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| How the hell do you make a cut block look beautiful? |
One day, we are having a lovely day creaming out some 18 cent gravy when we are suddenly faced with an unusual dilemma: ravens. There are usually ravens flying around but these ones are far more… ravenous?
“Watch out, Anneke – a raven’s after your lunch!” Molly calls out from the cache at the beginning of the day. Returning to the truck, I see that the yoghurt container I was storing orange slices in has been tampered with. Beak marks pierce the top of the container, revealing some rather sorry-looking orange slices inside. I shrug – there’s other food to eat.
We switch blocks later in the day and, at one point, I return to the truck alone to find a total mess. Three sandwich containers, all belong to one guy on our crew, have been completely pulled out of the truck, pecked open, and have their contents strewn all around the truck. The remains of both food and the containers are left in shambles. Luckily, my second container of food was not found by the vicious ravens and the rest of us in the truck are able to share our food with the unlucky planter.
William's crew is on this block as well.
“Damn ravens shredded my entire lunch container!” We hear him holler from his truck in the distance.
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Speaking of William, there are a couple shifts toward the end of the contract where I am switched into his truck. This is the result of Molly’s beloved dually having multiple problems. First two flats, then there’s something to do with the electrical and we have to get a ride to the block in other trucks. Finally, the entire truck is sent in to be fixed, resulting in Molly, Damian, and One in Rainer’s small truck and myself in William’s truck.
While Molly is still my favourite crew boss, there is something refreshing about being exposed to a different crew and different sort of work environment. He is a much more relaxed and direct crew boss.
For example, in a situation where Molly might say, “Hey I’m noticing a lot of leaners on your line. Here’s a technique can use to try and stop that,” William’s response would be something more like “What the fuck – you're planting so many leaners. Stop doing that.” He doesn’t mean this in any sort of angry way – he’s just very direct and blunt.
Another thing that’s pretty refreshing is the lack of gossip on William’s crew. I’ve been getting rather annoyed with the amount times Molly’s truck conversations revolve around complaining about one specific person who’s not there to defend themselves. It’s also frustrating because no-one will dare contradict her (no excuses – I’m included in that) because her method of crew bossing inspires a lot of loyalty among her planters (again, myself included). In William’s truck, however, gossip would be highly out of place. People talk about weird stuff that happened on the block, or laugh at whatever comedian William has on his iPod, or some idea one of the planters have. Negative comments about other people would just make the whole work environment really awkward. I really like this about William’s truck.
That being said, annoyances aside, my loyalties are still to Molly for all the reasons mentioned in previous blogs (for example, basically all of the posts from last year ).
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One evening when we pull back into camp, I remain in the truck for a couple extra minutes to finish the chapter of the book I’m reading. Upon exiting the cab, everyone else has already cleared out and carried all of their things into the dry tent. My personal tent being quite close to the trucks, I run to drop my phone and book off inside. On the path, however, I see a random larch planted and flagged outside my tent. Looking up, I realize there are lots – six fucking larch trees have been planted around my tent. And the person flagged them!
What the hell?! I think, frantically yanking the flagging off the trees so as not to draw attention to them, but can’t help the feeling of amusement from welling up inside from the fact that, not only did I get ghost-treed, but someone had taken the time to flag each of the trees.
Eventually deciding that it must have been William who planted the trees, I take six mugs out of the mess tent and bring them over to my tent. One by one, I pull the trees out of the ground, pack dirt in around them, and tie a piece of flagging in a nice bow around each tree. Then I open the driver’s door to William’s truck and arrange the mugs carefully on and around the seat.
Turns out it might have been Optimus Prime rather than William. Whoops. But both William and Optimus Prime deny it, so it’s probably one of them.
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One day while driving back from the block, Cathy tells us over the radio that Stryker (aka Uncle Jim) was treed by a grizzly!!
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| Uncle Jim's got a pretty iconic face, which means people like to take pictures of him, which means there are lots to choose from. |
Arriving in camp, we hear the whole story from his crew members as well are eating soup and bread.
“We just hear him [Stryker/Uncle Jim] shout ‘BEAR’ and look up as he is frantically climbing a tree while the bear is charging him,” explains and exhilarated Optimus Prime, “he must have gone twenty feet up into that tree. Then the bear circled the tree from the bottom. It was too big to climb up after him. While all of its attentions were on Stryker, Wes and I made our way to the treeline and up into trees as well. Then Candace let off a firework that scared the bear away, but it came straight toward the treeline where we were! So we stayed up in the trees for a while before climbing down again. I was ready to keep planting and finish the block, but Stryker was like ‘let’s move to another block’ and I realized that was a better idea."
“It’ll take far more than a grizzly to take down Stryker,” becomes the general consensus around camp. I have to agree with this.
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In typical end-of-season fashion, all of the crews are in one area for the last shift.
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| Four of six trucks on the way to the block! Okay we're parked here, but still on the way. |
Since we are all leaving camp in the same direction, we end up passing some of the other trucks on the highway to the block. William doesn’t let us pass him though – until we get into Fernie. As we pull into the inside lane in the middle of town and slowly approach William’s truck from behind, Braeden, one of the planters on our crew, has a splendid idea.
“Let’s moon them!”
It takes mere seconds for Braeden and Damian to whip their pants down, roll down the window, and whip their asses out. By the time we pass William’s truck, two bare asses are on bouncing on the windowsill for the pleasure of William’s entire crew. Possibly for some of the unsuspecting citizens of Fernie as well.
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| The reason all the trucks were parked: a giant friggin' mudpit. After getting stuck and pulled out multiple times, people worked together to fill the pit with rocks. This worked great for one truck, which took out all the rocks and we had to find another way to get across. |
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| Waiting to figure out how to cross the mud pit. |
For the last half of the very last day, all seven crews are planting the overflow block together. That’s forty-two people on one block. Well, probably not that many. I never counted everyone, but chances are not all of the trucks were full. But it must have been pretty damn close.
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| Look how many planters are in the photo! THIS IS TERRIFYING. Taken from Molly's Instagram. |
As we are all frantically planting in one direction, my ponytail comes undone but I have to leave it so as not to fall out of the line. There is no mercy in situations like these and one is obligated to focus entirely on planting. Interestingly, I find that people tend to move closer to the speed of the faster planters in a cattle plant while the faster planters plant the same amount. This is likely because the faster planters would just pass the slower planter but, due to the number of people behind them, it would be very difficult for the slower planter to get back into line again. So it all just becomes a great swarm (or heavily crowded line) of planting maniacs throwing trees into the ground as fast as they can, any and all slash getting mown down beneath them.
After bagging out, I manage to bum an extra bundle off Michel. With one tree left and people bagging out all around me, I completely lose track of the line. I find a space wide enough to squeeze in my last tree and walk toward the road.
“I’m happy to be bagging out for the last time this season with you, Anneke,” says Sam happily, exiting the block at the same time as me.
“Well I’m happy to be bagging out with you!” I respond cheerily. Looking up, I see there are still people planting way up the block, but they are so far away. I can’t imagine they have much left, I think, heading toward the truck.
The first one back at the truck, I decide to do what I’ve always wanted to do: climb the Fist. This allows me to capture some pretty top-notch photos of planters returning to the truck for the last time.
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| Braeden bagged out and is fucking done with these trees. |
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| One is Pink! |
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| Fresh Outta Da Block: Ft. Shovellz |
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| Molly took this one of me on top of the Fist. |
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Back in camp, party preparations have already begun. One wall of the tent is taken down and all tables and chairs have been moved outside. Nina and Bee have prepared a wide variety of delicious appetizers, just like last year. There are chocolate-coated fruit kabobs, brie cheese with crackers, goat cheese with blueberry jam and walnuts on top of a cucumber slice, salmon cream cheese rolls, and sesame chicken wings. Outside, coolers full of pop, beer, ciders, and large bottles of hard alcohol have already been brought out as well. Both Fernie crews and some people from Marty’s camp have joined us as well. Max has also come back to join us for the end party, much to Molly’s great joy (as clearly shown by her spending most of the night tangled up with him in some way ;) ).
Dinner is ribs, candied pecans on squash (or was it sweet potato?), salad with walnuts and goat cheese in it, potatoes with sour cream, and TWO types of cheese cake. I chat with Candace most of the meal. She and I were greeners together three years ago and, every year, we have this sort of conversation/bonding moment of reflection on the year. It’s really great feeling to have someone with a shared “we’re in this together” attitude.
After dinner, there are several people hitting golf balls over the river. This is neat and all (some people are remarkably skilled at it), but I find it extraordinarily boring. So….. SUMO SUITS!!!
This year, the party planners decided to use the party budget to rent out a pair of sumo suits. People pull themselves into the suits and, once determining how to move in them, run into each other and bounce off, often requiring help to get up again.
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| Braeden and Chad, the two largest guys in camp, had one of the most satisfying fights. Juuust tossin' him. |
“Stryker should challenge Anneke!” Molly jeers from her place curled in Max’s arms. Everyone cheers this on, but Uncle Jim gives a very decisive “no”.
“Bro-dy and Rainer!” comes Molly’s next call.
“Bro-dy and Rainer?!” exclaims Bro-dy, “whaaat? Do you want me to die?!”
But as everyone keeps cheering, Rainer grin and takes off his sweater, walking toward the sumo suits. Bro-dy laughs and follows his stepfather into the ring. Amidst loud cheers and hoots, the pair push and tumble their way around the ring. Predictably, it frequently ends with Bro-dy on the ground and Rainer bouncing on top of him in his sumo suit. By the end, they fist-bump and call it a game.
“So Uncle Jim,” I say, sidling up alongside my uncle, “wouldn’t Grandma be so proud to see her son and granddaughter sumo wrestling?”
“No."
“But are you sure about that?”
“Yes.” Well. Can’t argue with that.
After much asking, Candace also continually turns down a fight.
Suddenly, as it starts getting darker, I hear a voice from several people away from me.
“I’ve been looking for someone to fight me all night!” I hear Sophia exclaim several people away.
“I’ll fight you!” I call excitedly, making my way toward her.
“Really? Yayy!"
We crawl into the sweaty, well-used sumo suits and square off. After a solid three seconds, I realize how bloody exhausting these damn suits are. Landing on my back, it takes an intense amount of energy to spin onto my stomach and force myself back onto my feet. The helmets are completely covering our eyes as we flail blindly toward each other, pushing rather ineffectively into each other.
After Sophia and I call it a match and climb out of the suits, Cathy starts pulling apart the ring for the night and loading it back into the truck. I get the impression Sophia and my fight wasn’t exactly the most exciting kind that inspires more matches afterward.
The night ends with loads of conversations around the campfire, a dance party in the mess tent to one of Sam’s fantastic mixes, and an endless flow of alcohol from the makeshift open bar.
After camp takedown and many heartfelt hugs and good-byes, I hitch a ride into the Kootenays with Molly and Max. It has been an incredible season and I can already feel the nostalgia seeping in as we drive out of camp.
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