering all I am capable of doing is stare broodingly out the window in a wave of angry self-pity. After the second man drops me off in Nakusp, I wait almost an hour for someone else to pick me up again (Nakusp is pretty much in the middle of nowhere and there are hardly any cars). By this time, all the angry brooding of the morning plus the hour waiting in the hot sun has completely burnt me out and I am grateful to collapse into any moving vehicle.

“We can getcha to Revelstoke if you’re alright with sitting on the mattress!” calls the girl in the passenger seat of a minivan that pulls up, gesturing toward the back door. I slide open the door and realize that all of the back seats have been removed. In their place is a giant mattress with a guy fast asleep on one side of it.

“It’s perfect!” I respond, sliding my backpack to the back of the mattress, “thanks so much!” It really is perfect; too perfect, almost. I am fast asleep by the time we reach Revelstoke.

The next guy to pick me up is going all the way to Kamloops. He is extremely friendly and social, and I’m relieved to have spent the last few hours sleeping. We end up getting along really well.

“My name’s Jack McCabe,” he says cheerily, a thick American accent showing through, “I’m coming from Florida.”

“Wow!” I respond, “that’s literally the opposite corner of the continent!”

“Yes, it is,” he laughs, “after I retired, I’ve been driving my bus all over this continent!” We talk for a long time. Jack is a retired math professor, but a lifelong mathematician. He explains the Fibonacci theory to me in a way that actually makes sense, and is actually able to help me see a sense of beauty in math in general (a subject I’ve always thought of as boring as shit). One of his biggest passions is prime numbers, and he is thrilled when I ask whether or not there’s a “final” prime number (turns out there isn’t). I’m really impressed by the way he seemed to approach teaching (“my students were always allowed to interrupt me, but they were never allowed to interrupt each other”), how he placed the students and their abilities higher than his own. While driving, we also pay attention to the incredible landscape we’re passing.

When we reach Kamloops, Jack insists I borrow his phone to call the people in the Clearwater camp so they know where I am.

“I’m responsible for you now,” he explains, “I don’t want to drop you on the side of the road without knowing you’re going to end up where you need to go.” I call both Molly and Jeremy, but neither of them answer their phones. Finally, he drives me to the road that goes straight to Clearwater and I pull my stuff out of his bus.

“Do you need anything?” he asks, “here, I’ll fill up your water bottle for ya.” He reaches for my empty water bottle and fills it from one of his own. I smile and thank him, telling him I’m fine.

“Now I’m gonna drive past here again in about forty-five minutes,” he says, “if you’re still here, I’m picking you up and you can pitch your tent near my bus for the night. I don’t want you standing out here in the dark!”

“Alright,” I smile, waving as he drives past (*side note: he wrote a book about his extremely interesting life called “Unspoken Love: An Orphan's Journey"). Luckily, Tabi happens to drive by and pulls over.

“Tabi!” I shout, running toward her. Francois is in the car behind her and he pulls over. The three of us have a big group hug on the side of the road for a few seconds.

“I had no idea you were coming!” Tabi gushes, “I thought you were planting out of Crawford Bay for summer trees!”

“Yeah… I was…” I answer awkwardly. I hadn’t thought of how to answer when people ask why I’m here, “but I’m planting here now.” On the hour-and-a-half drive to camp, Tabi and I catch up on everything.

After arriving in camp, I give everyone from the other camp a huge hug. It’s a wonderful feeling to see people again who you thought you wouldn’t see for a year.

“The biggest different is no Nina,” Edmund sighs while explaining the differences between the two camps. This is his first time planting outside of Cathy and Rainer’s as well. He is right; everyone says that Nina is the best camp cook ever found and it’s damn near impossible to appreciate anything else when you’ve only experienced the best. “Although,” he adds, “the mix is a lot easier. One hundred percent spruce.”

“All spruce?” I repeat. He nods. I’ve never planted monoculture before and feel a little strange about it. Surely that’s not sustainable…

One day, there are more people on our crew than seats in the truck, so I get a ride back to camp with Rob. We discuss monoculture planting on the drive back.

“But you can look at the forest along the side of the road and see it’s all different,” I say, pointing to the trees we’re driving past on the way back to camp, “there’s pine, cedar, spruce, poplar, larch…”

“Yeah,” he says, “mono-culture stinks. It’s cheaper, though, and easier to cut it all down. It’s not sustainable at all, though. One year, I went back up to see the trees we had planted the year before, and they were all dead! A disease came and wiped out all the spruce. That’s the thing about a monoculture forest; one disease can wipe absolutely everything out. It’s awful!”

People weren’t kidding when they said summer trees are difficult. I think a lot of that has to do with energy levels rather than ground or trees, though; people are exhausted from planting spring trees for the past two months (at least I am). Granted, the trees are all in bundles of fifteen rather than twenty, and the ground is generally either rockier or has more red-rot. It’s not as mountainous out here in Clearwater though, so the ground is much less steep. Also, we are able to plant in the black duff on top of the dirt because this area is not prone to drought, like up in the Flathead. There are also, however, far more bugs.

During the day, everywhere you look is a small cloud of mosquitos and no-see-ums. Everyone on my crew uses an extra t-shirt, wrapping it around their head while placing the neck-hole around their face. We all wear long-sleeve shirts and pants, dousing everything in bug spray every morning. At one point, I feel like The Brave Little Tailor, swatting “seven in one blow”.

One evening, I ask Molly if she needs help with her load-up again. She grins at me and says yes. On the way there, we talk about what happened if Crawford Bay. After finishing the load up, we talk more about it on the way back. It’s so relieving to talk about it, and she is so supportive. After we park, our conversation stretches onto many other things and eventually ends in a long, warm hug on the way to bed.

The crew I’m on in this camp is made up mostly of people from the previous camp. Our crew boss is William, named so because he looks exactly like a “Prince Charming”. Only he can often be seen picking his nose and then eating whatever he finds in it; definitely not a Prince Charming. We also have Ziggy, Caedon, Candace, and a girl named Callie, who was not at the other camp.

There is a lake just off the drive back to camp every day, and William often stops there for a few minutes to jump in before heading back to camp. The first time he stops, he strips completely naked and heads in, just like we did out in the Flathead, so I think nothing of doing the same. By the time my head pokes out of the water again, I realize that all the other girls on our crew are still wearing either both a bra and underwear or just underwear. Well whoops.

The first day off is extremely hot, so a bunch of us head to the lake in Clearwater. Eventually, there are at least fifteen of us all sitting on the tiny dock at once.

While sitting there, Edmund mentions how he had worked as Spongebob on a Nickelodeon cruise ship for a number of years.

“Yeah, it was a lot of fun,” he reminisces, “just spending all dressed as Spongebob, making kids laugh. They paid for all my travel expenses too. Usually, it was just from like Boston to Miami or something, but once they paid to fly me all the way to Barcelona to work on a ship out there.” This sounds like an absolutely incredible job.

Suddenly, the entire dock sinks down a level, sending us abruptly downward.

“Whoooaaaa!” everyone shouts, “fuck, what just happened? Duuuude, we just broke the dock!” Everyone laughs, making sure the thing isn’t about to completely collapse, then continues what they are doing. One of the supports on the dock came totally loose. Now, whenever someone gets up, the entire dock shifts a bit and water comes up into certain areas. As everyone continues talking, making due with the now-shifting dock, I spend the next while fantasizing about being princess Jasmine on a Disney cruise ship (Ellie would love that…).

One night, Francois is at the table sewing a part of his boots, so I ask if he can show me how to sew a giant tear in my bags. He says it’s no problem, so I bring my stuff over to the table. While sitting there, he starts asking questions about why I’m not planting at James’ camp anymore. He didn’t think I was very clear when I had briefly talked about it when he and Tabi picked me up (which I hadn’t been), so I tell him an extremely abbreviated two-sentence version of what actually happened.

“So he promised you work, and then told you to leave before the work even started?” he snorts while threading the heavy-duty needle. That isn’t exactly what I said at all, I think, how is that all he got?

“That’s not right,” he continues, “this contract started a while ago; he essentially cost you three days of work. For you, that’s over six hundred dollars, isn’t it? The least he could have done was drive you here.” I make no response, only looking at the needle he is in the midst of setting up. Suddenly he stops.

“It’s his fault. You know that, right?” he says, eyeing me closely, “You didn’t do anything wrong; it’s his fault.” I’m startled by this; Francois has always been a kind, older planter, but this is the first time he’s ever said anything like this.

“Heh,” I breathe quietly, smiling slightly. He smiles and pats me on the shoulder, then continues his work, showing me how to operate the wooden handle of the needle.

On another one of the nights off, I join everyone by the fire. One of the people in camp has a tiny, angry dog who likes to sit on people’s laps but does not like to be touched. This makes it quite difficult to remove the thing once she decides to sit on your lap. While sitting at the fire, the little dog chooses my lap as his throne for the night. When Molly comes over, she lightly brushes against the dog, who immediately jumps up and starts barking rabidly at her. As Molly jumps back, Tula is suddenly right there between the little dog and Molly, growling at the little dog.

“Whoa there, Tula,” Molly says as she takes a seat, lightly holding the large, golden dog back. As Molly pops open another beer, Tula keeps close, looking around cautiously.

“Tula hates it when I get drunk,” Molly says, petting the dog, “or high.”

“How can she tell?” I ask.

“Dogs can tell a lot,” she answers, “she’s super smart.” 

Chad bought a type of whiskey that tastes just like cinnamon hearts and brings it to the fire. Molly gags as he shows it to her, but he insists she takes a drink.

“Uggghhh, it’s so sweet!” she spits, handing the bottle back to him. I think it tastes fantastic though, so he leaves the whole thing with me.

At various points during the night, Dale, one of the crew bosses here, sits next to me. He tells me how interesting I am (even though I’m saying hardly anything), talks about a bunch of the exciting jobs he’s had, and frequently reaches over to stroke my back or massage my arms. Is it weird to admit that I’m enjoying this? After the whole thing with James, there is so much self-doubt entering my mind. With Dale sitting next to me, I can’t help but think, well I wasn’t enough for James, but clearly I’m enough for Dale to come flirt with.

“Hey, do you enjoy working out in your spare time?” asks Molly, who is on the other side of me. She is leaning over me and grinning at Dale.

“Working out?” Dale asks in surprise, “oh yeah, of course. I…”

“How many push-ups can you do?” Molly presses further. I cringe, trying not to laugh.

“Oh, quite a few…” Dale answers confidently.

“Yeah, can you do them one-handed?” Molly is still grinning wide. Oh my gooood, I think to myself, the poor guy isn’t even embarrassed by this.

“I can do those,” he responds, sitting up a bit straighter, “only like three at a time, but I can do them.”

“Yeah? Max loooooves to do push-ups,” Molly gushes further, nudging Max on her other side. At this point, I am genuinely not sure whether she is even teasing.

“Oh my gosh, Molly, stop,” Max laughs, looking slightly embarrassed.

I get up and leave for a bit. Upon returning, I see Molly, Caedon, and Tabi all standing together next to the tables outside. Walking over, I give the three of them a huge hug. Then, grabbing Molly’s hand, I pull her into the mess tent where the music is playing. We dance for a while and she spins me over and over again, in and out. It takes a lot of alcohol for me to actually go dance, but I’m loving this. When the music stops, we just stand there holding each other until it starts again. Eventually, we make our way back to the fire to sit down. Before long, Dale is right there again, calling me adorable and stroking my back. Molly leans over again and starts talking with him. At one point, they are talking about Uncle Jim.

“How long have you known him for?” she asks Dale confidently. Oh my goooood, I think again, why is this happening? Internally, I’m totally killing myself with laughter.

“Oh, I started working with him around four years ago,” he answers.

“Yeah? I’ve known him for fourteen years,” she brags, “fourteen years!”

“Weeeellll,” I brag jokingly, sticking my hand between the two of them, “I’ve known him for twenty-one years.”

“Okay, well you just shut up!” Molly snaps at me, grinning.

After around an hour longer, I am curled up in Molly’s lap staring at the fire while she sweetly strokes my hair. Dale is still sitting beside us.

“I love this girl!” he shouts, reaching over to place his hand on my side.

“Not as much as I love her!” Molly laughs in response, her arm firmly around me.

I catch only snippets of what she and Dale talk about while I stare into the fire, perfectly happy to just lay curled up in Molly’s lap. At one point, I hear Dale say, “now that was when I started working out here around twenty years ago.” Holy shit, how old is this dude?

Eventually, it becomes pretty clear that Max is ready to head to bed.

“Well I guess we’ll leave you here to ward off the boys on your own,” he teases me as both he and Molly get up.

“I don’t like those odds,” I hear Molly say firmly. What odds? I start to wonder, but I’m already half asleep. At first, I don’t want to leave, but Molly offers to sing me a lullaby with Max, and then I agree to come.

The two of them crawl into my tent with me, laying on either side of me. Curled up between the two of them, I listen as Max attempts to sing Raffi’s “Baby Beluga”. Although he chose the song, I end up having to remind him of a bunch of the words. Molly and I sing “Hush Little Baby” together, and then the two of them give me a hug and head out. I fall asleep pretty darn quickly after a goodnight as sweet as that one.

The next morning, there are a bunch of us sitting at one of the tables outside the mess tent. Some of us are planning to head out to The Painted Turtle for breakfast.

“So what are your plans for the four days off?” Dale asks as I sit down.

“I was thinking of hitchhiking to Revelstoke,” I answer, “I’ve never spent much time there and it seems like a really interesting little place.”

“Hey, I’m headed that way, honey, I can give you a ride to Revelstoke!” responds Dale. Of course you are, I think.

While at The Painted Turtle, Chad mentions how he is planning to head to Vernon for the four days off. Vernon is over half the way to Revelstoke.

“You should go with Chad,” Molly says to me from across the table, “I don’t trust Dale.” (Dale was not at the restaurant for breakfast.)

When we get back to camp, however, Dale is right there to greet us as we pull in.

“Where’s that little hippie girl?” he calls as we are all climbing out of the truck. As I come around the side of the truck, he says, “there you are! Hey, I’ve got the truck all packed up. Still wanna come?”

“Um… sure,” I answer, slightly thrown off by how quickly he appeared. A ride directly to Revelstoke would definitely be much easier than hitchhiking from Vernon.

“All right, well my truck’s right over there,” he points to the crew cab beside his trailer, “load up your stuff; we can leave whenever you’re ready!” I nod and head into the mess tent.

On my way out, Molly immediately walks over to me.

“So you’re going with Dale?” she eyes me questioningly. I shrug, and she puts her arm around me, walking with me toward my tent. “Be careful, Anneke,” she continues, “don’t get involved with him.”

“I wasn’t planning on it,” I say, “I kinda just want a ride to Revelstoke.”

“I know,” she says, stopping and turning toward me so she’s staring straight at me, “so just be clear on that. He’s just giving you a ride to Revelstoke; you don’t owe him anything.”

Walking up toward us, Chad looks at me. “So you’re getting a ride with Dale then?” he asks, overhearing our conversation. I nod and he shrugs, heading back toward his own truck.

“Be clear and confident,” she continues, looking earnestly at me, “take care of yourself.”

I nod. “Since I lost my iPod, can I write down your number?” I ask.

“Absolutely!” she responds, “call me for absolutely anything.” I pull out a notebook and write down the number as she recites. “Have fun in Revelstoke,” she says, leaning forward to kiss me on the forehead before turning back toward the mess tent. I grab a bunch of stuff from my tent before heading back out and throwing it onto the pile of stuff on the back seat of the crew cab.

“Alright, let’s go!” Dale says happily, jumping into the driver’s seat and I climb into the passenger seat.

The drive turns out perfectly fine. Dale is an extremely friendly, cheerful person; a little flirty, but not dangerous at all. I start to feel pretty guilty about being dismissive of him. He is driving to Kaslo and offers to take me with him, but I tell him I’d rather stay in Revelstoke for the next few days. Then he drops me off at the hostel I’m planning to stay at and heads on his way.

One of the girls in the hostel works at an adventuring company called “Flexpeditions”. Apparently, one of their events was canceled and they have something else planned instead for the evening, but there aren’t many people going anymore.

“Would you like to come?” she asks, a thick English accent showing through, “we’re going to rappel down a giant cliff into a canyon, then zipline across the river at the bottom of the canyon, then scale the other side of the canyon to get back up. The original plan would have been $65, but because of the change of plans, it’s going to be $40.”

“Yeah!” I respond excitedly, “I’d love to come!” That night, we head on the mini-adventure. It is my first time rappelling, and I love it. The canyon, located around 10 minutes outside of town, is at least fifty feet up on either side, a large fast-flowing river gushing down the middle of it. Hanging onto the rope, I hop down the cliff, step by step, until I see the ground coming nearer. Reaching the bottom, I release the rope from the carabiner and step out to where the others are standing. We then latch the carabiner onto a chain attached to a rope swung across the river and pull ourselves to the other side. Once we are all across, we throw a rope between the four of us, attach ourselves together with it, and climb up the very narrow ledge back up to the top of the canyon.

The next day, I sit for a few hours in a small coffee shop I’d come across while Googling the area: La Baguette. It seems like a lovely place to sit and write, so I order breakfast and sit at the small bar. Afterward, I hike up to the Nels Nelson ski jump. Apparently, quite a few world records were set here before they built the Trans Canada highway and deactivated the jump.  Reaching the jump, I look up in amazement at the massive hill in front of me and imagine a person flying off the top of it wearing a pair of skis. On the trail leading to and from the jump, I see multiple temporary warning signs for bears set up along the path: WARNING: It’s bear season! Remember to travel in groups, make lots of noise, don’t wear strong perfumes, and leave the berries for the bears. I’m not wearing any perfume, so I’m at least following one of those guidelines.

After more exploring and walking and visiting a couple museums, my little Revelstoke expedition comes to an end. Dale comes to pick me up on his way back to camp on the last day off and we head back together. He’d ended up spending the time in Nelson rather than Kaslo. I’m glad I didn’t know this earlier, otherwise it’d have been extremely difficult to not come along with him, just telling him to “just drop me off at the ferry landing”. James would have been literally just a ferry ride and 5-minute hitchhiking journey away. Jesus Christ, restrain yourself, Anneke, I roll my eyes at myself, he’d have been so pissed off at you just randomly showing up. We stop at a couple thrift stores along the way, eventually pulling back into camp with lots of time to spare.

I help Molly with her load-up at night, telling her everything that happened. She’d had a pretty comfortable, easy-going time off. With a new reefer, the thing is completely full of boxes. She groans as she sees the type of box she needs far in the back. Climbing on top of boxes, it takes a few minutes before we manage to pull even one out; she needs fifty. Eventually, another one of the crew bosses drives up; she needs the other kind of trees, the ones that are in front. We all work together to complete her load-up first, opening up a path to the type of boxes Molly needs for her load-up. Eventually, the three of us finish both load-ups and, completely out of breath now, make our way back to camp.

One hot day, we are on an extremely slashy and slippery 20-cent block. Since it had been raining earlier, the bugs are billowing in clouds around our heads. There are three crews on this block and everyone is in a crappy mood. At 2:30, right in the heat of the day, we are supposed to plant all the way down this lousy hill, refill at a cache of trees down below, then plant as far out as we can. At the end of the day, we are supposed to walk instead of plant back up that hill in order to save access. Nobody has any interest in that plan though, and it seems too frustrating and bizarre to actually be the plan. Mary, a lively and outspoken French girl from one of the other crews, eventually begins trying to rally people together to march back up the hill early in protest. She, Callie, and I are all planting around the same speed down the hill.

“Enough of this!” Mary says, “even our crew boss was like ‘we’re leaving early today’. I’m so done! Aaauuugghhh!!” I’m pretty sure one of the only reasons I’m still able to keep planting in spite of the frustrations of the day is due to Mary’s well-placed sound effects.

Soon, we spot Candace planting her way back up the hill.

“Yo, Candace!” Mary calls, “do you know what is happening? What’s the plan?”

“Yeah, I know the plan, but I didn’t like it so I made my own plan,” Candace responds. She then repeats the plan back to us, adding, “I thought that was ridiculous though, so I just bagged up at the cache down there and am planting back up to the truck. I’m done.”

“Oh, you’re brave, girl!” Mary cheers, “I saw your brother headed back up earlier. You guys got balls!”

The four of us have momentarily stopped planting and just stand around deciding whether or not to give up and head back to the truck.

“I would go plant back up,” Mary complains, “but William is down there waving like an idiot, so maybe I shouldn’t,” Looking toward William in the distance, I notice that he is indeed waving maniacally toward the cache down below.

“We probably look like some cluster of planters all plotting against him,” I laugh as we all just stand there watching him waving him shovel around, “a mutiny!”

“Mutiny?” Mary repeats, confused, “what is this word?”

“Like, when pirates all rebel against their captain,” I answer, “you know, like Jack Sparrow’s crew mutinied against him.”

“Ahh rebel! Yes, I know this!” Mary cheers enthusiastically, “yes, we will rebel! We will mutiny! Let’s go back up!” We all look back down toward William. He has started planting again but is still looking up every few moments to gesture frantically toward the cache.

“Well I am,” Candace says, throwing her shovel into the ground and continuing to plant up. Callie, Mary, and I continue downward.

When Mary bags out, she turns to walk back up the hill rather than bag up again at the cache. Eventually, Callie bags out as well and heads back up as well. By this time, however, it is nearly 4:30. I finally bag out at almost exactly 4:30, eliminating any need to go to the cache anyway. Clambering over the mountains of slash to get back up to the truck, we all collapse into the truck, relieved that the day has ended.

Every day, I swear my body screams "Dammit, Anneke, we were done planting by this time last year! You've betrayed us!" Summer trees are indeed underway.



PS - don't forget about the Palestine delegation in which I am participating in August 2017! Around $200 has been raised so far - lots more to go! To donate, go to http://cpt.org/donate and follow the steps to donate. Toward the end of the process, there will be a box that says "donation inspired by". Be sure to enter my name in this section to ensure that the donation goes to this delegation.

Peace and love, friends!

Treeplanting #6: Spring Trees to Summer Trees

After finishing my last blog post, I give my laptop to Molly for her to read it (she’s probably the most avid reader of anyone). While she is reading it, I walk back to my tent to read, or really to do anything to distract myself from the knowledge that someone is reading my writing. After an hour or so, I hear someone walking toward my tent.

“Anneke?” Molly’s voice calls out, “are you in there?” I open the door of the tent and stick my head out. “Sorry,” she says, “were you sleeping? Did I wake you up?” When I shake my head, she kneels down and gives me a huge hug.

“I just read your blog,” she says, holding me tight, “If I’d known how you were responding to everything that one day on the block, I’d never have kept going on at you. I just wasn’t sure if you were getting it, you know? Sometimes you can’t tell whether a planter is really taking it in if they don’t respond. If I’d known you’d got it right away, I wouldn’t have kept pressing it.”

“It’s all good,” I say, hugging her back.

“Also,” she says, moving away slightly and reaching her hand up to stroke my hair between her fingers. Her manner is kind and warm as she looks at me with an expression of earnest concern. “We’re going to talk about James.”

For the most part, she talks about James and I say very little. We briefly talk about other things as well, like school and depression and drugs, all of which Molly has experienced before as well. I don’t generally talk to people about this kind of personal stuff because it feels so selfish and indulgent, but Molly came to me, so maybe in this case it isn’t. Even so, I don’t even know how to talk about this kind of stuff to people.

A few days later, I realize that I really do want someone to open up to. It feels strange and unfamiliar asking Molly if we can talk again, but she had offered to talk anytime, and asks if I’d like to come along when she drives to the reefer to load up every night. I agree to come along.

On the drive to the reefer, I explain more about the situation with James and she listens intently to every word, asking questions at various points. She’s known James for a very long time, having planted with him many years and living in the same region, so I feel free to tell her everything.

When we get to the reefer, I climb inside and find the different tree species that we need, then slide the boxes over to where Molly has parked the truck. I pass them down to her while she stacks them into the Fist. One by one, the truck is loaded with thirty-two tree boxes. After she jumps out of the Fist and I jump out of the reefer, we close the doors to them both and climb back into the cab.

On the way back, we talk more about James, her saying straight-up what she thinks and offering advice. It feels so legitimizing. When we get back to camp, she parks the truck and we stay there talking for a long, long time. I feel like, had I been talking to anyone else, I’d have groaned and left the truck the second she said straight-up “he’s not the one for you,” but Molly isn’t coming from a place of indignant authority. So often people become so much more attached to their own advice than to reason they’re even giving it that they become upset or offended if people don’t follow it. It’s not like that with Molly though. She is genuinely trying to help and tell me what she thinks, speaking from a place of kindness and experience, but she isn’t so passionate about her own advice that she’d be upset if I didn’t follow it. And there is a very low chance that I’ll follow. But her being there is what makes all the difference.

“Come here, give me a hug,” she says after a while, climbing out of the cab. When we meet in front of the truck, I end up bursting into tears while she holds me.

During one shift, the Health-and-Safety lady is going to be on the blocks with us, so we make sure everything is done “properly”. There is a bag of extra whistles on the table in the mess tent in the morning because nobody actually carries a whistle on them. On the drive to the block, we fill out the safety hazards worksheet out loud, rather than Molly filling it out on her own, so everyone knows what to tell the lady if she asks us. Molly also tells us the number of the block and makes sure we all remember it. As we start to bag up, Molly pulls out a whole pile of high-viz gear and examines bags and gear. Chad doesn’t have high-viz and mine is dirty to the point of no longer being “highly visible”, so Molly ties strips of it onto our bags. By the time we head out, the six of us are all fully prepared, ideal pictures of “safe workers”.

When the lady does come, we all have perfect answers to all her questions. I smile, knowing that, under any other circumstance, I would have absolutely no idea what the block number is or much else we are being quizzed on today.

“And you know, it’s very important to wear seatbelts,” the lady says, to which Molly nods enthusiastically, “out in Ontario last year, this one planter wasn’t wearing her seatbelt and the truck hit a bump in the road. She slammed her head into the roof of the truck and got a concussion!”

“Yeah, I could totally see that happening,” Molly responds conversationally, “earlier this year, something similar happened to Kendall here. We hit a bump and she went flying, almost hitting the roof!” She gestures toward Kendall, who nods obediently.

“Oh I see,” says the safety lady in a concerned tone, then adds, “but you were wearing your seat belt though.” Kendall freezes for a moment.

“Yeah…” she lies awkwardly, “I guess just not tight enough.”

“I see,” says the safety lady, “yes, you have to make sure you’re not only wearing them, but they are nice and snug as well.” Chad stands up, ready to head out into the block.

“I’m not sure that counts as high-viz enough,” says the safety lady, gesturing toward Chad’s bags, “it needs to be clearer and bigger than that. Can you even see that from far away?”

“Oh yeah,” Molly says reassuringly, “you can see it, and plus you never forget it if it’s on your bags.”

“Oh, okay, that is pretty clear,” admits the safety lady as Chad makes his way further into the block, the high-viz still glowing from his bags.

“I thought about making high-viz gaiters!” Molly calls from the truck, happily demonstrating with a piece of high-viz wrapped around her leg. That’s a really bad idea, I think, you wouldn’t be able to see them while walking through slash, and they’d be the first to get dirty. Isn’t the whole point of high-viz to be ‘highly visible’? Of course, I wouldn’t actually say this.

After a little longer, the safety lady leaves our block to make her way toward another crew. Alas, we have passed the test (even though I wasn’t carrying a whistle the entire time she was there).

On last planting day of Cathy and Rainer’s contract, nearly all of our crews are working nearly two hours outside of camp in one large fill plant. It’s always pretty messy when there are multiple crews working one block, so I don’t understand why they save the huge blocks like this until the end when everybody is just excited to finish the contract.

At one point, Molly is still standing back at the landing while everyone else on our crew is out planting already.

“CHAD, THAT’S DISGUSTING!” her shout suddenly booms out toward us. I look up to see her stomping angrily around the landing, a white roll of toilet paper in her hand, “That is so gross!” she continues shouting. Looking the other direction toward Chad, he is planting alongside one of the girls on our crew who he constantly flirts with. Right now, however, he looks quite confused.

“You know,” Molly continues hollering once she has her bags on and starts heading into the block, “it’s customary in human societies to, um, bury your crap!” I nearly double over laughing at hearing this, imagining Molly going to look for a place to shit and coming across Chad’s shit in the process.

By the time we switch to another section of the block, the day has grown incredibly hot and sunny. Nevertheless, we all hike for a ways down the deactivated road until we finally reach the piece. Molly finds several sweet-smelling flowers on the block and tucks them into the string around her hat.

“Wanna smell my head?!” she says excitedly, leaning down and shoving her head toward people as though she’s about to ram into them.

Driving down to another part of the block that still has both space and trees left, I notice that all of the gummy candies in my Ziplock bag have melted into one giant candy. Poking it, I realized disappointedly that the whole thing is still gooey as well, and picking at it would be such a mess. Chad, however, is not deterred by the gooey mess. He happily takes the bag and sticks his fingers into the giant glob of gooey sweetness.

Another crew joins us in this area, and together we bag up all the trees that are left and head out into the block. By the time we finish, we all have around fifty trees each left in our bags. Thinking we are finished the block and just need to get rid of the leftover trees, we begin planting the sides of the road and double plant the road edge.

“What are you doing?!” Dave exclaims, jumping out of his truck and running toward us in a rage, “You can’t plant the ditch, and why are you double planting over there?! You guys are crazy! I’m outta here; I’m on garbage duty. I’m gone!” He then jumps back in his truck, turns around, and quits the block entirely.

It turns out that there is yet another section of the block that has not been planted yet, but all the other crews are either completely out of trees or headed back to camp. Our crew is the only one to head over there. It holds enough room to plant around 5000 trees, but there are only around sixty trees between the six of us.

“Plant wide and space off everything!” Molly calls as we head jump out of the truck and walk toward the block, “plant out the front; make it look like it’s been planted!” We space nearly four metres off the burn pile and respect every natural we see; even poplars. Finally, we finish all of our trees and walk off this extremely-underplanted block.

On the drive back to camp, Molly suddenly lets out an extremely loud scream and the truck suddenly comes to an immediate halt. Gwen, Kendall, and I are in the back and look around frantically while grasping for any solid object to hang onto as we are thrown forward.

“Did we hit it?! Did we hit it?!” Molly shrieks, her eyes darting all over the road. Over the seat, I see Chad with a huge grin on his face.

“Molly…” Gwen half-whimpers, half-sighs, while leaning forward to rest her head on the seat, her eyes closed.

Molly lets out a huge sigh, starting to drive forward again. Kendall and I look at each other in confusion; we are still utterly clueless as to what just happened.

“Molly, you don’t scream like that for rodents!” Gwen cries in exasperation, lifting her head back up, “you scared me so much!”

“I’m sorry, it just doesn’t feel good to run over a living thing!” Molly responds in defense, “that animal just ran right in front of us!”

It’s 7:30 by the time we get back to camp and Nina has made delicious hors d’oeuvres and set them out. There are bacon-wrapped scallops, cucumber slices topped with goat cheese, purple jelly, and a pecan, bacon-wrapped cantaloupe, meat slices, baked and caramelized brie, and other delicious things. I fill a plate high with delicious food and sit with a bunch of other planters; some of the crews have been back at camp since two o’clock. The live band that Cathy arranged is busy setting up the mess tent.

As it gets darker, I don’t bother getting drunk. When I come back a while later, there are not too many people around the fire. I sit down and talk to a few people, curling up next to Sophia and thanking her for our cuddle session on the last night off (because it had been much-needed). She tells me that I remind her of her younger self and I respond that, if I end up anything like her, then all is well.

Next, I sit next to Kristen and Francois (in reality, Kristen and Kendall have the same name, but for confusion’s sake they’re different here). Francois is quite drunk, so his hilarious antics are even more exaggerated than usual. At one point however, he starts talking a bit about the different natural roles for men and women, to which Kristen and I, both strong feminists, start becoming a bit cold toward

Right as he is getting into it, Edmund, another guy from camp, leans over and slurs “Francois, I get the feeling you’re about to say something really stupid, so so why don’t you stop it before you start.” Edmund soon after falls fast asleep in his chair, wearing nothing but tight black leggings, an open white bathrobe, and bright pink Crocs. Truly sleeping like a king.

A while later, I find myself sitting beside Candace. We talk about how we’ve finished another year of planting (we were both greeners together last year) and how it was so much easier second year. She is going to plant summer trees in Clearwater wither several other planters in the camp (both her brothers, Molly and Max, Caedon, Francois, Edmund, Tabi, Vincent, and a couple planters from the other camp. The Clearwater contract goes much later into July (around the 18th or 19th), but I’d rather be with James and Ellie for his two-week contract.

After Candace heads to bed, Tabi invites me over to where she and Kristen are cuddling together on top of a pile of boxes. I join them, but Kristen heads to bed after a while, inviting us to come along. Tabi and I join her a few minutes later and we all fall asleep curled up next to each other.

The next morning, camp take-down begins early, long before I wake up. After packing up my stuff and place it in Uncle Jim’s truck. I say good-bye to Uncle Jim, who is going to go plant some rehabbed roads for a few hours.

“Now, I might be going over the border,” he says, eyeing me and my stuff suspiciously, “so there’s… uh… nothing illegal in there is there?” I shake my head: no.

Eventually I make my way toward the disassembled mess tent. Chad and Gwen are putting the giant tent poles into canvas bags, so I help.

Saying good-bye to everyone and passing around hugs is so difficult. Nina, however, makes it much easier.

“Say hello to that crazy boyfriend of yours!” Nina laughs off the top of her head before turning back into the almost-all-packed kitchen trailer. Huh? I think, laughing, but then move on, still bewildered by her statement.

Saying good-bye to Molly is the hardest. She walks over with me to where Vincent is going to pick up my stuff (he is driving to Vancouver and dropping me off in Crawford bay on the way).

“So you’re headed back to the Kootenays,” she says as we walk over to the other side of camp, “Are you going to let him treat you like you don’t matter?” I say nothing and we walk in silence the rest of the way. When we arrive, I pull out a little bag of black gumdrops with a note inside and hand them to Molly. She gives me a long, long hug.

“Get mad,” she says after we pull away, “don’t just give him what he wants. People don’t appreciate what they get for free, so don’t do it. You have to stick up for yourself because nobody else will. And I’m sure it’s not intentional; he doesn’t mean to treat you like shit, but you have to stick up for yourself.” She is looking at me intently, trying to send enough self-confidence my way to actually do what she is saying.

Tabi and Gwen pass by us on their way out and we wave at them. Eventually, we hug again and she makes her way back to where she and Max are packing up all their stuff. Driving out of camp with Vincent, I tear up a bit; I’ll miss this camp so much. It’s a full year until I can see everyone again.

Vincent stops along the way to pick up flowers. I fall asleep a couple times because he drives his tiny car so slowly down the logging road so it doesn’t fall apart. Several other trucks and cars leaving camp pass us on the way down. Two and a half hours later, we make it to the highway and start toward the Kootenays.

Vincent is headed out to Vancouver for a few days before starting planting at the Clearwater contract. We talk about summer trees, planting, boys, and other things.

“You know,” Vincent giggles guiltily, “I had the biggest crush on James last year.”

“He knew,” I respond automatically, smiling. Vincent erupts in laughter.

“Really?” he looks at me wide-eyed, a huge grin on his face, “How?”

“Well, at the end party last year…”

“Oh no,” Vincent slaps his hand over his mouth, bursting with embarrassed laughter, “what did I do? Oh, I was so drunk that night!”

“Well, he said you were just extremely friendly and touchy,” I explain, “and you were talking about how things were about to end between you and your boyfriend at the time. Then you told him ‘James, you know you are a very sexy man’. It also didn’t help that you went to that party wearing nothing but a bunch of fruit strung around your crotch.”

“Oh noooo!” Vincent leans forward, almost exploding with laughter, “oh, I think I flirted with so many guys that night. I’m pretty sure I just wanted to make out with them. How did he take it, do you know?”

“He said he was glad when I came over and threw my arms around you both,” I answer, “he was a bit uncomfortable. Like… he’s not as open as he could be. When he told me, I was like ‘good! I’m glad you had that experience. It’s good to be uncomfortable once in a while’.” Vincent laughs some more, letting out a few more embarrassed moans.

“And you?” he asks after a moment, “were you attracted to any of the boys or girls in camp this year?”

“Not really,” I answer, “that really wasn’t on my mind at all this year.”

“Is it generally only men you’re attracted to?” he asks, then adds jokingly, “I mean, I can totally understand if it is. I absolutely love men.”

“Romantically, yeah, mostly,” I answer, “but women are absolutely incredible. I feel like I’m attracted to certain types of people more than any specific gender.” Vincent nods.

“I think I may pull up Tinder to see if there are any attractive men in Nelson tonight,” he says excitedly. I laugh. Definitely not the train of thought I was on.

We stop to get gas and water.

“I’m a little nervous about using an actual washroom again,” I admit to Vincent while heading into the gas station.

“I’m sure you’ll manage,” he laughs. It really is a strange feeling, going into a tiny little white room to sit on some ivory chair with a giant hole in the middle. While sitting down, I remember the message I had sent James a few days ago about whether everything’s all still good for me heading over there, considering how things had been getting a bit rocky. Turning on the wifi on my iPod, I receive his response: I expect you. All is well then, I assume. When going to wash my hands afterward, I suddenly notice my own face staring back at me in the mirror above the sink.

Whoa there, I jump back slightly, startled by my reflection, haven’t seen you in a while. My face is really tan. It actually almost looks orange. Weird.

“Did you manage?” Vincent asks with mock sincerity when I get back in the car, “Did you manage to use the washroom okay?”

“Ha! All good,” I respond, “your turn.”

“Here goes,” he chuckles nervously and heads out, “I hope I can remember too.”

Back on the road, Vincent asks if he can look at the music on my computer. He has a long drive ahead of him and his music selection is getting low. I show him some artists and load up his iPod. I am only slightly disgraced by his disinterest in the wonderful Great Big Sea. “Too fishy” he calls it. Pugh! I give him Adele, Fretless, MGMT, Loreena McKennit, Mumford & Sons, and a few others. Going through the music on his computer, I find Adham Shaikh, Rising Appalachia, Delhi2Dublin, Lady Antebellum, Lindsey Sterling and others. I put a bunch of it onto a USB stick to put onto my own iPod later.

Arriving at James’ house, there is a small party going on to celebrate the ending of their contract in a few days. The atmosphere happy and friendly, and James wraps both of us in a giant hug when we arrive. Ellie looks surprised and elated to see me and she give me a big hug. Two of her friends are there as well; they are adventuring to their home in India on the other side of the house. There are burgers, sausage, chips, and probably the most delicious potato salad and cheesecake I’ve had in a while. Most of his planters are there, as well as several people I had met last summer. It lasts late into the night.

As people leave, I give a big hug to Vincent and wish him luck in the Clearwater contract. Ellie cries and does not want to leave, but she and her mom head out as well. 

“When will I see you again?” Ellie demands, grabbing my knees and looking directly at me.

“The next time you’re here!” I laugh, stroking her hair, “I’ll be here for a while.”

“She’s staying the summer again, Ellie!” James chimes in.

“When am I going to be here next, mum?” Ellie asks her mother.

“You’re coming back here on Friday, Ellie,” Ellie’s mom responds, and then they head out.

Once everyone’s gone, I head into the shower (I haven’t showered in days and probably smell absolutely disgusting). Rather than fishing my own towel out of my backpack, I grab a clean one off the shelf upstairs. While standing under the warm shower, James walks in to drop off some dishes next to the tub. He stops for a moment and smiles at me.

“I just want to look at you,” he says playfully, his eyes dancing across my body.

“Ha!” I laugh in response, “Well look but don’t smell because my armpits are not de-stinking. I’ve scrubbed them like four times now!”

“You could try shaving them,” he says, reaching for his razor on the side of the tub and handing it over to me. A razor, I think, taking it from him, that’ll probably work. Sure enough, the smell of sweat leaves with the hair as it falls from my armpits.

Still wrapped in the towel, I lay on the bed with my iPod. I haven’t actually contacted anyone yet since before camp ended, so I message a couple people to let them know that spring trees are finished. While doing this, James walks in and collapses on the bed across my lap.

“Hey you,” he says, crawling over until he’s half beside me and half on top of me, “I see you’ve made yourself at home.”

“Yeah,” I smile, “well this is a home, isn’t it?” He groans playfully and brings his face alongside mine, brushing against my cheek.

“I was wondering if you guys were going to show up,” he says, pulling away, “your text bothered me.”

“I was angry and hurt,” I respond as he heads upstairs to grab more blankets (there is currently only one small one on the bed).

“No, I could see how you were upset, but you weren’t hurt,” he calls down as he makes his way back down. “And,” he continues, re-entering the bedroom with blankets, “there is absolutely no need to be angry.” Immediately as he says this, I hear Molly’s voice in my head. ‘Get mad,’ she had said. Now isn’t the time though. I haven’t seen James in so long and he’s in a good mood right now. I say nothing as we put the blankets on the bed. I really don’t remember if anything else was said, but I definitely remember him tenderly wrapping me up in his arms and kissing me.

“Let’s sleep naked,” I say around an hour later as we’re laying in each others' arms.

“Sleep naked?” he smiles, gliding his fingers along my bare skin, “you’re the only one who was ever opposed to that.”

“I know,” I respond as his fingers softly make their way up to my face, “but I haven’t seen you in so long. I just want to be close to you.” He kisses my forehead and pulls me close until we fall asleep.

Alas, the spring tree contract with Cathy and Rainer has ended and James’ summer tree contract starts in a couple days. Out with the old and in with the new: hopefully here comes a summer as wonderful as last year.


PS - don't forget about the Palestine delegation in which I am participating in August 2017! Around $200 has been raised so far - lots more to go! To donate, go to http://cpt.org/donate and follow the steps to donate. Toward the end of the process, there will be a box that says "donation inspired by". Be sure to enter my name in this section to ensure that the donation goes to this delegation.


Peace and love, friends!

Treeplanting #5: Mistakes, Men-as-Women, and Mushrooms

During the next shift, I find myself drifting off into daydreams a lot. Often about James (a cross between missing/loving him and hating the bastard), but also often about various other things. Whatever it is, I’m not focusing.

“Anneke, you’re planting too tight again,” Molly’s voice pulls me out of my thoughts toward the end of one day, “Look, these trees are hardly a meter apart; that’s literally half of the minimum! We’re planting 7s here and you’re planting like 11s.” 

She’s right. Okay, calm down, she’s not that angry - she just wants you to plant good trees. Bad trees screw up the whole block.

“I know you know how to plant good trees; I’ve seen you plant perfect trees all the time. I know you know. So I know you’re pulling something here.”

Shoot. She thinks I’m doing this on purpose. Don’t cry. Despite knowing this is definitely not a compliment, there is something extremely gratifying about hearing her say ‘I know you know how to plant good trees’. Her approach is extremely different from Uncle Jim’s whole persona of ‘all your trees are shitty so be happy these are the only ones I’m calling you on’. Still, this is not going in a good direction and Molly is clearly upset.

“When you only plant good trees when I’m around, then I can’t trust you and that sucks. It feels like you don’t respect me as your crew boss.”

  Nooooooo! She really thinks I’m doing this on purpose. Now it reflects me as a person. Okay don’t cry. Molly’s literally the best crew boss on the planet and I’m totally letting her down. Don’t cry. Don’t you dare cry. I avoid looking at any of the other planters. Molly is evidently not a fan of the whole ‘praise in public, criticize in private’ thing, but I suppose that’s really neither tree planting style nor Molly’s style.

“And it’s not just that: I totally had your back, Anneke!” She continues. 

Shoot. Now it’s personal. Nononono. Don’tcrydon’tcrydon’tcry. Keep planting. Don’t cry. Hide under your silence. Don’t you dare cry. I’m not sure if it’s rude to keep planting while she’s talking to me, but if I don’t do something (aside from talking), I know I’m gonna burst into tears at any second. Disappointing people and letting them down absolutely sucks — for everyone. And now that person is Molly; not some grumpy old uncle, but Molly.

“When your uncle was complaining about you to Cathy and Rainer, I defended you!” she says, “I told them ‘no no, her trees are great!’ Don’t make me eat my words, Anneke!”

Also, don’t cry. She just wants you to plant good trees, so do it. Don’t cry. She doesn’t hate you. She doesn’t distrust you. She just wants you to plant good trees. Don’t you dare open your mouth; don’t cry.

After crossing the road to the piece below the road, Molly plants right behind me, following and watching my line. I try to ignore her presence and keep planting, knowing I’ll burst into tears if I think about it.

She’s not behind you. It’s okay. She’s not watching your trees.You haven’t disappointed her. Don’t look behind you. It’s okay.

“Alright, you’re on probation,” she says after a while. I look up and give her a smile in acknowledgment. I’m not sure a smile was really the best course of action. I mean, a smile doesn’t exactly say ‘I know what I was doing is wrong and I’m so sorry for letting you down. I swear I wasn’t doing it on purpose and will pay more attention in the future’. Then again, as far as I can see, my only options were to ignore her entirely, attempt to say something and risk bursting into tears, or to smile in acknowledgment. The latter seemed far less detrimental.

The next morning while bagging up, Molly walks over to my bags, removes the blue roll of flagging from my flagging pouch, and puts a teal roll in its place. She puts four more roles in my back bag, along with a plot cord.

“When you finish your first bag-up,” she says, “I want you to go back on your line and take a couple plots. You know we’re planting 7s on this block. 5s are okay; 4s are not. 9s are okay; 10s are not. Move trees where you need to.” She isn’t angry when she says this, but she isn’t exactly happy either. She just looks kind of sad, which is almost worse.

I plant slowly behind the others, being abnormally mindful of my trees.

As the others meet me while planting back toward the truck, Molly takes a look at my line.

“Great spacing!” She calls and I start feeling a little better. Then she laughs “It’s amazing what a different colour of flagging can do!” and I can feel my chest drop again. Hey now, don’t cry. She’s just teasing; she does that all the time. 

When the others pass us and I bag out, Molly shows me how to take a plot on the line. She explains how much of a difference just a few inches makes, how to space the whole plot rather than just the line you’re following, how to keep tight to the slash, etc. She definitely isn’t angry or upset. Good.

The evening of Day 3 is Cross-Dressing Date Night and I have been paired with Vincent, the friendly, French former crew boss whose been on our crew since arriving in the Flathead. Together, we plan our outfits: he will wear my short sport shorts and pink hat while carrying either a handful of candy or a bowl of bacon, and I will wear his Thai pants with his characteristic green sun hat while imitating his strong French accent and telling people about the different kinds of mushrooms found on the block. During the day, I try to find actual mushrooms on the block to make this imitation more accurate, but it turns out I’m a terrible mushroom hunter and the one I do find dries out before dinner. I instead borrow one of the dried morels he’d placed on the dashboard a few days ago. In addition, he finds some lichen and insists I stick it to my face with honey to use as a beard. 

While exchanging clothes in the shower tent, Vincent borrows one of my bras, blows up a pair of plastic gloves and places them inside. Initially planning to wear merely the shorts and sports bra, the continually protruding fingers of the glove persuade him to wear one of my shirts as well. I’m pretty sure he is far more into the act of pretending to be a woman than pretending to be me. I put on the Thai pants and large tank top. Next comes the beard. I cringe as his honey-covered fingers and strips of lichen make their way toward my chin, the dirt and crispy beard-like substance slipping loosely off my chin a sticky, gooey-mess. I shove the dried morel in my pocket and he hangs a stick of red liquorice from his mouth (okay, I may eat a lot of candy out here, but I definitely don’t have it dangling from my mouth while walking around).

As we exit the tent, we admire a group of people already in their exchanged clothes. I approach them with a huge, friendly smile, walk up super close to people and say in a thick French accent “can I tell you about my mushroom?” while holding out the morel. Vincent stays a few feet behind me, smiling quietly at everyone. This is about as long as we last with the switched personalities. Soon, I am quietly sitting with a group of people chatting while Vincent is out playing volleyball.

Molly and her cross-dressing date are pretty entertaining. Molly is dressed in extremely baggy shorts and a large t-shirt, looking more tomboyish than I would’ve thought possible. Her date (mentioned as Optimus Prime in the previous post) is dressed in one of Molly’s plaid dresses and wearing one of the scarves she always has around her head. In addition, since these clothes smell distinctly of Molly, Optimus Prime finds himself constantly guarded by two very large and sweet dogs.

Max and Bee are pretty fantastic as well. While Bee’s outfit is not too exciting, Max is sporting Bee’s super stylish, hobbit-like clothing. He walks up to people, places his hand on their hands, and looks super intently at them while softly saying things like “would you like me to fetch the tarot cards from my tent?”

On one of the days off, Caedon invites people to help him rip, shred, and bag organic tobacco leaves. Since he buys them as full leaves, they are not included under the tobacco act when he orders them. He offers $10 cash plus $10 worth of product to everyone who helps. I volunteer, figuring it’ll be an interesting thing to learn and I can just give the tobacco to James.

The massive leaves are ripped apart and the veins are removed. They are then ripped further into smaller strips. Whenever they are not being handled, the leaf strips are kept in either a sealed Ziplock bag or in a large bowl with a damp cloth over it in order to retain the moisture. The three different types of tobacco leaves — Canadian, American, and burley — are kept separate until they are shredded. Once we start shredding them, they are distributed in equal parts Canadian and American with a tiny handful of burley mixed in. 

During the shredding process, Rainer comes in to ask what we’re doing and Caedon explains.

“Organic natural tobacco,” Rainer repeats, “so it’s good for you then?”

“It may be less bad for you,” Caedon explains, “but I wouldn’t claim it’s good for you.”

Later in the evening while sitting around the wood stove in the mess tent, we notice that the door to the kitchen has a variety of penises drawn all over the door. As Nina walks in, Sophia points this out.

“Sorry about the door,” she says apologetically as Nina makes her way toward the kitchen door, “I saw that and thought ‘Nina’s way too classy to have penises on her door.’”

“Well obviously you’re not too classy to draw them!” comes Nina’s response, making everyone in the tent crack up. There is no higher level of sass than sass from the cook.

“Did you hear about Chad’s laundry?” Gwen asks, making her way into the tent.

“No, what happened?” Molly asks.

“Well, he put all of his laundry into a garbage bag and threw it into the back of the truck when we went to town. But we had all the camp garbage in there as well and were going to the dump. So we get to the dump and are just beginning to put the boxes in the recycling station when Chad suddenly looks up and is like ‘did you throw my laundry in the dump? It was in a garbage bag’ and we were like ‘probably — if it was in a garbage bag and in the back with the rest of the garbage’. Suddenly his face just looks so sad and he goes bolting toward the area where we dumped all the garbage, but this massive garbage truck is literally just pulling into the station. I’ve never seen Chad run so fast with such long strides. He jumps in and just starts tearing through all the garbage bags until he finds his laundry. It was literally all his clothes inside.”

We all start laughing at the image of poor Chad sprinting across the transfer station and digging his garbage bag full of laundry out of the dump.

During one of the shifts, there is a professional bike race happening and the road through the Flathead up toward the camp is on the trail. Molly sets out several large containers of water and a sign that says ‘drinking water — help yourself!’ for the passing bikers. However, one morning at around 4:30am, Harley and Tula start barking super loudly and bolt toward the road. Hearing a loud scream, Molly chases after the dogs in time to see a terrified biker pedal as fast as he can in the opposite direction. Needless to say, we take the two dogs to work with us during the next few days while the race is still going on.

Whenever they are on the block with us, Tula likes to run around and chase whatever animal she comes across, but Harley often prefers to lay under the shade of the truck. He also just likes to stay within a 100-meter radius of wherever he knows there’s food. Because of this, Molly scrawls in large letters in the dirt on the truck: “DON’T FEED THE CACHE MONKEY!”. Upon returning to the truck a few hours later, we see another message scrawled directly below Molly’s. It reads: “I do w/e the f**k I want to monkeys!!”. Gwen.

Toward the end of the contract, there are two massive blocks up in the Flathead that all the crews are working on together. The blocks are so large that they will probably last the whole camp to the end of the contract. Since it is the same block, it is all the same price to plant, although certain areas of the block are west-facing and rocky, while others have much softer ground because they are north-facing. The weather’s been turning hot recently as well and we all plant a little slower and lazily.

At one of the cache breaks, Chad and Gwen are talking about Magic 8 balls and talismans.

“One of the theories I’ve heard about talismans,” Chad says, “is that the reason they seem to work so well is because you are unconsciously controlling it. Like, the idea is that the talisman will magically point to whatever it is you’re supposed to do or have or something, but if unconsciously in the back of your mind you know what you want, then you will unconsciously pull your hand toward that. Since you were not consciously moving your hand, then it looks all mystical.”

“Ooor it is magic,” says Gwen decisively.

“Or it’s magic,” Chad gives in, laughing.

During another cache break, Gwen and Chad are discussing the significance of intuition and the compatibility of Western and traditional medicine. As if in direct contrast to this fairly intellectual conversation, Kendall is busy sticking empty flagging rolls on her eyes. It turns out empty flagging rolls are the perfect size to fit around your eye and stay there when you slightly close your eye, the way you can do with quarters. Facing the truck, she suddenly turns around to face me with a huge smile on her face, peering through the dark cardboard tubes stuck to her eyes.

“Kendall!” I burst out laughing, “you look like Mole from that animated movie Atlantis!”

One extremely hot day, we’re very close to Frozen Lake, so we head down after work to quick jump it.

“I’m not going to turn the truck off,” Molly says as we climb out, “because I don’t want to have to get on the radio like ‘Umm Rainer, we need a boost at Silver Lake, where we’re not supposed to be’. So we’re gonna have to just jump right in an right out again.” Ours is an old truck and we’ve needed boosts many times before, so we nod and run out. We strip naked out of our dirty planting clothes and jump in. The freezing water feels so refreshing on our hot and filthy planting bodies.

Jazzy walks into the mess tent one morning with a pair of what looks like brand new cork boots in her hand.

“Anyone want a pair of corks?” she calls out, “size 7, $90, never worn!”

“Where are they from?” I ask, trying them on.

“My friend quit planting before she ever used them,” Jazzy explains, “that was like two years ago though, so these are the good kind of Vikings that they don’t make anymore. I bought them off her without trying them on, thinking they’d fit. She bought them for like $200.”

That evening, I hand her the money and she gives me the boots, along with a pair of liners she’d just purchased for the boots. Finally! I think, I’ve finally got a pair of corks! 

Walking across the gravel road with them feels like I’m wearing an extremely heavy-duty pair of track spikes, but it’s a whole new experience walking through the block with them. There is far less slipping, but way more tripping at first, being unused to the feeling of placing your foot on something and it will stay there even when you push it. It takes a while to get used to them, but eventually they make a world of difference.

“Sometimes I feel like an insect or something,” Molly says, referring to wearing cork boots, “walking up logs and shit.” After hearing this, I try walking up a log and am amazed at how much fun it is. I then spend a large portion of my day just walking up and across fallen logs rather than actually planting trees.

One day, Rainer loads our truck with 45% big spruce because we’re planting a section of the block with much softer soil. These heavy trees are ten in each bundle and only around 200 can fit in a bag-up (the same type of heavy trees that go in some of the fill plants). To help give us energy, Gwen offers fingerfuls of mushroom honey to everyone. We all take small amounts and suck on it while bagging up (except for Kendall, who takes a rather large amount).

As Molly makes her way back toward the truck, everyone kind of looks awkwardly between her and Gwen’s tiny little still-open jar.

“What’s that?” Molly asks suspiciously about the jar, making her way closer. Gwen walks up to her with a big smile on her face.

“Mushroom honey,” she smiles sweetly, “would you like some?”

“Mushroom honey?” Molly asks with a wary smile and an expression that seems to question whether or not she should play an authority role here.

“It’s not very strong,” Gwen assures her, “there’s only 2.5 grams in the whole jar.”

“Fourty-five grams?!” Molly exclaims, eyes growing wide.

“No, just 2.5! 2.5 grams,” Gwen repeats, holding out the open jar. Molly pauses for a moment, then shrugs and sticks her finger into the jar as well.

“There was this one guy I was bushwhacking with who got so high on mushrooms one day on the job,” Molly laughs after starting to bag up, “that he hid under a cluster of bushes to trip out. So I almost whacked his head off when I found him! It was like, dude, if you’re gonna hide somewhere to trip out, could you go somewhere we’ve already finished? We’re bushwhacking here!”

Later, on the block, I over hear Molly talking with Gwen about what sort of effect psychedelics have on the human brain.

“What we normally see isn’t actually everything that is,” Molly explains how she sees it, “there’s no way we could take in everything at once or we’d be like babies staring wide-eyed at everything, or a monk silent by himself and not differentiating between ourselves and everything else. We naturally only focus on what we know or what is familiar to us. Like, you know when you learn a new word and suddenly you start hearing it everywhere? You’re not actually hearing it more; you’re just noticing it now, but it was always there. I think what makes these drugs so powerful is that they help us to take a step back from our own way of looking at the world.”


PS - don't forget about the Palestine delegation in which I am participating in August 2017! Around $200 has been raised so far - lots more to go! To donate, go to http://cpt.org/donate and follow the steps to donate. Toward the end of the process, there will be a box that says "donation inspired by". Be sure to enter my name in this section to ensure that the donation goes to this delegation.


Peace and love, friends!