July 22, 2015 2:54 pm Leave your thoughts
As an accounting student the number one question I’m asked is: “What firm are you hoping to work for when you graduate?” This has always puzzled me because I’ve never planned on working for an accounting firm. Even before I planned on becoming an accountant, I only planned on working in the resource industry. I was born and raised in Northern BC,
July 21, 2015 1:38 pm Leave your thoughts
Hello again! Hope everyone is surviving the heat and keeping cool. The last couple weeks for myself have been pretty busy. My crew and I had almost three straight weeks of man up with the occasional wildfire thrown in. With the extreme temperatures and reduced humidity fire hazard in the province sky-rocketed. Because of that we got a good chunk of fire line experience.
July 21, 2015 1:17 pm Leave your thoughts
Cost control is one of the basic steps in determining a company’s financial safety through volatile market swings and the very first step of cost control is to know your break even points.
What does all this have to do with Mr. Chang?
EVERYTHING! Contraire to popular belief,
July 21, 2015 1:12 pm 1 Comment
The past few weeks have been a flurry of activity as the tree planters have started to work in the south part of the FMA. After some issues such as density and j-root were addressed, the planters were back on track to good quality. One thing that I have definitely learned over the course of this contract is responsibility. When the summer students were hired,
July 21, 2015 1:09 pm Leave your thoughts
To start, I’ve been working with Outland planting for the last couple weeks, so I took the lead on making sure that the work was up to snuff. Now, with this particular contract, there are lots of little blocks spread out over five different areas which adds a good start to the confusion and planning, a headache but manageable.
So a few days ago I had an experience I’ll never forget.
July 21, 2015 1:04 pm Leave your thoughts
Nothing too eventful has happened as of late, so I figured it’d be a good time to walk you all through a regular ole day for me at the mill.
My shifts usually consist of 8:00-4:30, Monday to Friday, but can be a little more depending on my work load. My mornings are typically a little more rushed than I’d care for,
July 21, 2015 1:02 pm Leave your thoughts
It seems that no matter what you’re doing in forestry, things are so much easier with the help of a contractor. It is difficult to think of any job at Millar Western that doesn’t somehow involve outside help. We have contractors working on everything from laying out cutblocks and planting seedlings, to repairing roads and preparing areas for harvest. At any given time,
July 15, 2015 2:53 pm Leave your thoughts
A Short Story….
The day is Wednesday June 24th, the setting is beautiful White Spruce and Aspen mixed wood stands, with pockets of Black Spruce bogs and even sandy Jack Pine sites, in other words a very diverse forest area north of the mighty Lesser Slave Lake.
One thing you need to know is that these vast forests are not the only variable on the landscape.
July 15, 2015 2:34 pm 2 Comments
Hi!
The past few weeks have flown by yet again. I’m already dreading sitting in class instead of being outside in the forest. Not that I hate school, and Selkirk College does a great job of mixing outdoor labs with class time, but I really enjoy being outside working. Not to mention that making money is a nice change from being a broke student.
July 15, 2015 2:26 pm Leave your thoughts
Hello loyal followers of the blog,
This week was a quiet one. I’ve been out of commission since last week recovering from surgery. With new work restrictions limiting my lifting and movement, I’ve been supporting my department from the safety of the lab. So no, you won’t see pictures of me putting out forest fires or saving endangered squirrels.
July 15, 2015 2:20 pm 1 Comment
Another week, another blog – what to write about this time?
In the past three months I have had the chance to work a few weekends here and there, which has resulted in a small collection of ‘banked days’. Seeing as I am somewhat closer to the mountains here in Hudson Bay (as opposed to Thunder Bay) I took the opportunity to take a small vacation/trip to explore Jasper National Park.
July 15, 2015 11:23 am 1 Comment
The past few weeks have been very eventful, I was lucky enough to go on a work trip with the planning department to Anahim Lake shortly after I wrote my last blog. During our trip we stayed at an incredible lodge with great food right on the lake. Our work days consisted of venturing into the bush to collect site plan data for proposed harvest blocks.
July 9, 2015 1:23 pm Leave your thoughts
This past two weeks I have talked to a lot of people about how the perceive forestry and with employees of various stations within the sector on how they feel about their jobs. I thought that I might try and discuss the opinions fielded, these are my interpretations of my discussions and what was said in them, so take them as you will.
July 8, 2015 4:02 pm Leave your thoughts
Hello friends,
This week I thought I would share with you an average day in the life of a co-op student with Weyerhaeuser. First I thought I would give you a brief overview of my position. Generally, I work from 7:00 to 4:30 in the Chemical and Utilities department which is in charge of recovering the chemicals used in the pulping process and providing utilities such as electricity,
July 7, 2015 2:34 pm Leave your thoughts
Working in the Greenest Workforce gives employees incredible opportunities to enjoy Canada’s great outdoors both during and after work. However, opportunities in Canada’s forest products industry extend far beyond careers in the forest.
Last week, I sat down with Tolko’s Brokerage Manager, Brian Crossley. His enthusiasm for brokerage is contagious – he definitely left me excited about Tolko’s brokerage business!
July 7, 2015 10:02 am 1 Comment
Hey everybody! Well, it has been a whirlwind the past few weeks and the spring tree plant is in full swing. This past week, the tree planters focused their efforts on an area that required a helicopter to access the cutblocks. This area was harvested over two winters and now the roads are unpassable, so to speed things up, a helicopter ferried trees,
July 7, 2015 9:50 am 1 Comment
Finally summer is here! I don’t know about you guys but I for one am so happy that the sun has been shining as much as it has. The pretty flowers have now started to bloom and everything is so green! The weather has been so beautiful the last couple weeks, which makes it so much enjoyable to be working outside.
July 3, 2015 10:42 am Leave your thoughts
“Do it for the blog!” comes from the edge of the icy pool carved out by a waterfall over hundreds of years. I stood at the edge of a cave trying to find the courage to jump as my friends cheered me on from the side lines. We had just completed a 4 km hike along the deserted creek trail,
July 3, 2015 10:40 am Leave your thoughts
Wow, things have been getting way busier than before, I nearly forgot about blogging all together!
With the funding approved for both my engine replacement and steam reduction project, things have really started to take off. Ordering parts, setting up contractors, creating work and safety plans, and just trying to keep it all organized has certainly been keeping me super busy.
July 3, 2015 10:02 am Leave your thoughts
As I explained in my first blog, my job this summer, as a Roads Summer Student will be to inspect and remediate water crossings, for example, culverts and bridges. It is critical that these be installed correctly and maintained throughout their lifespan, to protect sensitive riparian habitats.
As you can see, this crossing now looks very different from the photo included in my first blog.
July 2, 2015 4:48 pm Leave your thoughts
I’d like to start off by apologizing for the delay in getting this blog written; these past couple of weeks have been surprisingly busy for me. I spent the last two days (Tuesday June 30th and Wednesday July 1st) in a helicopter, flying over dozens of roads to complete road inspections.
To get to the point of actually flying these roads,
June 30, 2015 10:17 am 1 Comment
I am now approaching two months of employment at West Fraser and the time is flying by. In the weeks since I have last written I have engaged in a few new job activities and done some that I am very used to.
I am really getting a feel for the scope of work in the operations side of forestry deals with,
June 30, 2015 9:57 am Leave your thoughts
For me, one of the greatest uncertainties before the summer began was the fact that I would be moving to a completely different province. I had never been to western Canada except for a short trip to Vernon, B.C. Nevertheless, I was very excited to get a chance to see the Rocky Mountains and experience living in a small town.
June 30, 2015 9:45 am Leave your thoughts
Hi again!
Work has been really busy lately as summer is kicking into full gear. Fawn (my student partner for the summer) and I have continue to design cut blocks to be harvested in the future. This involves laying out boundaries, roads, machine free zones, wildlife tree patches and eventually we will do the site plan data collection.
June 26, 2015 10:58 am Leave your thoughts
So in the interim between the spring plant and the summer plant which is starting at the start of July Taylor and I helped out the harvest planning and operations teams. Like I said last week, creek crossing inspections were a part of that. We also joined the area supervisors to help them with block recon and layout. I have to say it’s a good thing our cruise vests have lots of pockets to carry all of the flagging tape that’s needed,