Tree Planter Training 20 - Wrap Up

Although this blog is predominantly focused on my music and DJ’ing career, I also want to share some information about my other career:  Canadian Reforestation.

The information in this post is part of a training series from the Replant.ca website.  More information can be found at this link:

www.Replant.ca/training

I’ll put the text and audio download link from this training module below, but let’s start with the YouTube video for the module:

Section 20 - “Wrap Up”

Congratulations, you've reached the end of our tutorial series.  We've covered a lot of material.  I know that it probably didn't all sink in, but at this point, you should have a solid grounding of what the tree planting industry is all about, and a broad foundation upon which to build further knowledge.

Reviewing all of this material has probably really opened your eyes.  When you first heard about tree planting, you probably got a mental image that involved a lot of manual labour, and not much thinking.  That couldn't be further from the truth.  If tree planting was an hourly wage-based job, that stereotype would probably be a correct perspective.  But tree planting is not paid hourly, it's paid by piece rates.  The more productive you are, the more money you make.  Because of that, it's in your best interest to learn, study, practice, and refine your techniques, to make yourself as fast and efficient as possible.  The piece-rate nature of the industry has turned it into a very intellectual exercise, where the smartest planters can leverage their knowledge into money.

The amount of information in these tutorials has probably been overwhelming for you.  At this point, you've been inundated with lots of facts, suggestions, and terminology, and I have no doubt that you probably don't remember more than a third of it all.  Once you've been planting for three or four weeks, I'd recommend that you review some of the key material again, particularly the sections about employment standards, common BC coniferous trees, spacing/density/excess, and maximizing productivity.  You might even want to review the complete series again before the start of your second season.


Field Practice

It's time now for you to go to the field and start doing some hands-on practice.  Your instructor will walk you through the basic steps of planting once again, and you'll start to get a feel for the repetitive motions that are required to plant a tree properly, with acceptable quality.  Start slow.  Focus on getting it right, not getting fast.  For about a week to two weeks, planting is going to feel awkward.  You're going to look at experienced planters around you, and wonder how they can do it so quickly.  You're going to feel like a failure, because you can't keep up.  Don't worry, this is normal.  As you're getting started, just focus on planting each tree properly, and don't worry about your paycheque.  Once you get the basics down, your foreman will talk to you and start encouraging you to speed up, and will give you tips on where to shave a few seconds off every tree.  You'll probably want to quit at least once, or several times, but stick it out.  I promise, it gets easier.  If you can promise yourself that you won't quit for one calendar month, you WILL get over the hump and you'll get to the point where you're starting to make respectable wages, and you'll feel like planting is natural.  I won't go so far as to say that it'll become easy, because you'll always be pushing the limits, but it won't feel impossible.

During your first few weeks, keep careful records of your daily production, earnings, and portal-to-portal hours.  Remember, your company must top you up to minimum wage (including applicable overtime equivalents) on each paycheque in which you didn't earn the equivalent through your piece-rate tree prices.  If your company is short-changing you, continue to keep very detailed records all season.  Once the season is over, you can take advantage of help from the Employment Standards Branch to resolve any discrepancies, without having to worry about the risk of getting fired.

To get better, you need to practice.  The more trees you plant, the faster you get.  That seems to be a ridiculous statement, because it's so blatantly obvious, but your speed increases only as you reach more milestones.  Let me put it this way.  Let's say that by the time you plant fifteen thousand trees, you'll be able to plant fifteen hundred trees per day in easy ground.  That seems like a good goal.  So the trick is to plant your first fifteen thousand as quickly as possible, which gets you to that point of being a 1500-per-day planter.  This means that during your crucial first couple of weeks, you need to keep your head down and keep moving.  Don't give up and come back to the cache and sit for 45 minutes for lunch.  Grab a quick bite, and get right back to work.  The day doesn't pass any more quickly if you're sitting down, and it doesn't go any faster depending on whether you're happy or miserable.  You don't make any money when you're not planting.  If you're stuck out on the block for ten hours, you may as well be making money during that time, so don't stop working.

Have you heard of the 10,000 hour rule?  It was written by Malcolm Gladwell in a book called Outliers.  In it, he said that anyone who practiced 10,000 hours at a skill would essentially become a professional, and master that skill.  In an average long tree planting season in the BC Interior, a planter may work or "practice" for a thousand hours.  To clarify, I'm including some non-planting time in that total, but time spent after dinner or around a campfire discussing ways to improve your planting techniques can still lead to self-improvement.  So if we assume that the rough number of a thousand hours per season is valid, then you're looking at approximately ten years before you put in your 10,000 hours.  That's ten years before you become a tree planting "professional."

The learning curve for tree planting never really stops.  You might think at the end of your first season that you've learned it all.  You haven't.  You'll learn many more things in your second season.  The same will happen in your third, fourth, fifth, and sixth years, and beyond.  At the end of each of those seasons, you'll think you've finally mastered everything there is to know.  You haven't.  You'll continue to learn new tricks, and become more efficient, for your entire career.  It doesn't matter how many seasons you plant.  I've planted for more than twenty years, and I still work as a planter on the coast every spring and fall, and I still learn new tricks and techniques every season.


Career Options

Speaking of careers, some planters think that tree planting is a short-term career which might be useful for a few years, but in the long term, it's just a temporary position until you find work in a different field.  That's going to be true for some people.  However, if you're interested in forestry, there are many career choices available that can keep you working pretty much year-round.  There's work available in stand management, such as brushing and spacing a growing stand.  You can become an accredited silviculture surveyor.  You can do office work relating to Geographic Information Systems.  You can get into mapping, or timber cruising.  Explaining all of these jobs in depth would be a complex undertaking, but if you do some research on silviculture in Canada, you'll see that planting trees is just one small but important part of the entire cycle of reforestation.  If you're interested in moving on from planting into a different field, one good option is to talk to the owner of your company.  He or she can often provide some really good insights about how to pursue your long-term career goals, and I can think of many instances when a company owner has gone out of their way to help an established planter achieve career goals that may not even be directly related to planting.


Final Advice

Good luck with your planting.  Again, if you're a first time planter and you feel like quitting at any point during your first several weeks, remember a promise that you need to make to yourself.  No matter how frustrated you get, don't quit until you've worked for a full calendar month.  You've already invested too much time and money at this point for it to make sense for you to quit now.  After thirty days in the bush, you'll have gotten over the hump, and you'll realize that you CAN be successful as a planter.

Keep track of your numbers.  I don't just mean this on a day-to-day basis, to make sure that your paycheques are correct.  I also mean to pay attention to your daily averages, and your true earnings.  Understand what your expenses are in relation to the money that you earn.  Also, remember that you may someday want to know your annual planting totals, in case you end up chasing a long-term career goal such as hitting a million trees.

Keep track of some of your block locations.  You can do this by writing down block numbers, or by using apps on mobile devices that overlay GPS coordinates on top of photos.  Save them somewhere semi-permanent.  Someday, when you're a lot older, you may want to come back and look at the trees you planted in your first season.

For further research about tree planting in BC, go to Google and look for websites about tree planting.  There are several well-known sites out there that can be invaluable resources, and lots of online communities full of tree planters.

Thanks for participating …

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Here’s an Audio version of this material, in case you want to listen while you’re driving, running, at work, or otherwise unable to read or watch video:

Click on the down-arrow icon in the upper right corner of the SoundCloud widget to download the mp3.

Once again, for further information about this series of tree planter training information, visit:

www.Replant.ca/training

I encourage you to share this information with anyone else who might be interested.  Thanks for your interest and support!

-          Jonathan “Scooter” Clark

Tree Planter Training 14 - Planting a Seedling

Although this blog is predominantly focused on my music and DJ’ing career, I also want to share some information about my other career:  Canadian Reforestation.

The information in this post is part of a training series from the Replant.ca website.  More information can be found at this link:

www.Replant.ca/training

I’ll put the text and audio download link from this training module below, but let’s start with the YouTube video for the module:

Section 14 - “Planting A Seedling”

In this section, we're finally going to talk about the process of actually planting a seedling.  We'll look at microsite preparation, handling a seedling from bag to hole, the motions of planting the tree, then closing the hole and moving on to your next spot.  For the purposes of this tutorial, we're intentionally going to ignore spacing and density.  Those topics are important, but they'll be covered in a later section.  For now, let's assume that you know roughly where your tree needs to go, within an area of say a couple feet.


Selecting the Best Microsite

The microsite is the spot where you plant a tree.  In order to maximize the survival potential of the seedling, you need to select the best possible microsite.  Each tree has already undergone physiological stresses in the process of transporting it to the moment of planting.  It is your job to minimize future stresses through careful microsite selection.  As long as you're spacing correctly, you can choose from many different microsites, such as on a mound, in a depression, beside a stump, under a bush, or in a rotten log.  Each of these spots provides different growing conditions for the seedling, and you need to understand what the seedling needs in order to choose the best one.  Some of those spots that I just mentioned might not be acceptable as microsites on certain contracts.

Some factors to consider when selecting the best microsite include:
- Utilize any existing preparation, if the area has been site prepped for planting.
- Only plant in an acceptable planting medium.  Some contracts will have very specific criteria for what you're allowed to plant in.
- You may be asked to utilize existing stumps to provide some protection for the planted seedlings, as they're often slightly raised and usually offer protected, undamaged soil pockets right beside the stump.  This is called obstacle planting, because you're planting beside an obstacle.  Even if you aren't asked specifically to do obstacle planting, targeting spots that are six to twelve inches away from existing stumps is generally a good practice on most contracts.
- Learn to recognize which specific vegetation indicates suitable pockets for planting.

Think wisely.  Don't choose a spot where it's hard to plant a tree if there's an easier acceptable microsite just a foot away.  This will come into play when we talk about spacing.


Microsite Preparation

Before planting an area, you'll be briefed on the expectations for microsite preparation.  This often varies from contract to contract, and sometimes even from block to block.

Screefing is the removal of unwanted material from the planting spot, and may or may not be required.  In some instances, the size of the screef is specified in the planting prescription, perhaps something like 10cm x 10cm.  You may use your boot for a minor screef, or you may also need to use your shovel for a larger or deeper one, depending on the ground conditions on the block.  Screefing is extra work, and can create musculoskeletal strain, so you want to be careful in the methods that you use to screef.  Smart planters can often reduce or eliminate some screefing entirely by using careful microsite selection.  Smart foresters have minimal screefing requirements, because it means lower bid prices from contractors.  Don't make the classic first-year planter mistake of spending a full minute screefing through heavy grass mat if there's exposed soil in a spot only a foot away!

The correct techniques for foot screefing and for shovel screefing will be shown to you in the field by your instructor or your foreman.  The technique may vary slightly depending on site conditions.  Shovel screefing will feel very awkward when you first start planting, but after ten or twenty thousand shovel screefs, it starts to feel very normal, comfortable, and efficient.


Opening the Hole, Grabbing the Seedling

Let's assume that you've already picked the best spot for the tree.  The goal here is to have a hole of sufficient depth.  The hole needs to be sufficiently straight and vertical.  The roots of the seedling must be straight up and down, and the plug will be covered with dirt or organics to just over the top of the root collar.  The root collar of the seedling is the space between the top of the plug, and the bottom of the needles or laterals.  The laterals are the small branches on the seedling.

Assuming that you've picked your spot, and depending on the rockiness of the ground, you may want to probe gently with your shovel to make sure you won't be driving your shovel into a rock, root, or other hard ground, which could increase the risk of long-term injuries.  If most of the ground on the block is soft, this may not be necessary.  Taking the time to choose a microsite carefully will usually make planting easier for you, and better for the tree.

Push your shovel in.  There are different techniques depending on the terrain.  If the ground is soft, you should be able to drive it in with one strong thrust of your arm.  You might want to lift the shovel first, and use gravity and the weight of the shovel to help your arm out.  If the ground is rocky, many planters prefer to wiggle the blade of the shovel to help it find a path around the rocks.  Use your kicker when added pressure is required.  Try alternating your feet on the kickers.  If possible, try to always kick on the outside of the shovel, ie. on the right kicker plate if you're holding the shovel in your right hand and kicking with your right foot, or on the left kicker plate if you're holding the shovel in your left hand and kicking with your left foot.  Being ambidextrous when you're planting prevents some stress on your body.  However, kicking on the "inside" kicker plate is usually more awkward for your body, so try not to get into that habit.  Experiment with different ways to handle the shovel as some methods may suit your body type better than others.  Also, it will be to your benefit to have a few different styles that you're comfortable with, so you're more able to adapt to changes in terrain.

Next, you need to open the hole.  There are different techniques for doing this in order to open a hole that's deep and wide enough to fit your hand, and able to accommodate the roots or plug.  The plug is the part of the tree that has the dirt surrounding the roots.  No matter what eventual technique you become familiar with for opening a hole, start off by pushing FORWARD.  Almost all first-year planters put their shovel into the ground and pull back.  I think this must be a natural movement that roughly mimics digging in a pile of dirt with a garden shovel.  Don't do this.  You don't want to pull backwards first.  Make a conscious effort to push forward first.  As you get faster, you'll learn to turn this into a fluid motion where, as you're moving to your next spot, you'll be throwing the shovel forward and into the ground.  As you continue to move closer to the hole, the shovel ends up naturally pushing forward with your body motion.  It wouldn't be possible to be moving towards a new hole and pulling backwards on a shovel simultaneously.

As you're moving toward the hole that you're about to make, take your non-shovel hand and reach into your drawbag to pull out the next tree that you're about to plant.  For efficiency, you need to be doing several things simultaneously whenever possible.  That means getting the tree ready for the hole at the same time that you're making the hole.  This step is an important one in terms of stock-handling too.  You want to grab the entire seedling at once, including the roots.  Don't just grab the top of the tree.  If you grab it by the top, you're going to end up pulling needles or the leader bud off of a lot of your trees.  This is terrible for the seedling, as it basically knocks back a year of growth, or even kills the tree.

Now this is a tricky part that a lot of foresters don't understand.  Some foresters ask you to stand the trees up so they are perfectly vertical in your planting bags, rather than have them all lying on their sides.  The rationale is that they don't want you to be bending the stems and harming the seedlings.  But that doesn't matter if you're pulling the tops off the trees as you're pulling them out of your bags!  The best approach that I've found, and a lot of foresters understand this when you explain it to them, is to lay the trees in your bags at an angle.  If they're angled, it's easy to grab them by both the main stem of the seedling and the plug simultaneously.  Ultimately, that's the best treatment for the seedlings.  For now though, be aware that some foresters may still tell you that they want the trees completely vertical in your bags.


Planting the Tree, Closing the Hole

The best way to put the seedling into the hole is to slide it across the front of your shovel, especially if you have a tight or narrow hole, because the shovel is smooth enough to protect the plug from ripping.  Since the tree is cupped in your fingers, your knuckles also help to protect the plug from getting shredded as it goes into the hole.  Make sure your fingers extend all the way down to the bottom of the plug.  Put the tree in the hole, THEN pull out your shovel.

Some planters prefer to make a larger hole, which is easier to work with.  This is one of those counter-intuitive steps about efficiency.  You'd think that making a larger hole would take more time and slow you down.  Yes, it may take an extra second or two, but sometimes you more than make up for that time if you can get the tree into the hole really quickly.  I often see inexperienced planters spending too much time fiddling with tucking the roots into a tight hole.

Either way, at this point you have to make sure that the roots are straight.  You need to learn to do this by feel, because you won't always be able to look in and visually inspect the roots.  This is probably the most important part of planting, in my opinion.  I can't begin to emphasize how much long-term pain you'll cause for yourself if you don't make sure that your plugs are straight.  Bent roots is a type of quality fault.

You may also have to adjust the seedling's depth at this point, to make sure it isn't too shallow or too deep.  In general, you want just a small amount of dirt above the top of the plug, perhaps a centimeter or two.

Now it's time to close the hole.  No matter how you do this, three objectives must be met.  The plug must be covered.  There should be no air pockets around the roots.  The tree should be snug enough in the ground to reduce moisture loss, but the soil should not be compacted so much that the roots are crushed.

There are three different general methods to close the hole:  using your hand, your boot, or the shovel.  For each of these, there can be multiple techniques, especially with the boot.  Learn to use them all.  You'll sometimes be on blocks where you're constantly using different types of closure methods, depending on each specific microsite.  Sometimes, when I plant a box of trees, I may use as many as eight or ten different methods for closing different holes.

Closing with your hand works best in soft ground, and it's fast, but it's hard on the hands.  Ease into this, because it can cause tendonitis in your knuckles.  However, it's efficient because you're already bent over.  Another advantage of hand closing is more accuracy, plus you can sweep away loose debris from the tree at the same time as closing the hole.

Closing with your shovel is a good method where soils are too compact to close by hand.  Care is required to avoid slashing the roots with a misplaced shovel blade.  This method is slower, but if you're in hard ground or clay, this “double shovel” technique can do a good job.

Some planters have also learned to do a fast “shovel twist” close in soft ground, which can be extremely quick.  It'll take quite a while for a first-year planter to catch on to this technique, so don't expect to be using it much when you're first learning to plant.  Focus on other planting techniques, and save learning this trick until you're comfortable planting a couple thousand trees per day.  At that point, your shovel control should be skilled enough to learn how to shovel-close in certain types of ground.

Closing with your boot is the most common approach.  You can use the toe of your boot, or the heel, or a flat-footed stomp.  You can come down from above, or move your foot at the tree in a sideway motion more like a bulldozer.  By varying your kick, you can also vary the eventual depth of the tree, which is a technique that good planters gradually learn.  Care must be used that you don't kick the tree itself and damage the seedling.  When kicking a hole closed, it's also possible to make a tree lean over, or to compact the soil too much, so pay attention to your specific techniques and the results that they give.

Your instructor or foreman will go over all of these methods, and will hopefully spend a lot of time watching you plant so they can correct mistakes in your techniques.


Planting a tree quickly, with proper quality, is an art and a science.  On your first few days of planting, you'll feel incredibly awkward, and you'll think that you'll never be able to plant several thousand trees in a day.  After a week or so, it'll start to feel less awkward.  By the end of four weeks, you'll be moving confidently across the block.  After a couple years, planting will feel almost effortless to you.  You'll feel almost like a dancer moving across the block, and your planting techniques will have become very refined and elegant.  But first, you have to practice a lot and plant a couple hundred thousand trees.

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Here’s an Audio version of this material, in case you want to listen while you’re driving, running, at work, or otherwise unable to read or watch video:

Click on the down-arrow icon in the upper right corner of the SoundCloud widget to download the mp3.

Once again, for further information about this series of tree planter training information, visit:

www.Replant.ca/training

I encourage you to share this information with anyone else who might be interested.  Thanks for your interest and support!

-          Jonathan “Scooter” Clark

Tree Planter Training 13 - Planting Gear

Although this blog is predominantly focused on my music and DJ’ing career, I also want to share some information about my other career:  Canadian Reforestation.

The information in this post is part of a training series from the Replant.ca website.  More information can be found at this link:

www.Replant.ca/training

I’ll put the text and audio download link from this training module below, but let’s start with the YouTube video for the module:

Section 13 - “Planting Gear”

In this section, we're going to talk about Planting Equipment.  You'll need planting bags to carry your seedlings comfortably and efficiently.  You'll need a shovel to plant the trees.  On some contracts, you may need silvicool inserts to protect the trees on hot days.  And finally, you'll need a plot cord to measure your own density, to keep your efforts on track.


Planting Bags

Your planting bags are your personal planting gear.  You'll use them every day until they start to rot and fall apart, although the smart planters buy newer bags before that point, to maximize comfort.  It still amazes me that some people will try to save $80 by using a tattered old set of bags, held together with rope and duct tape, instead of buying a new set with good straps and comfortable padding.  You're going to be wearing your bags for probably 600 or 700 hours in a season.  That's not much more than ten cents an hour if you use them for a single season, or five cents an hour if you use them for two seasons.  To me, it makes sense to spend a few pennies per hour to be more comfortable.  You can also buy new padding if you don't want to invest in an entirely new set of bags.

Planting bags usually have three pouches fastened to a waist strap.  The waist strap should have a piece of padding on it, to cushion the weight of the bags on your hips.  There's a plastic buckle on the front of the bags to strap yourself in and to prevent the bags from shifting and sliding around.  They also have a set of shoulder straps, to help redistribute some of the weight and take it off your hips.  It's also possible to buy a set of bags with four pouches instead of just three.  These are usually called "four-baggers" instead of "three-baggers."  There are advantages and disadvantages to getting four-baggers.  They distribute the weight around your waist somewhat more evenly, so they're slightly more comfortable.  The extra pouch sometimes makes it easier to carry extra gear with you, such as raincoats, or extra trees.  However, they also weigh a tiny bit more than three-baggers.  Not much more, just a few ounces, but every ounce counts when you're strapping on a full load of trees.  Four-baggers are more expensive, probably by an extra $30 or so.  Four-baggers used to be virtually unknown in the Interior for many years, although a very large percentage of coastal planters have always used them because they're especially handy when planting multiple species.  In the past couple of years, more Interior planters have discovered that they can be pretty convenient.

Make sure that all the buckles are adjusted properly when you get your bags.  Many first year planters assume that they're set up properly by the manufacturer.  However, everyone's body is different.  The waist strap can obviously be adjusted in size.  Also, there are four buckles attached to the shoulder straps, two on the front and two on the back, which you should play with.  Make sure everything fits fairly snugly, with no loose or floppy straps.  Make sure the left and right straps are even on both the front and the back.  If you have problems with your waist buckle popping open when you bend over, which may start to happen more frequently after you've had the bags for quite a while, you can buy replacement plastic buckles, or you can go to a junk yard and buy an old seat belt buckle to replace the buckle that comes with the bags.

It's important right now to talk about your back.  You'll get a sore back from planting trees.  It's inevitable.  Your back muscles are just like any other muscles, and they need a workout to become stronger.  After a week or two, once the muscles get a lot stronger, your back won't hurt so much.  One of the problems for your back is bending over.  You'll be bending over at least a thousand times a day at the start, and several thousand times per day once you get faster.  That's a lot of bending for your back.  But that's ok, because your back is designed for that.  However, your bags can cause a problem.  If your shoulder straps are adjusted properly and they fit snugly on your body when you stand up, they can put extra strain on your back when you bend over.  Also, as you're walking around, if there's a lot of weight on your shoulder straps, this weight will act unevenly on your spine as you move.  That makes your lower back sore.

There's a solution.  You can really tighten up your waist belt, and put a lot more weight on your hips.  Loosen your shoulder straps a bit, which takes some of the pressure off your upper body.  The drawback with doing this is that your upper legs have to work a lot harder.  Your legs will become sore, instead of your back.  It's basically a balancing act.  You can put all the pressure on your hips and legs if you want, by not wearing shoulder straps at all.  You can put a lot of pressure on your upper body, which gives a bit of relief to your upper legs.  Or you can do a mix of both, so neither part of your body is taking all the workload.  Obviously, no matter what, your legs still have to carry all the weight, regardless of how you have things set up.  It just feels heavier on your legs if you have no weight on your shoulder straps.  If you're getting a sore lower back when you start planting, don't worry, that's normal.  But if it's really bothering you, get rid of the shoulder straps right away and see if your back starts to feel better after a couple days.  Incidentally, in many cases, the best remedy for a sore back is more exercise, if the soreness is caused solely by tight muscles that are getting a new workout.

Females have different body shapes than males.  For females, the breasts usually get in the way of the shoulder straps a bit more.  There's an upper cross-strap on your bags that goes across your chest.  Most females leave this very loose, or don't use it, to keep their shoulder straps from rubbing against their chest so much.  Also, many females naturally have stronger upper legs than guys.  Female planters are more likely than males to avoid using shoulder straps all together.  Do whatever is most comfortable for you.

As you bend over with a load of trees, there isn't usually a lot of strain on your back from the weight in your side bags. However, any weight in your back bag on a three-bagger needs to be lifted more when you bend over.  For this reason, you should really try to avoid putting much weight in your back bag if you're having back issues.  Four baggers are a bit better on the back, because each of the two back bags are offset, instead of putting all the weight in the center of your back.


Your Shovel

Shovels come in a variety of styles, lengths, and weights.  When it comes to choosing a shovel, you essentially have two choices, what's called a D-Handle or what's called a Staff handle.

A staff handle is essentially a straight handle.  This used to be a common shovel in Ontario, although planters in Ontario have mainly switched to using D-Handle shovels.  A staff shovel is taller and therefore heavier than a D-Handle.  There are a few minor advantages to staff handles.  The length gives you a bit more leverage when trying to wiggle the shovel blade into rocky ground.  It may be used as a walking stick for better balance on difficult ground.  Also, its design means that it reduces the impact to the wrist and arms, especially on rocky sites or compact soils.

However, even though the staff handle offers advantages to the wrist and arms in rocky ground, those advantages may be more than offset by the strain of the additional weight of the shovel compared to a D-Handle.  The D-Handle is short and lighter, therefore, carrying it around all day causes less strain on the arm.  It's slightly easier when doing helicopter work, because the handle can be clipped through the belt buckle on your planting bags, to make sure it doesn't fall out of a sling.  Also, with the proper tools, the shovel length can still be adjusted quite easily.  You'll find that about 99% of planters in BC use D-Handle shovels.

There's another type of shovel called the "Ergonomic D-Handle" which has a slanted handle, shaped differently than the traditional D-Handle.  Although this shovel handle should be more effective than a regular D-Handle at minimizing potential MSI's, very few planters seem to use this type of handle.  In addition, there's one major problem with this type of shovel:  I always recommend that new planters learn to plant ambidextrously, and that isn't possible with the Ergonomic D-Handle.

Once you've picked your style, you can look at the length and weight of the shovel.  Many planters say that lighter is better, while others suggest that a bit of extra weight can help increase the momentum required to drive the shovel into hard ground.  Some people remove the kicker from one side of their shovel to save a few extra grams of weight.  I personally don't see a huge benefit in this, and sometimes it's nice to have both of your kickers available, but you can make that decision on your own.  If you want to learn to plant ambidextrously, you definitely shouldn't remove either of the kickers.

If you shorten the shaft, that will save a few ounces of weight.  Make sure that you have the proper hacksaw blade for the job.  Some shovel shafts are metal, and some are fiberglass.  Most camp supervisors should have all the tools required to take a shovel apart to shorten it.  Don't cut too much off at once!  Cut a couple inches and try it out for a few days.  You can always cut more off later if you think it's still too long, but if you cut too much off the first time, you can't lengthen it!  Not everybody shortens their shovel.

Your foreman and your trainer can show you more in person, and can perhaps let you try holding a couple of different shovels.  When you go to buy gear, your foreman will probably accompany you to make sure you get the right items.


Miscellaneous Planting Gear

You may need silvicool inserts for any bag that you might use to carry trees.  You'll want at least two inserts, and I'd recommend three.  If you have four-baggers, you don't necessarily need four inserts unless you're positive you're going to carry trees in all four pouches.  I usually use one of the four pouches just for things like small water bottles, plot cord, a waterproof pack with anti-histamines, and my raincoat.  Of course, an insert can keep these things a bit more clean and dry.  Inserts are not required on all contracts.  Ask your foreman or trainer for advice.

You need a plot cord.  These are cheap, only around ten dollars or so, and made out of clothesline.  Some people try to save money by making a plot cord out of rope.  That usually doesn't work so well.  It might disappear from your bags when someone uses it to tie up their tent.  Just buy a plot cord.  Every planter should carry a plot cord in their bags all the time when you're on the block.  Throw several quick plots on yourself to check your density regularly.  It takes less than a minute to throw a quick density plot on yourself, and it's a good time investment.  I usually throw four to six plots on myself each day, because I'd rather do that than spend hours replanting.  For your first couple weeks when you're starting out, you'll need to throw a lot more than just four plots on yourself each day.

You can buy a small water-proof tally book which costs very little.  The cool thing about this is that you can write on it in the rain with a pencil.  The paper in it is waterproof paper, often called "duck back" paper.  That's duck, like the bird, not duct, like the tape.  A lot of planters carry a small tupperware container in their day bag with their tally book, a few pencils, and anti-histamines and/or painkillers.


Non-Planting Gear

You'll need an extensive list of non-planting gear, both in terms of clothing and other things.  I already touched on this briefly in the section on PPE.  For clothing, you'll need boots, socks, pants, long underwear for when it's cold, long-sleeve shirts, t-shirts, gloves, and rain gear.  Also, a sun hat and a good fleece both come in pretty handy.  You may also want a set of "town boots" such as a light pair of hikers, so you don't have to wear your heavy work boots on days off.

Other items that planters often own include things like a knife, duct tape, a wind-up flashlight, toiletries, sun screen, fingernail clippers, a tent, sleeping bag, a foamie for under your sleeping bag, a day-bag or backpack, insect repellent, an alarm clock, and so on.  Obviously, not all of these are items that you'll bring to the block each day.


Your best bet for learning more about gear is to go to websites like Replant.ca or Tree-Planter.com and check out the recommended gear lists there.  The online message boards have very lengthy discussions about the best gear to bring, and the best brands.  I wouldn't want to presume to tell you what to bring and what not to bring.  Everyone seems to have wildly different opinions on the best stuff to pack for a season of planting.

-----

Here’s an Audio version of this material, in case you want to listen while you’re driving, running, at work, or otherwise unable to read or watch video:

Click on the down-arrow icon in the upper right corner of the SoundCloud widget to download the mp3.

Once again, for further information about this series of tree planter training information, visit:

www.Replant.ca/training

I encourage you to share this information with anyone else who might be interested.  Thanks for your interest and support!

-          Jonathan “Scooter” Clark

Tree Planter Training 08 - Nature & The Environment

Although this blog is predominantly focused on my music and DJ’ing career, I also want to share some information about my other career:  Canadian Reforestation.

The information in this post is part of a training series from the Replant.ca website.  More information can be found at this link:

www.Replant.ca/training

I’ll put the text and audio download link from this training module below, but let’s start with the YouTube video for the module:

Section 08 - “Nature & the Environment”

One of the best parts of tree planting is getting to spend time outdoors, enjoying the benefits of health and of some amazing scenery.  You’ll become more aware of plants, flowers, animals, and birds.  Of course, working outdoors is not always good.  You’ll have to deal with weather and temperature extremes, insects, and other challenges.  In this section, we’ll take a very quick look at some things you might see or experience on your blocks.

Weather

We’ve covered weather already in the section about hazards and safety, so we won’t get into too much detail here.  However, weather and temperature are definitely related to the environment.  You’ve already heard the warnings about being prepared for weather extremes, and how to minimize the chances of hypothermia or heat stroke.  We can’t reiterate this enough:  make sure you’re always prepared.  If you’re smart, you’ll always have good rain gear and extra dry clothing packed in a waterproof bag, and you’ll always have lots of water on hot days.

Also, it’s important to recognize that inhospitable weather is part of the job.  We work in rain.  We sometimes work in light snow, if the ground isn’t covered.  We work in winds, unless there’s a danger of trees toppling onto planters.  Probably at least a quarter of your work days will be spent in miserable weather.  You can’t afford to sit down and sulk, and wait it out.  You need to realize that you can make money in the rain, and you’re going to have to get used to working in it, even though it’s harder on morale.

Rain unfortunately also slows planting down for other reasons than just the fact that it can be depressing.  Access issues can be a problem in heavy rains, as muddier roads become dangerous or impassible.  Drivers need to slow down on wet roads.  Trucks may get stuck if drivers try to push too far into blocks without a solid road foundation.  Sometimes, it’s better to park the truck close to the block and walk the last few hundred meters.  You don’t want to get the truck stuck in bad puddles at the entrance to the block because you were too lazy to walk the last few hundred meters, and then have some sort of emergency and not be able to evacuate to medical aid.

Most planters don’t pay a lot of attention to the weather, other than to try to guess if it’s going to rain.  But the weather is an amazingly complex topic, far more complex than we’ll go into here.  However, I’ll leave you with a few interesting facts:

Low pressure systems usually result when warm air rises, lowering the atmospheric pressure on the rest of the air.  Low pressure systems usually feature precipitation, unlike high pressure systems which are usually nice weather.

Wind always circles counter-clockwise and inwards around a low pressure system in BC, when viewed from above.  Wind around a high pressure system always blows clockwise and outward.

If you’re standing with a steady wind at your back in BC, the low pressure system (and the area most likely to have rain) is therefore always on your left side.

There are ten major categories of clouds, and many variations on these ten basic groups, but only three of the cloud groups commonly produce precipitation.

Thunderstorms commonly occur because as the day progresses, the sun heats up the ground, causing air to rise and causing a low pressure system to form.  That’s why in some places, thunderstorms tend to happen at roughly the same time every afternoon.

Helicopters can fly better when the air pressure is more dense.  Therefore, helicopters fly better at lower altitudes.  Helicopters have a harder time when the temperature increases, because air rises and becomes less dense.  And finally, air saturated with water is surprisingly less dense than unsaturated air (this relates to molecular weights), so it’s harder for a helicopter to create lift on a muggy day than on a dry day.  In other words, four things that are challenges for helicopters all start with H:  heavy loads, high altitudes, hot temperatures, and humid air.

Between the start of your spring season and June 21^st, sunrise happens about ten minutes earlier each week, and sunset happens about ten minutes later per week.  So in the six weeks leading up to June 21^st, the days grow two hours longer - an extra hour of daylight in the morning, and an extra hour in the evening.  After June 21^st, the days start growing shorter and the opposite is true. 

Determining Direction from the Sun

If you don't have a map or compass or GPS to help you, and it's a reasonably sunny day, and you know the approximate time of day, you can quickly point out approximately where north, south, east, and west are.  This may seem like magic, but it's not!

We all know that the sun always rises in the east.  If you're in the northern hemisphere, which includes all of British Columbia, then the sun is always approximately due south at noon.  There will be a slight error, especially closest to June 21^st, which is related to seasonal precession and the tilting of the Earth’s axis.  However, your estimate will be quite close, within about twenty degrees at worst.  So let's assume that you're on a block, and you can see where the sun is.  If you know that it's approximately noon, then you can point at the sun and say that that direction is due south.  Knowing that, you can figure out north (behind you), east (to your left), and west (to your right).

Let's say that it's not noon.  Let's assume that it's mid-morning.  In the northern hemisphere, the sun always moves from left to right throughout the day.  So if it's not noon yet, you can look a bit to the right of where the sun is right now to make a guess of where it'll be at noon.  You can call that direction south.

If it's after lunch, then the sun will have already passed the mid-point of the sky.  Look to the left of the sun, and make an estimate of where it was a few hours ago, at noon.  You'll be able to point that direction out as due south.

Figuring out approximate directions is pretty easy if you can see the sun and if you know approximately what time of day it is, and you'll usually be within ten or twenty degrees of being correct once you practice a bit.

Plants

You’ll quickly learn that there are hundreds of types of grass, brush, and other vegetation that you’ll encounter.  Most vegetation is fairly benign, and you won’t need to be able to identify very many types of plants, but a few are good to know.  After a few years of experience, you’ll come to understand the seasonal progression, from relatively brown and barren blocks in early May, to thick green blocks covered in grass and other vegetation in July.

Grasses are usually annoying to planters.  Grass roots are fairly strong, so if you’re planting in areas with thick grass, the sod is going to be a problem if you need to screef down through the root mat.  If this is the case, consider using your shovel to screef, instead of your boot.  If you turn the shovel sideways as you’re screefing, you might be able to slice up the sod and remove it with less effort.

Devil’s Club is a thorny plant that you won’t want to run into.  This plant is found more commonly near the end of the season, and it usually grows in moist, shaded areas on blocks, where it can root in black organics.  The stalks are very easy to identify from a distance, as they’re one to two centimeters thick, and can occasionally grow to be as tall as a planter.  When they’re still alive, they’ll have huge broad green leaves, but even after the plant dies, the dry stalk retains its thorns for a while.  You’ll mostly run into devil’s club in gullies and along block edges.  Luckily, it’s so visible that it’s usually fairly easy to avoid.

Stingy Nettles are a lot worse than Devil’s Club.  The thorns on stingy nettles are very small and soft, almost like hair.  However, they release a chemical when you brush up against them, and this chemical causes a really intense itch in most people, which can last for a day or two.  You might not even notice immediately when you brush up against nettles, but within a few minutes, you’ll start getting itchy wherever your bare skin came into contact with the plant.  As hard as it is, try not to scratch or rub the itch, because that drives the chemicals deeper into your skin and makes the reaction worse.  Not everyone is affected by stingy nettles, but most people are, and being wet or sweaty often seems to make the reaction worse.  If you take anti-histamines, that might help reduce your urge to scratch.  There’s no real antidote or cure, except to wait a few hours or days for the itching to go away.  Unfortunately, stingy nettles are very hard to see.  They’re usually less than waist height, and look like very thin bare stalks, and several other types of vegetation look very similar.  You won’t run into them frequently in the spring, but they start to become more common in July in some areas.  Stingy nettles usually grow on black organics or soft, rich mineral soil.

You’ll see a lot of types of moss, especially any time that the ground becomes more moist or shaded.  If you ignore taxonomic classification and go with slang terms, there are two broad groups of moss in BC:  feather moss, and sphagnum.  Feather mosses are types of boreal forest moss that usually have features that look like small tree branches or feathers.  Sphagnum mosses are types of peat mosses, and often have star-like patterns.  The difference is that feather moss can survive in fairly dry conditions, whereas sphagnum needs constant moisture to survive.  Foresters will often allow you to plant trees in sphagnum moss, knowing that the ground will retain moisture even in dry months.  You’ll usually be allowed to plant the plug right into the moss rather than having to screef it away.  Feather moss, however, usually isn’t an acceptable planting medium, and you sometimes have to remove it and get down to dirt or organics below.

As the spring turns into July, you may start seeing several types of berries.  You might see small strawberries hidden on the ground.  Don’t eat berries unless you’re sure of what they are, since several types of berries are mildly toxic, and can cause stomach aches or even vomiting.  In late July, you may start running into raspberries on a lot of blocks.  Raspberries are quite safe to eat, although they’re a bit thorny to work through.  In mid-August, you may start seeing a lot of blueberries low to the ground, and Saskatoons (juneberries) on taller plants.  Both of these are safe to eat.  You may also occasionally see blackberries, huckleberries, and salmonberries.  Pay attention to your surroundings, because bears are often attracted to areas with large amounts of berries.

Fireweed is a common plant, which appears in July.  It grows quite quickly, covering blocks with stems that are three to four feet high, covered in pinkish or purplish flowers.  The only real drawback to fireweed, aside from it getting to be fairly thick at times, is that later in the summer the flowers die and turn to a cottony dander which floats around in the wind and gets into your eyes, nose, and mouth.

There are several benign types of plants that don’t really affect planters, but which you’ll see and learn to recognize, such as cow parsnip, licorice ferns, fiddleheads, and wild ginger.  You can google each of them to learn more.

You’ll also eventually learn to recognize a number of different types of common flowers, such as:  dandelions, wild roses, daisies, black-eyed susans, arnica, thimbleberry, trillium, camas, larkspur, buttercup, clover, violets, yarrow, skunk cabbage, tiger lily, and devil’s paintbrush.

Salal is a plant that most first-year planters won’t encounter, but which is important to coastal planters.  Salal has thick, waxy leaves, and cedar is about the only conifer that thrives in salal patches.  You’ve probably seen salal leaves before, because they’re commonly used around the world in floral arrangements.  Salal berries are quite edible, although you probably won’t see them until the fall.

Labrador tea is an annoying flower, because it has very tough roots that are hard to plant into.

There are dozens of types of mushrooms that you might find on the blocks.  Many are edible, such as black morels, but there are a few types that will make you moderately or severely sick.  If you’re interested in mushrooms, it’s a good idea to buy a guide book, just because there are so many unique varieties.  A great book to check out is “All That Rain Promises And More,” by David Arora.

Poison oak and poison ivy are less recognizable.  Luckily, they’re also not common on planting blocks.  You might very occasionally see them along the edges of blocks, in shaded areas.  If you brush up against them, the chemical toxins on these plants can give you some very bad rashes.  Luckily, it’s quite rare for planters to come into contact with either of these plants.

Giant hogweed is another plant to avoid, because it is completely covered in a sap that is fairly toxic and causes significant rashes, blisters, or other longer-term problems.  WorkSafe BC has even issued alerts about giant hogweed.  However, giant hogweed can be easily confused with cow parsnip, which doesn’t have toxic sap.

Don’t eat plants unless you’re absolutely positive about their identification.  Several common plants in BC are quite poisonous, such as false hellebore.

Animals

Many of the larger animals were covered in the section about hazards and safety, so we’ll try not to repeat anything.

You may see both grizzly bears and black bears on your blocks.  Black bears are far more common.  Each type of bear has some specific identifying characteristics, such as the shape of their face, or the shape of their back.  However, you shouldn’t use their size or the color of their fur as a reliable means to differentiate between the species.  Grizzlies and black bears sometimes react different to the presence of humans.  It’s important for planters to watch a Bear Aware video to get a better understanding of the differences between these two species.

Ungulates is a term that is used to encompass most of Canada’s larger four-legged animals.  Some of these animals may look cute, but they can be dangerous if they become aggressive, especially in the presence of young animals or during rutting season.  Almost everyone knows what a moose looks like.  There are generally two types of deer in Canada:  mule deer, and white-tails.  The mule deer has almost no obvious tail, and usually hops when it runs.  The black-tail deer is a subspecies of mule deer.  The white-tail deer, on the other hand, has a more conventional four-legged way of running, and when they are nervous, their white tail stands up like a warning flag.  Elk are very large animals that are close to the size of a moose, and are most frequently seen near Jasper, or in a few other locations throughout BC.  Caribou look similar to elk, but they’re usually only about half the size, or slightly larger than a mature deer.  Caribou, like elk, are not seen as frequently as moose or deer.  Finally, you may run into feral horses in many parts of BC.

There are three main types of wild cats in BC.  Cougars, also known as mountain lions, are the largest.  The largest cougars can weigh 200 pounds or more, and could potentially be fairly dangerous.  However, they’re also very reclusive, and most planters will never see a cougar in their career.  Bobcats and lynx are much more common, and they’re also much smaller and haven’t been noted as being dangerous to planters.  These two cats are also easy to confuse. Bobcats look fairly similar to a large house cat, and have striped bands on their tails.  Lynx have crazy-looking faces, with big tufts of fur that you don’t see on household cats, and they don’t have stripes on their tails.  The bobcat is more commonly found in southeastern BC, whereas the lynx is common in most parts of the province except for coastal areas.

There are very few smaller animals that could theoretically pose a danger to planters.  You might get sprayed by a skunk, or get poked by quills if you run into a porcupine, but we rarely see either of these animals, and I’ve never heard of a planter being harmed by either.  Wolverines are another exceptionally fierce animal, but few planters will ever see a wolverine, and I’ve certainly never heard of a planter being attacked by one.

Of course, there are also many benign small animals.  You’ll probably see many rabbits, hares, mice, moles, voles, squirrels, rats, gophers, beavers, and other small animals during your career.  None of them should be immediately dangerous to planters, although several of these animals can carry various diseases, and mice are especially dirty little animals.

Birds

A lot of birds nest on the ground in the blocks that you’ll be planting, so don’t be surprised to frequently discover small nests with eggs.  Looking above you, you’ll often see various types of larger predatory birds, including bald eagles, golden eagles, goshawks, falcons, and a dozen different types of hawks.  Sometimes, you’ll even see owls.

Probably the only birds that planters need to be wary of are crows and ravens.  This is because these birds can be mischievous and troublesome, and will tear apart garbage boxes and steal lunches from caches.  These birds are incredibly intelligent.  I’ve seen them open zippers and undo clasps that planters even have problems unfastening, and they’ll often open up day-bags to pull out food.  It’s sometimes a bit tricky to distinguish between the two species.  Ravens are usually larger.  If you see them flying overhead, ravens have four “fingers” of feather at the tip of each wing, whereas crows have five fingers.  However, the most obvious difference is their voice.  American crows make a higher-pitched sharp “caw” sound, whereas ravens have a deeper, hoarse croak.  Finally, crows have a fairly smooth fan-shaped tail, while ravens have more of pointed V-shaped tail.

  

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Here’s an Audio version of this material, in case you want to listen while you’re driving, running, at work, or otherwise unable to read or watch video:

Click on the down-arrow icon in the upper right corner of the SoundCloud widget to download the mp3.

Once again, for further information about this series of tree planter training information, visit:

www.Replant.ca/training

I encourage you to share this information with anyone else who might be interested.  Thanks for your interest and support!

-          Jonathan “Scooter” Clark

Tree Planter Training 07 - Map Reading

Although this blog is predominantly focused on my music and DJ’ing career, I also want to share some information about my other career:  Canadian Reforestation.

The information in this post is part of a training series from the Replant.ca website.  More information can be found at this link:

www.Replant.ca/training

I’ll put the text and audio download link from this training module below, but let’s start with the YouTube video for the module:

Section 07 - “Map Reading”

In this section we'll learn a few basics about Map Reading.  We'll also talk about how to understand map directions, coordinate systems, topography, contour lines, scales, and geo-referenced digital maps.

All planters should have a basic understanding of maps and cartography.  One of the benefits of becoming a tree planter is that you'll learn a lot about the world around you, including things like being able to tell directions without a compass.

Let's start with the very basics.  On most maps, all the writing is oriented the same way, so you can determine a "top" and a "bottom" to the map.  If the map doesn't indicate otherwise, the top of the map is always north.  This is the case in probably 99% of maps.  Occasionally, for some odd reason, north will face a different direction, but if it does, there should be a little compass rose symbol or arrow on the map that points to north.

GPS System

Most maps that planters use in British Columbia will also have coordinates on them.  There are literally thousands of different coordinate systems in place throughout the world.  Some of them were created centuries ago by early explorers and surveyors, and it's safe to say that most are extremely confusing.  Within BC, you'll normally just encounter one of the most well-known systems used today, a traditional Latitude and Longitude system.  The Latitude and Longitude coordinates will be in "northings" and "westings" when you refer to coordinates within British Columbia.

Northings, or the distance north of the equator, range from about 49 degrees at the bottom of BC to about 60 degrees at the top of the province.  These are also known as the latitude.  Westings range from approximately 114 to 140 degrees, with the lower numbers on the east side bordering Alberta.  These are known as the longitude.  If you have problems with respect to latitude and longitude in terms of remembering which is which, think of the word "flatitude" instead of latitude.  Latitude lines are flat lines, rather than vertical, when you look at a map.  If you're ever using software or a GIS system that doesn't allow you to type in the letters N or W to represent northing and westing, use positive numbers for the northings, and use a negative sign for the westings.  The number representing the latitude always comes first, before the number for the longitude.

If you get a block map, sometimes it will display the coordinates on the sides of the map, in a scale.  As mentioned, the latitude is the distance above or below the equator, hence the reason why latitudes are always "north" in British Columbia.  That's why the latitudes run up and down the sides of a map, even though a line of latitude is flat, running from left to right on a normal map.  The longitude is the distance to the east or west of the Prime Meridian that runs north/south down through England, hence why longitudes are always "west" in British Columbia.  That's why lines of longitude are vertical, and the longitude numbers always run along the bottom or top of a map.

In addition to the possibility of seeing latitudes and longitudes listed on the sides of your map, there may be a single point coordinate (latitude and longitude) listed somewhere in the map's key.  That is probably for a point in the very center of the map, although occasionally, it will refer to a random point somewhere on the map where a surveyor decided to pick what's known as a "tie point" to start plots or something similar.

The Global Positioning Satellite system, also known as GPS, is a network of approximately thirty satellites that are operated by the US government.  If you're at any point on Earth with a GPS device that can "see" three satellites, you'll be able to determine your exact position in terms of latitude and longitude.  Add a fourth satellite, and you should also be able to get your elevation above sea level.  That's a simplification, but good enough for our purposes.

The GPS system (also known as NAVSTAR) is the American variety of GNSS, or Global Navigation Satellite System.  Russia has a GNSS called GLONASS.  Other political entities (Japan, China, India, and the EU) are also in the process of deploying their own GNSS systems.

GPS coordinates are typically listed in degrees, minutes, and seconds.  These refer to units of arc, or distance on the surface of the Earth.  An arc-degree covers a very large amount of distance.  The exact distance depends on where you're located on Earth, but an arc-degree can sometimes be as large as 65 kilometers or more.  An arc-minute is smaller, maybe around a kilometer wide depending on your location.  An arc-second is a pretty narrow range, only maybe around twenty to thirty meters wide, although again, this distance depends on your exact location.  There are sixty arc-seconds in an arc-minute, and sixty arc-minutes in an arc-degree, just like in time-keeping.  There are 360 arc-degrees to cover the entire surface of the Earth, just like there are 360 degrees in a circle.  A lot of the time, people drop the "arc" prefix when they're talking about GPS coordinates, and just use the terms degrees, minutes, and seconds.

Sometimes, the written format of a GPS coordinate is written using specific symbols for degrees, minutes, and seconds.  Degrees are symbolized by a small superscripted circle.  Minutes are symbolized by an apostrophe.  Seconds are symbolized by a quotation mark symbol.  So for example, 54 degrees, 36 minutes, and 30 seconds would be listed as 54^o 36' 30".  At other times, decimal points will be used for either just the seconds, or sometimes for the minutes and seconds.  In this example, if just the seconds were converted to decimal, the reading would be 54^o 36.5'.  That's because thirty seconds is 0.5 (or 30/60) of a minute.  If the minutes were also converted to decimal, the reading would be 54.65^o.  That's because 36 minutes is 0.6 (or 36/60) of a degree.  If you have a GPS device, you can go into the settings and pick the display format that you want to use.

Other Map Features

Your map may have a lot of curvy lines drawn all over it.  These are called Contour lines.  This means that the map is a topographic map, or one that identifies the topography of the area being mapped.  The best part about a contour map or topo map is that it lets you understand the hills and valleys on a block, because the contour lines indicate the elevations throughout the block.  Each contour line represents a specific elevation, say perhaps 1380m.  Contour lines are usually spaced 10m or 20m apart on a block map, or perhaps 20m to 100m apart on a larger regional map.  The closer the lines are together, the steeper the slope.

If your map doesn't have contour lines, but it has streams or creeks identified, there's a good chance that you can figure out a rough idea of the hills and valleys on your own.  Streams and creeks are usually identified in blue.  Look for a blue line, and follow that line to where it ends.  If the line just stops suddenly, that's the highest part of the stream.  Water flows downhill, so follow the creek away from the starting point where the stream officially begins, and you'll see where the block gets lower and lower in elevation.  Perhaps the stream or creek will end in a blue pond, or join another larger stream.

Sometimes you can also guess approximate elevations on a map just by looking at the roads.  The reason for this is because in hilly country, the odds are slightly higher that the roads on the block will generally be going uphill rather than downhill.  Of course, it is possible that roads can go downhill upon entering a block, but that probably happens less than one third of the time, whereas more than two thirds of the time the roads are either flat or go uphill.  The reason for this is simple.  Logging companies like to harvest the easiest wood first, closest to the towns and mills.  The easier wood near the valley bottoms was probably harvested years ago, and the logging companies are now making their way further and further up into the steeper ground.  Also, it's easiest to build main roads along the valley bottoms and have then branches going up into the blocks in the hills.  This method certainly isn't foolproof, but if you have to guess, you can sometimes increase your odds of guessing correctly to be slightly better than just 50/50.

Understanding Scales

Most maps have a small "scale" on them.  This will be a number expressed as a ratio.  On a map showing a small area such as a single block, the ratio is often 1:5,000 or 1:10,000 or, for a very large block, maybe 1:20,000.  On a larger "area map" which shows a larger region of many blocks, the scale might be 1:30,000 or even 1:100,000 or larger.

This scale is a multiplier to indicate how much real distance is covered by each part of the map.  You multiply the distance on the map by the large number in the ratio, to find the real-world distance.  Usually, we think in terms of centimeters on the map.  Therefore, if you were to have a map with a ratio of 1:5,000 then one centimeter on the map represents 5,000 centimeters in the real world.  Ten centimeters on the map would be ten times that amount, or 50,000 centimeters in the bush.  Now obviously, trying to measure real-world distances in centimeters is an exercise in futility.  So you can convert those numbers to meters simply by dividing by 100, since there are 100cm in a meter.  In other words, in the example where 1cm gave us 5,000 centimeters, that's equivalent to 50 meters.  In the second example of 10 centimeters on the map, that becomes 50,000 centimeters or 500 meters in the bush.

These scales are really useful because they can help a planter or a foreman plan for how many trees need to go into an area.  Let's say that you're looking at a map with your foreman, and you've identified exactly where your cache is located on the road on the map.  Let's also say that you're looking at filling a big pocket.  You can get a ruler out and measure from your cache to the back of the pocket.  Let's assume in this case that it's 4 centimeters on the map from your cache to the back of your pocket, and let's assume that the scale on the map is 1:10,000.  This means that the 4 centimeters on the map represents 400m in real-world distance.  Let's also assume that your average spacing on this block needs to be 2.5m between trees.  To go 400m to the back of your pocket, you need to bag up with 160 trees.  You get this number by taking the distance (400m) and dividing your average spacing between trees (2.5m).  But you'll also want to be able to plant back to your cache, instead of dead-walking, so you should take a minimum of about 320 trees in order to plant into the back, and then work back to your cache.  If you can carry even more than 320 trees in your bags, that's even better, because you can plant the extras at the back before you turn around and plant back to your cache.

Geo-Referenced Digital Maps

One of the biggest revolutions in the planting industry since the introduction of LFH planting in the mid-1990's has been the introduction of digital maps, and in particular, geo-referencing.

When a digital map is geo-referenced, this means that it has actual GPS location metadata embedded within the file.  Certain apps can load these maps into your mobile device and correlate the map with the actual current location of your mobile device, based on the GPS receiver in the device.  If the app determines that you're actually "on" the map, it will display your exact location on the map with a little marker indicating where you're located, perhaps a blue dot or something similar.  As you move around the block with your mobile device, your location indicator moves around on the map.  It's just like using Google Maps or other similar services, except that these geo-referenced PDF's are generated by your silviculture forester and can show your planting blocks in great detail.  Naturally, Google Maps focuses on towns and cities and government-maintained roads, so it usually isn't any good on remote planting blocks.  At the moment, an app called Avenza PDF Maps seems to be the most popular way to work with geo-referenced maps.

Another bonus of apps that use geo-referenced maps is that you can do the same sort of distance calculations as what I explained in the example with the ruler a few minutes ago.  You just tap two spots on the map (presumably your cache and the back of your piece) and the app tells you the exact distance between the two points.  You can also outline an area, such as your entire piece, and the app will do an area calculation for you.  Let's say that your area calculation shows that your piece is approximately 1.2Ha in size.  If you're aiming for 2000 stems/Ha and you do a good job with your density, you can assume that your 1.2Ha piece should hold approximately 2400 trees.  Being able to make calculations like this really helps with planning.

Always Know Where You Are

Understanding maps and coordinate systems can be far more confusing than what I've explained here, because the topic can be incredibly complex.  However, if you master the basics that I've explained here, you'll understand all that you need to know to be comfortable with looking at a map and trying to figure out where you are.  It's important that your foreman should always leave a map on the dashboard of the truck, so if there's an emergency and the foreman is incapacitated, the crew will be able to figure out exactly where they are and relay that information to outside help.  If there isn’t such a map on the dash, ask your foreman to leave one there for emergencies, with appropriate contact information to reach outside help.  If the foreman is the person who’s seriously hurt, he or she will be really glad that they left this information for the planters.  Most companies require that each crew have a written Emergency Response Plan with all of this information, and with instructions on what to do in an emergency.

As a planter, you should always know the number of the block that you're working on.  A great idea is for the foreman to use a dry-erase marker to write the block number on the rear-view mirror of each truck every morning.  You should also be able to find the block number on the map on the dashboard.

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Once again, for further information about this series of tree planter training information, visit:

www.Replant.ca/training

I encourage you to share this information with anyone else who might be interested.  Thanks for your interest and support!

-          Jonathan “Scooter” Clark