Just can't see the trees for the forest...

It was about a 3 hour drive from Chetwynd, even further up North, to a bush camp 40 clicks outside of Tumbler Ridge - a pretty, eerily-well-kept town that is paid for entirely by gas and oil companies. 

Heading for bush camp, you're always a little trepidatious about what you might find when you get there. We'd heard good things about this one, but you you can never be quite sure that this isn't just someone's over optimistic day dreaming- you might just be in a gravel pit just off a logging road, after all...

This one was pretty spectacular though. The drive takes you on a winding road up into the mountains, where all you can see around you is the North end of the Albertan Rockies. Another thing that was a little bit unique about this camp was it's proximity to our block. Usually there's still a fair abit of a drive out to work, but here we were practically camped on it - fantastic in terms of the commute, but more than slightly daunting on the drive in...

A contract is usually made up of a number of different blocks from abnout 30 - 150000 trees, or so. This block was 1.5 million trees, up an actual mountain, and already covered in a forest. The forest inquestion was completely burnt by a massive wildfire that had spread 5 or 6 years ago, so all that remains is a ghost forest of burnt tree trunks. It actually looks kind of cool, though obviously is pretty devastating for the area.

Our block - the bit that was on the road for several kms

Approximately 1/3 of the tree boxes used that contract (with me on the top)

 Anywayz, more about that later. As we continued to roll down the logging road through, what it turned out, was all our block, we couldn't quite believe our bush camp luck. Eventually the road starts winding downward into a miniature valley, with a younger, living forest, some flat grassy bits and a beautiful river - all set in a large bowl that lead right up to the Rockies in the distance.

I have never seen such a fantastically positioned campsite in all my entire life. It was stunning. In fact i could go on about it for a very long time, but i'll save you from myself with a stack of pictures instead...

(And a video - below - if the link works)
https://picasaweb.google.com/108372931592747999271/ItalyAndPlanting2012?authkey=Gv1sRgCPGgqfnx3ePcIA#5773331816635861154
(NB: Caravans etc belonged to grizzly hunters! Not permanent fixtures - apparently they got 2, then left at the end of grizzly season. All the fantastic dayglow jackets you see us wearing are there so we don't get mistaken for grizzlies and shot! Dangerous times!)

By the river...

Doza with kitchen and shower tent-buildings.

Home (the expertly tarped one, in front!)

The block itself posed some challenges, it has to be said...

Spot the planter...

The ground was essentially rather nice - no slash, like we're used to, becasue at some point it had all burnt. That said, it was on a very considerable slope... i mean, it was a mountain side... On the otherhand, the whole thing was eerily beautiful, and the view from the top was nothing short of spectacular. Besides the difficultly that the slope causes while you are planting (what with you discovering that no matter how fit you are, you aren't fit enough to plant a tree every couple of seconds while hauling 30lb bags along with you up a 30-40 degree slope...), this also causes a couple of logistical headaches.

Me and Neil somewhere up a mountain...

Firstly, that there is no other way to get to the upper parts of the block than just hiking 30 or 40 minutes up a mountain at 6am... mmmm, my favourite. The second problem that we encountered was with getting our trees. All our trees were being helicoptered  in on a long line. The helicopter itself can't land, because of all the trees that are still standing (also the reason that the people can't be heli'd in), so when it tries to drop slings, it does so at some considerable distance - places them down and then leaves. All the trees are in a big sling, but with enough space in the top that they can fall out once they're set down. so when he picked the wrong spot (and sometimes there were no right spots) the entire set of boxes would just tumble down a whole strip of the mountain, only to have to be hauled all of the way back up again when you wanted to bag up.

The view that greets you hiking up the mountain.

Me; having climbed up the mountain...

On a moderately steep bit - lots of people for perspective...

The second main problem that we enountered was that our pilot was not the best with directions (or just didn't care, not sure which) and so he'd drop the sling of trees of in the vicinty of where we needed them to be, but say, 100 meters up the hill. Now, this doesn't seem like a problem from a helicopter, clearly, but on foot, 100 meters up or down the slope, is not only a long way to hike with your planting bags, but also means that instead of working the sensible way across the hill, which is what you had planned, you now have to plant directly up and down, in order to not leave a gap. Thanks helicopter guy, thanks.

Anyways, that's enough moaning for now. By and large the block was good - easy to plant in (once you got there!) and good money (most importantly). And we didn't get eaten by grizzlies, which is always nice, being, as we were, camped in the middle of grizzly country.

The only really eventful days of this contract came doing the one other very much smaller block that was included in it. This one was at least an hour and a half drive away. And nearly a 7km walk. With a 4am start to heli the trees in. And the walk in was through a swamp. Mmmm... my favourite. Infact, the reall fun began when you had already walked for and hour and a half down and up the moutain, through the swamp (and, as it happened, got soaked by the torrential rain), and that was finding your piece on the block, which basically involved finding a gps marker on a tree, walking in a direction, hoping you don't accidently turn a corner in this landmark-less landscape, and then being overly optimistic that you might also find another gps marker to mark the start of the block. Yay. And the block sucked. Just to rub it in a little bit more...

On the otherhand, the smae block had another piece that was infinitely better. It was still nearly a 7km walk in, but not through a swamp this time (just up and down a couple of veritable cliffs instead). The land was faaar faar creamier though, which is fantastic at 19 cents per tree. Once you got ther it was a wicked piece. The best/worst thing about it though, was the day that we were nearly eaten by wolves! :D Soooo exciting!
There was us, in the middle of absolutely nowehere - 7km through a forest from the nearest road, and all of a sudden all you can hear all around you is howling from an entire pack of wolves. Everyone stops. We all look at each other, and wonder what on earth it is - there's an outside chance that the one other truck who are over in the other direction might be trying to freak us out (or just having some fun for themselves - we are planters after all; that is the kind of thing we might do!). But if it is them, they're doing a staggering good impression of a whole pack of wolves by the 5 of them... Then the radio comes through from Paul, who is a few hundred metres away at the cache - "Is that you guys?"... "Nope, not us..." "Oh... Um... I might just come over there on the quad now... ". I have never heard such an unearthly sound in all my entire life. They were clearly somewhere between us and the cache. Creepy as anything. We all slowly back together, wondering what eactly we should do with ourselves if they come in our direction (we're certainly not going to go in theirs!). And then, it stops. Silence.

One of the most eerie moments in my life...

And, all in all, that about sums up this contract. While we were certainly pleased to be headed back to civilization, after it rained on us pretty much every night we were in camp (though fortunately stopped on most days), the camp was a stunning place to spend a few weeks, and is not a place i'll forget in a hurry.