7 septembre 2016 19:03
I only had one last week at DMI before field school and writing this blog. In that last week I got to participate in reinforcing a road with geotextile, go for an operations tour, receive additional watercourse crossing and road inspection training, an insightful conversation with our land management superintendent about the opportunity forestry brings, and had a chance to explore with the 3D mapping station solo.
22 août 2016 15:04
As some may know, DMI harvests aspen for wood chips to make kraft pulp. This process in the summer starts the operations around July 15th with feller bunches cutting the cutblocks, skidders moving the trees and debris accordingly. In the summer however we have what we call “In-block chippers”, these chippers are contract hired to chip onsite and have chip trucks loaded from there.
8 août 2016 14:55
Walking through the naturally regenerated young aspen during our tree plant quality checks has to be one of my favourite times of year. After only a few year or less this aspen already trump my 5’2” and they are invigorating. They are a sign of nature’s resilience, they make the entire cutblock feel incredibly fresh and alive. As students we get to go into these planted blocks to check the quality of the planting operation and address any concerns our planters may have.
8 août 2016 13:40
Recently I have had the pleasure of receiving a tour of the nursery, Woodmere Nursery Ltd., which grows out seedlings for us when I went to go pick up a few boxes. Jeff, showed us green houses and how they worked per species, the assembly line for packing them up, the cooler room, and how the get loaded into the trucks to be sent to the tree planters.
7 juillet 2016 19:03
One of our lunch time hobbies has always consisted of identifying uncommon plants we encounter or learning more about the common ones, like is it edible. Usually no. But now that fun past time has evolved into a legitimate project for school. A plant ID collection for a forestry course at University of Alberta, since I’ve just transferred in. I’ve gotten a huge head start,