The Training Days of Summer

May 29, 2015 10:09 am Published by Greg Spence 1 Comment

As the first week of May kicked off so did my much anticipated start date as a summer student working for West Fraser Mills at their Williams Lake Plywood mill Woods Division. I had only been to Williams Lake a few times before moving here, and after living here for 2 weeks I am thoroughly impressed with what the city has to offer, there is an unlimited amount of outdoor activities to partake in while offering all the amenities of a larger city in the Fraser Valley, not to mention the scenery isn’t too shabby either!

Figure 1- A view from a Cariboo-Chilcotin Plateau

My first official day with the West Fraser was on May. 4th, I was feeling both anxious and excited as I walked into the office and had my first face to face meeting with the full time staff. Upon introducing myself to everyone and seeing how they interact with one another I quickly realized that everyone at the Williams Lake branch was incredibly friendly and accommodating. Within the first few days it became apparent that I would be spending the summer with a great group of people, I have been here for just two weeks and have already been invited to several coworkers houses, fishing and golfing.

Figure 2- Fir Lake

I have to admit one thing I did not realize coming into my summer student position was how much training West Fraser puts their employees through before they are proven field ready. As much as I was ready to get out of the classroom and jump into a stand of interior Douglas fir with clinometer and compass and get to work, I totally understand why they are putting us through so many training days. The amount of time and money invested into these training days by West Fraser, shows how much they care about the safety and competence of their employees. I must say I do like the fact that they offer so much training and support their employees in actively looking for other training opportunities. I came into this summer position with a few certificates but in just two weeks I have already undergone training in, incident investigations, defensive driving, S-100 refresher course, wildlife training, sediment control and mitigation, Species at Risk, Fall Arrest certification, and of course the companies EMS policies. And after all this I still have more training to complete next week, the ATV safety course and Chainsaw safety, hopefully after it is all said and done I will have proven myself worthy of the field!

Now I don’t want to be misleading, it hasn’t all been training manuals and classroom days, we have had a couple days to go out in the field and get a taste of what our summers will be like. It is probably worth mentioning here that I will be working with the forestry operations department, who are responsible for road deactivation and maintenance, bridge construction, harvesting operations etc. My first day in the field I went out with one of the assistant foresters to check up on some road deactivation that was done in the fall to see how it held up through the winter. We went through the Paces and I jotted down notes as best as I could between deactivation features before we hopped on the quad took off for the next site.

Figure 3 – A well-functioning sump for deactivated road drainage

I was very excited about my second field day as I was told we would be heading two hours Northwest via truck and quad to develop a site plan for a bridge being constructed over an S3 stream. I had never done this before so I was very interested in how we would be carrying out the work. Four of us hit the road around 7:30 and began our site plan around 10:00, The most time consuming part of the work was squaring the bridge deck installation location 90 degrees to the stream crossing. The rest of the work consisted of taking traverse notes of side slopes, gradients and distances 70 metres back from the bridge deck approach and stream crossing. I was given an engineer’s field card and a traverse task to complete on my own, it felt great that my field supervisors had confidence in my ability to carry out field work on my own. We wrapped up our site plan work at around 2pm and headed back to the office giving ourselves enough time to complete the long commute home safely. This was by far the most fulfilling day of the summer so far and I look forward to many more like it!

As I write this blog and reflect on the past 2 weeks working for West Fraser in Williams Lake, I feel like I have already learned so much and I haven’t even been here for 1/8 of my placement. If my field days are any indication of how my summer is going to go, I know I am in for one big adventure and I am incredibly grateful West Fraser has given me the opportunity to have it in the expansive countryside of the Cariboo-Chilcotin Region.

Greg Spence.