Treeplanting #19: Injuries, Showers, and Crew Bosses

From left to right: 2 days, 3 years, and so far 1 shift but will probably last a while

This year seems to be a lot more dedicated to reading and journaling (and... other distractions) than to blogging. Nevertheless, here is a scramble of events that may or may not be interesting.

One day, Rainer forgot to turn the water on in the afternoon. As a result, only the first crew back to camp was able to take showers. By dinnertime, enough water had heated to shower three more people. For the most part, however, people had to truly live out the cliché of the dirty treeplanter.

Laska, ideal block doggo

I spy Laska

Block snacks

Empty bags at the end of the day

Fancy block outfits; New hat this year!

After showering on a particularly cold day, I made the same mistake I did in my first year: literally walking into the woodstove. Only this time, I did so walking forward rather than backward. As a result, a large burn formed on my shin, which is the most inconvenient place to have a large, bubbling burn while tree planting. I first decided to let it heal itself, which would have been fine if it weren’t a friggin planting camp. It ended up reopening on the block every day, then the blood would dry over of my legging, sealing them onto my leg so I’d have to peel them off and reopen the burn every evening after work. After two days (and many comments from the crew), I finally decided to see the camp medic, who covered it in disinfectant and taped gauze overtop.

Peeling my tights off after the first day

It split open much worse on the second day

Peeling off the leggings was also more difficult

Here's my palm gettin' all callused

One of the planters split her knuckle open

Planting topless is a great idea for about 2 hours

Heat rash

Toes starting to get all peely from not getting enough air. Yummy

Bruising up

This year, William organized his own crew and had initially planned to take on his own contract completely. However, when a larger company outbid him for a couple of the blocks, he ended up back at Cathy and Rainer’s in his old role as a crew boss for most of May. At the end of the month, he drove his crew up to northern British Columbia for the blocks he did get, where they would form their own small camp.

Since William used to be Braeden’s crew boss, Braeden often compared his own style of crew bossing to William’s in the beginning. He says things like “William would be making fun of me so hard right now!” or “William would never do this.” He does this much less now, as he’s become more independent in his own crew bossing. He’s also becoming less quick-tempered, which is a relief for everyone on the crew. Since the entire crew is first years except for him and I, there is often a lot of confusion on the block. At the beginning of the season, other planters would be coming to me with questions about the block because they didn’t want him to shout at them. By now, things have calmed down a lot; the rookies are more accustomed to the way blocks work and Braeden gets angry less.

He has, however, gotten the truck stuck twice, which has been exciting both times.

With William’s crew planting here as well, we went through trees much quicker than expected at the beginning of the contract. As a result, we had an extra day off and an early proposed finish date of June 15, much to everyone’s frustration. However, with an extra day off, we did end up going on a separate adventure. Not too far from camp is Sulfur Springs, which has excellent jumping rocks.

Sulfer Springs for the extra day off

Cliff-jumping

There are three different cliffs, each of a different jumping height

On one of the nights off, someone in camp made an entire cooler full of sangria. As it was starting to get low, William, prompted by much cheering around the fire, took the entire cooler and drained it down his throat.

Immediately, the members of his crew looked at him with an expression of both shock and disgust.

“That’s our boss!” They screamed, “he’s taking us into the middle of nowhere! God help us!"

“Haaaa!” William cheered, tossing the cooler aside and pointing at them, “I’m in charge! You guys are stuck with me!”

As the night went on, the fire grew larger, the drugs came out, and the alcohol disappeared faster. Once-innocent greeners were staggering across the grounds, collapsing into bushes before others came to help them back to their tents.

People started splitting off after around 2am and I found myself starting to fall into a drunken sleep. Since my own tent was far away, I ended up making my way over to William's tent, since it was closer and his bed is more than large enough for two people (solid logic, right?).

Around an hour later, William staggers into his tent, strips down entirely, and plops down onto his bed. I grunt sleepily in acknowledgment.

"Oh!"William exclaims, but in a not-all-that-surprised way, "you're here?"

"Your bed's comfier than mine," I mutter as he slides an arm around me (or did I yank his arm around me? I don't quite remember; it could've been either).

"What is this, Goldilocks and the Three Bears?" he laughs, "This one's tooooo big; this one's tooooo small -"

"But this one's juuuust right," we both finish and burst out laughing, then promptly pass the fuck out and don't wake up until several hours after he was already supposed to have left for town.

Two days later, Jasmine and I are bouncing on the block. 

"That's some great confidence," she chuckles as I relay the story of randomly showing up in William's bed.

"Yeaaaa," I respond, "I think it's the kind of confidence that's only acceptable when everyone's wasted."

After William’s crew left, someone wandered into the mess tent on the day off asking “Anyone know what happened to that tent with the KKK hood?” Never made the connection before, but now it’s undeniable. Suddenly the once-spectacular marvel of a tent, equipped with a chimney and everything, became a uncomfortable.

William's facy-ass tent, otherwise known as the KKK hood

9/10 office environment

It would be 10/10, but the murdered forest takes it down a notch

A maple-bacon sunday; it sounds far more exciting than it tastes

More photos from the drive to/from work

Sometimes farmers leave their horses to roam the crown land we plant

The late-night reading group (although not much reading is taking place here). Photo credits to Mariya, who loves to take photos of camp life and share them to the Facebook group

Uncle Jim! Photo credits, again, to Mariya

This year's completed camp reading list:

The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame

Cunt: A Declaration of Independence by Ingrid Muscio (AND a foreword by Betty frickin Dodson)

Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe

The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver

Educated by Tara Westover

On the to-read list:

Narrative of Frederick Douglass by Frederick Douglass

The Art of Revolt by Geoffroy de Lagasnerie

Walden by Henry David Thoreau

Picture of Dorian Grey by Oscar Wilde

Treeplanting #18: BITCH I'M BACK

Pretty nice workplace

Someone took this photo of me a few years ago. Top-class planting technique here.

After skipping last year, I’m SO glad to be back in the bush for my fourth year of tree planting. Writing this, however, I’m noticing a slight problem of my own making: treeplanting is a pretty transient community, but in this particular camp there are some “regulars” who come back every year. My first year writing this blog, I created pseudonyms for everyone but stopped doing this somewhere in the middle of the second. Now there are new planters whose real names are the same as the pseudonyms of some of the old ones. For example, I decided to call my uncle “Uncle Jim” but now there is an actual Jim in camp who is also a crew boss, so I’m just caught in this web of lies.

Anyways, if anyone has actually followed these blogs and/or knows various people, I linked returning characters up to Treeplanting #10 (I got bored after that). Returning characters this year are: Uncle Jim (obviously; mentioned in literally every previous blog post), Francois (mentioned in blogs 1, 2, 6, 7, 8, and others afterward), William (mentioned in blogs 7, 8, 10, and others afterward), Braeden (who’s a CREW BOSS this year what the hell, mentioned somewhere after blog 10), Damian (mentioned in blog 8, 9, 10, and some others afterward), Nina (of COURSE, mentioned in blogs 2, 4, 6, 8, and others afterward), and Sophia (mentioned in the majority of blogs). A very important person who is NOT returning this year is Molly (mentioned in pretty much every previous blog), which is preeetty damn disappointing. I hope she has grassy-ass blocks for leaving this camp (kidding of course – I wish her nothing but dirt).

Home for the next 2 months

Comfy and petite

The first day I arrived (Day 2 of the shift; everyone was still at work so camp was empty), was a pretty sharp reminder of what it’s like living in the bush. My shovel had recently arrived at Cathy’s house. As it was brand new, it needed to be shortened quite a lot, unless I felt like doing a huge arm stretch a few thousand times a day in addition to planting trees. She told me Rainer would help me with shortening it. Rainer was pretty busy when I asked him, so he gestured over to the work table. “You just have to take the screws out of the top, saw the shaft down to where you want it, then put the top back on and screw it back in place. It’s easy enough.”

Well okay then, let’s see how this goes; it’s the sawing part I’m not so sure about.

Rustling around the worktable, I found a screwdriver and a skill saw: Step 1, complete. After taking the screws out of the top, I fidgeted with it for a bit, unable to separate the handle from the shaft. Finally, I stepped on the shovel kicker and pulled upward, and the handle popped right of.

Next the saw. (Relax, all you saw-wielding Knowledgeables, we all learn at some point.) I couldn’t see any buttons, so held it away from me as I plugged it in, wondering if it would start the second I plugged it in. It didn’t, so I examined it some more. Turns out I was holding it wrong and the actual handle has a trigger at the bottom, so I started to push it. It wasn’t working so I looked closer and pushed harder. Eventually, as my finger pushed all the way down, it started up, so I pulled my face away from it again pretty quickly. Grabbing the shovel, should I secure this down somehow? I wondered, Meh, that’s just another thing to figure out. Pushing it against the clamp, I brought the saw down roughly where I thought would be a good size to cut it down to. It worked fine for the first bit, until the shovel jerked and it caught. I pulled it up and continued where it had stopped. I didn’t have my finger down very far though, so it turned off partway through. When I pushed down again and it started, it caught again. At this point, however, there was only a small piece of wood left, so I turned it on again and took it off easily.

As I was observing the rough, uneven results of my handiwork, Damian comes out of the shower tent looking quizzical.

“Everything okay?” he asks.

“Yep,” I answer, “just eyeballing how to work this thing.”

“Kay… well it shouldn’t be catching like that…” and walks back into the shower tent. Twisting the handle back onto the shaft of the shovel, I realize it’s still way too long. Taking it off again, I walk into the shower tent.

“Hey Damian?” I ask, “I need to shorten it more. Wanna show me how to actually work the saw?”

Damian shows me how to clamp the shovel in place, measure out right where I want to cut it down to using the shovel handle, and hold the saw steady as I bring it down. With one cut, it goes right through.

“Thanks,” I say.

“No problem,” he responds, and heads back into the shower tent. I twist the handle back onto the shaft, try it out a few times to make sure it’s the right height, and screw it back into place. Voila: shovel successfully shortened.

Doggos of camp (there's like 8 of them this year. It's one well-guarded camp)

Feeling welcome

For the last full shift, I’ve been on Braeden’s crew. It’s strange having him as a crew boss; he seems like a completely different person than when I knew him 2 years ago. He’s still freaking hilarious, but now he’s responsible and (sort of) calm.

If anyone forgot who Braeden is, here is the dude

Until he gets stressed, his whole attitude is sooomewhat relaxed, super salty, and he has a pretty damn dry sense of humour. When Damian commented on how exhausting it is going into town on days off because there’s so many people, Braeden started howling, “Oh noooo, I can’t even walk on the damn sidewalk without someone else walking on it too” in a way that cracked everyone up.

On another day, people were having a conversation about roundabouts while on the truck ride back to camp at the end of the day. Someone mentioned a few recent roundabouts built in Vancouver: they just placed a pile of rocks in the intersection and called it a roundabout.

“A fucking rock?!” Braeden exclaims, “That really shows you the difference between Ontario and BC. In Ontario, fucking 20 soccer moms would have called in within the first ten minutes demanding ‘why is there a fucking rock in the middle of the intersection?!’ In BC, everyone sees the rock and is like ‘yo cool rock, man’ *tokes up*  ‘uhh are you sure it wasn’t there last week?’  *puffs* ‘hey what should we name it?’ That’s the difference between BC and Ontario, man.”

Another day found everyone listening to Braeden’s angry rant about how marriage is entirely about social status and economics, shutting down anyone who disagreed with him (which was everyone). Finally, Damian just announced, “I feel like you know you’re wrong and just don’t want to be.” This didn’t really change the situation.

Legs are starting to assume their anticipated beat-up look

Well-dirtified and caked hand

Being an “upper year” planter is an odd feeling. There were two days where I was the only non-greener on the block and both times the line started getting a bit wonky, and I found myself recommending the other planters to either bounce here, or leave a line for someone in a pocket there, or jump on the line here instead of bouncing because the access is getting cut off, etc. It’s not so much in a commanding way (I’m no crew boss so nobody has to listen to me at all), but more in a way that I notice certain things happening on a block that a first- or second-year planter might not. One day, Braeden sent me into one section of the block with Jasmine, a first year planter, under the expectation that I’d navigate the block so she and I could fill it out ourselves. Normally I’m just following the line but now I’m the one creating the line and keeping it moving smoothly. People ask me questions and I’m actually able to answer sufficiently. Braeden doesn’t check my line nearly as much as he checks the greeners’. The responsibility is pretty darn weird (I’m no natural leader), but I think both three years of planting and all the responsibility I had in Shanghai certainly help.

This boot LOOKS tough

It lasted 2 days

"ROOTS TUFF" is not so tough

One of the firsts days, we were planting in snow

One morning, after leaving camp, we had to stop the truck as a mountain goat made its way across the road toward a rock face.

“I love how when there’s a sign for mountain goats, there’s always mountain goats,” Braeden says, “like, when there’s a deer sign, there may or may not be a deer but probably not. Mountain goats don’t give a fuck, though, they love the road and are always there.”

Once we near the turn onto the logging road, a herd of elk is grazing beside the road.

“Don’t do it; don’t do it!” Braeden screams as the elk begin to look up at the approaching truck. Heedless of Braeden’s commands, one of the elk begins to trot across the road… then the next… then the next. We stop the truck and wait for at least 10 elk to slowly make their way across the road.

Once on the logging road, a grouse is hobbling across the road. Despite Braeden’s honking, it still takes its sweet time tottering where it wants to go. “Why don’t grouse ever move??”

Two minute later, we slow down as a lone elk crosses the road.

“What is this, fucking National Geographic Day??” Braeden roars while blaring the horn, “Are we on a fucking safari ride? GET OFF THE ROAD!”

Luckily, we’re pretty much on the block at this point so no more animals cross our path.

Now for the worst part of the last two shifts: when I DROPPED MY PHONE IN THE SHITTER. For anyone unfamiliar with the terminology, the shitter is a rather crude term for the hand-built outhouses we have here (but it’s the only term we use for them sooo that’s just what they will be called in this blog). They basically consist of a huge hole dug into the ground, a thick piece of plywood placed over top to stand on with a hole in it for you to squat over. A white canvas box-thing is also placed over top for privacy. Alas, these are our toilets.

I had just left my tent as it was getting dark and decided to stop by the shitter. Lo and behold, my phone tumbled out of my pocket and into the hole. There was a pretty long freeze where the only thought in my head was just “Fuck.” After the moment passed, I bolted out to beg the nearest person for a hand (two heads are better than one right?). Luckily, it was Braeden who was just walking past, so my shame was a little less.

I tell him the story and he just moans, “Fuuuuck that’s the woooorst! Oh my god whhhyyyy??”

Talking through the situation, I realize I have to get it out. With all the photos and other various things saved on my phone, leaving it and buying a new one is not an option. We walk over to Rainer’s office to grab a pair of nitrile gloves. I tie my hair up as tight as it will possibly be tied. He shines the light on his phone down into the hole in the plywood. We both just look down at the small black rectangle laying atop the massive mound of human shit at least 4 feet down from the board we’re standing on. I grumble for a few moments, shuffling around on the board we’re standing on.

“No, stop fucking around, Anneke,” comes Braeden’s typical ultra-directness, “You just gotta get down on your stomach, know where you’re going, and lower yourself in head first. You just gotta go for it. Just get it over with.”

Finally, I do get down on my stomach, place my gloved hands on either side of the hole (avoiding the spot where someone evidently had trouble aiming their asshole), focus my eyes exactly on the goal, take a deep breath, and lower myself down with one hand while reaching out with the other. The light disappears as my upper body is fully submerged, but my hand has already memorized exactly where to go. My fingers grasp the edge of the phone and I jolt upward, flinging the phone into the grass far away from me.”

“Fuuuuuck,” Braeden moans again, “This is what it really means to be a foreman, dammit. Helping planting get their fucking phones out of the shitters. Fuck, I’m out. Go get yourself in the damn showers, Anneke.” With that, he heads toward the fire pit where several others are gathered.

I take the phone into the mess tend, scrub it down with soap and walk, then dry it off before the water has time to soak into the cracks. I take off the case and throw straight into the trash, then repeat the scrubbing process again. I take off the nitrile gloves and toss them into the garbage as well, scrubbing both my hands and the phone one more time. Phone rescue? Successful. Will I ever take anything into the shitter that is not firmly fastened to me ever again? No.

I freaking missed this job

So there we are. The first blog of a whole new season. Back with the misfits who are tough as shit and I'm more than happy to be here.