Al-Pac Adventure – No Roads About It

June 25, 2019 2:25 pm Published by Calvin Jensen 3 Comments

Hello readers,

It has not been long since I last wrote a blog entry, but it seems like so much has happened. After weeks of training, I began to wonder if I was ever going to leave my office and experience the sunshine. Luckily, I started fieldwork in the Woodlands department at Al-Pac.

I recently achieved my summer goal to learn about and work in Poplar Farms. My interest in Poplar Farms sparked during my position at the Tree Improvement Lab, where I learned how genetically superior trees are used to increase fibre production. It is interesting to see the ideas about tree improvement be implemented on the land base instead of a theoretical experiment. One of my tasks at Poplar Farms was to help prepare 2000 cuttings of superior poplar and plant them into the field. Tree cuttings were collected during the winter and stored in a cooler to delay bud breakage before planting. They were then stored over the weekend in a water bath to allow the buds to open. Once the cuttings were ready, another summer student and I planted the 2000 cuttings over a 3-day period.

I joined the silviculture summer students for a week to assist with decompaction assessments of reclaimed roads across the FMA area. To asses decompaction, we placed plots every 100 meters of the reclaimed road. We also tracked the species of merchantable tree species, forest conditions in the adjacent block, and if the road had been planted or not. Let me tell you, you don’t realize how long a road is until you`re 2 kilometers in, running low on water, and it`s 30°C out. Thankfully, a chipper attitude and good company made the work go by easily and in good spirits. During these field days, I had my first sighting of a black bear on the side of the highway from the comfort of the truck. I have now encountered many bear sightings through my position. It’s odd how inured we become to seeing dangerous animals while working. The first time is very exciting, but the excitement slowly diminishes once it becomes a regular everyday occurrence.

I joined the summer students in the planning department to help quality check a cutblock that had been laid out by a contractor. To complete this task, we had to ensure that the contractors had properly laid out the appropriate riparian buffers and roads in the proposed cutblock. This rainy day was a bit of a struggle due to the slippery wet conditions. One of my favorite Norwegian phrases really sums up that day “Det finnes ingen dårlig vær, bare dårlige klær“ which roughly translates to there is no such thing as bad weather, only bad clothing because you will never guess who forgot to pack a rain jacket. Nothing like a constant downpour in the forest to learn the difference between waterproof and water resistant.

For the rest of the week, we worked on inspecting the feasibility of contingency cutblocks due to the wildfire situation. It was really neat to learn about the process of laying out a cutblock and the things you need to be aware of including the quality of the wood, road access, slope, and water bodies. By the end of the week, I could lead and assess a cutblock. This was helpful because later that week, one of my coworkers got their ATV stuck in a swampy seismic line. Thankfully, we worked together as a team and got the other summer student unstuck with ease.

One of my favourite aspects of field work so far is collecting and pressing native plants that I encounter in the field. I usually carry around what I call a bush book, a book I’m currently reading, but also press plants in. As you can see, it’s slowly becoming full of plants making it hard to read.

Thank you for reading my blog this week. Check out my next blog to learn about stream and fish assessments! Maybe I will be able to cross catching a fish off of my list of summer goals.