From Field School To Field Work
June 9, 2014 1:16 pm Leave your thoughts
In case anyone is wondering, my name is Kyle. I am working for Millar Western in Whitecourt as a roads summer student. Even though summer has been here for almost a month, I have only just started working for Millar Western. I spent the first three weeks of my summer at a field school in Lac la Biche, a required course for my degree in Forestry at the U of A. During field school we got all sorts of field experience, not just in forestry but also in environmental management. We dealt with everything from digging soil pits and ecosite analysis, to timber cruising, wildlife and rangeland management, and getting certified in electrofishing. It was a very busy three weeks for the 97 of us who attended field school.
I would have to say the most important thing that we all learned is how to work together. We got put into teams of four or five, with people from a variety of programs, and were forced to cooperate enough to complete our assignments. In the forest industry, working together and getting along with others is vital. There is such a wide variety of subjects that need to be covered when doing forestry that it is impossible to do everything alone; teamwork is key.
Since finishing up field school, I have spent almost two weeks working for Millar Western, and I simply love it here. I have mostly just done training of various sorts, but some of it was a lot of fun. One afternoon was dedicated to quad training in a cut block, which was quite the experience. Cut blocks are full of slash and stumps from the harvesting process, making for a bumpy but interesting ride on a quad.
This past week I got to start with my actual work for the summer. All of you readers are going to have to wait until my next blog post to find out what it is.
And because I can, here is a picture of a fisher, captured on a trail camera that was set out during my spring field school.