Every year around this time I start getting an itch. It's as if a chemical is released into the environment which causes an immediate reaction in my body. The increasing morning light and the shedding of layers as it gets warmer, the subtle change in smell as the season shifts from winter to spring. The sound of robins' song in the morning. My long dormant heart begins pulling at its restraints; my brain is beginning the process of leaving for the North again. Five years of tree planting will do that to you.
In the early years it was out of necessity that I steel myself for another round of pain, bugs, heat, rain, cold, bears, among other things. As the years passed, however, the cognitive conditioning payed off and I learned to truly anticipate the coming of the planting season. I looked forward to it with as much, if not more, joy than Christmas. It's true.
If one, in a practical mood, asks themselves what tangible skills for future jobs and careers in the civilized world can be gleaned from planting they would soon come to realize that there are few to no transferable skills to be gained in the forest. If, however, you asked what may be learned from planting, you may begin to understand why I, at least, continued for as long as I did to put myself through such torture, questioning my sanity and wondering at my masochism.
Picture this if you will. You have a shovel, a tiny tree, and, like, a hundred empty hectares in which to plant it but after endless rules regarding where, how and into what you can plant this tiny tree have been driven into you- rules which until this point are meaningless- you discover that it's not simple. It's almost impossible to figure out. For like two weeks. And in those two weeks you make almost no money. You become very aware that you are paying for food and lodging but planting almost no trees. You hear stories of the guy who owed the company money on his first paycheck. You hear about the rookie in another camp who is planting ten times more trees than you and you despair.
To say that I learned how to persevere at this point would be a lie. Rather, I spent my unproductive days dreaming about ways I could justify quitting. I should tell you that quitting was deemed unforgivable, the most shameful thing you could do as a human being. I thought about trying to break my leg by jumping off a slash pile, falling on a pointy stick or tripping and giving myself a concussion with my planting shovel. I was not alone in this. Some guy actually wrote a book called "The Book of Tree Planting Suicides". It's funny how we as tree planters share a collective desire to comically off ourselves.
Though all of this, the thing I am most ashamed of is the poor attitude I had. I was a hater. As I look at my young self with the benefit of a few more years I wonder at the possibilities of that summer had I only adjusted my attitude to be positive. But tell that to my 19 year old self. People tried. It didn't work.
The best I can say for myself during this first summer is that I didn't quit. I looked into the abyss and pissed my pants and cried a few times. I stayed because I didn't want to embarrass myself or let down my friend who thought it was a good idea to hire me. I stayed but I promised myself I would never go back again.
Wouldn't you know it though, nine months later I found myself in the exact same place and situation. It took a lot of lying to myself to go back. "First year learns, second year returns, third year earns" as the saying goes. I was on a three year plan. Things were looking up. I already knew how to plant a tree. No more wandering like a lost man through a cut block with a tree dangling from my hand. I tell you, those first few weeks were gold. I sprinted out of the gates, refusing to succumb to the habits and standards of the summer before. I was really proud of myself; by the end of the second shift I had planted more in a day than at any point the summer previous. I had been given more responsibilities this summer for some reason, which stoked my pride even further.
But then something happened. In my zeal for redemption I didn't pace myself in those early shifts. Nowhere else in life do you work your body in the way you do when you plant trees.
It's a truly bizarre sight to watch a tree planter in the zone. First, there are the clothes. I for one adhered largely to the fashion of the time. I favored the cotton/synthetic blend dress shirt, black leggings and cargo shorts, gaiters and hiking boots or bright orange corks if it was raining hard enough. If it was cold and/or raining and/or snowing/hailing a thick over sized wool sweater could be thrown on. Then there are the planting bags which you have around your waist to complete the package. The motions of planting are best described as avian. Typically there is a step, a shuffle with a kick, a quick bob and jab of one arm then the other then back up again and repeat. Now do that 2000-6000 or more times a day. Some days you get lucky and get to plant trees in actual dirt. Some days you plant on what can best be described as solid rock, with metal shovels ringing out amidst the curses of those whose wrists and elbows are reverberating like death knells.
My planting career was about to be cut short. Tendinitis is a word that runs shivers down the back of the most seasoned of vets. My elbow was toast as was my moral. Despite the fact I couldn't plant anymore I stayed to help around camp. Here finally is the first and possibly most important lesson I learned from tree planting. I learned the importance of community.
Tree planting camp is a boiling pot. There are fifty young people, give or take, sleeping in tents, in the middle of nowhere, going through the same hell for God knows what reason, each with their own baggage, morals and addictions. Give these people two weeks of rain, poor land and see what happens. Things can go sideways quickly. Thankfully, my experience was largely positive.
Until this point in my life I had managed to avoid most situations in which I would have to be raw and open about my feelings with myself let alone other people. A planting crew is, for better or worse, a family in which pain and joy, triumph and failure, friendship and grievance and all sorts of sights and smells are intimately shared. In a lot of ways a crew lives and dies together and what you get out is determined by how much you contribute. It's here that I found a home. Something about this community was fiercely appealing to me. There is nothing like going through hardship for bringing people, no matter who they are, together. Here in this weird world of self inflicted misery there was joy found in the sharing of pain. I by no means speak for every person foolish enough to put themselves through planting but I am glad to say I found a silver lining.
As the season came to a close I once again promised myself I would never return to the hell that is tree planting but rather pursue a life of comfort and fulfillment. But fate would have it otherwise. While it was true that my days of planting trees were over, another position presented itself to me, one in which I would come to love and take joy.
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