Summer Planting

July 7, 2015 9:50 am Published by Taylor Tonsi 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. Even though I am usually dying of heat by the end of the day, I’d rather be hot then wet and cold from the rain. Last week we got started on our summer plant in the south (House Mountain, towards Swan Hills.)

The contractor that I am working with is Folklore, which is a different company that I worked with during the Spring Camp. They are based out of British Columbia and just finished up a contract their before they came. They consist of forty planters that are replanting the land. I was amazed to see actually how many trees forty planters could plant a day; their record last week was one hundred and three thousand in one day. (That makes me believe that their contract is going to finish up quick this month.) Comparing the spring and the summer plant there are definitely some differences. For one the spring camp was in isolation, we had to drive everyday for about an hour then helicopter in to the camp for about twelve miles (and the planters couldn’t leave at all), but for the summer camp most of the blocks are road or quad access (although we did fly in to three blocks).

The planters are able to leave as they please for their days off, for example they are able to come to Slave Lake to go to the beach or just hang out. To cut down helicopter costs, we had two Hagglund’s stationed to move trees and planters to some of the blocks. (For those who don’t know what a Hagglund is, they were used in the army back in the day and are basically two carts on tracks that can travel on any terrain. You can literally climb a hill that is straight vertical and not flip and they can even float in water and muskeg. Pretty impressive if you ask me.) The summer contract working days are four days on one day off, while the spring was three days on, one day off.

I have found that the blocks are really spread out and bigger then what they were in the last contract. One of the blocks was one hundred and twenty hectares… that was a really long walk. Yesterday Folklore finished their south blocks and are now heading to their north blocks up highway 88. (So they are moving quite fast.)

I enjoy being in silivculture because I love the fact that we are giving back to the environment by planting more tress than we take, I really enjoy working with the tree planters, and most of all I LOVE being outside!

Enjoy the weather everyone 