"The best time to plant a tree is twenty years ago. The second best time is now." (Chinese proverb)
About Tree Planting
Some people probably think that this site glamorizes tree planting. Incorrect! It is not a glamorous job. In fact, it is a very difficult job, formerly rated by Manpower Canada (when HRSDC was still under that name) as probably the single most difficult job in the country, when taking physical and mental aspects into consideration. Some of the photos you see on this site may make you think that tree planting will be a wonderful and exciting career. DON'T BE FOOLED. The job usually sucks. Physically, it's difficult, and it's usually only successfully attempted for the first time by young people in their early and mid twenties (although if you get good at it when you're young, you can keep doing it for many years). Mentally, it can be devastating. In terms of financial rewards, there's a large up-front investment to get you out there and get you started, and unfortunately, many rookies will quit during or after their first season. It isn't until your second season that you really might start to make some decent money. To be successful you have to be incredibly patient, have an extremely strong work ethic and sense of self-motivition, and realize that it takes a long time before you will get good at the job. If you have the patience to wait it out, you can earn good money as a planter. In your first season, the biggest things that you will take away at the end of the summer (if you make it that long) are the feeling that you're not a quitter, and the ability to go to sleep almost instantly in a moving vehicle on a bumpy logging road. You might have a good tan too, if you want a farmer's tan.
About the Website
I didn't put this website together in order to make money. I've turned down a couple of major proposals from potential corporate sponsors, due to the risk that it might compromise my ability to maintain the site as an independent and hopefully unbiased reference source. Generally, businesses or corporations that are mentioned in a positive light on the website are only mentioned because I think that they offer goods or services that planters will find useful. However, I occasionally accept some free products from suppliers, to give out to some of my planters. This website also allows me an opportunity to advertise the planting-related books that I've authored (although my total royalties from selling planting books are only a few hundred dollars per year).
Initially, the point of developing this website was for me to be able to let a few close friends know what was happening during the summer. Let's be honest here: I was lazy, and I figured that it would save me from having to write letters (this was the early days of the internetz). However, my tiny website started to grow in popularity as my friends shared it around, and a lot of people became interested in the diaries and the photo pages. After a few years, training material was added, which has mostly been useful for new planters. And of course, the message board is extremely popular among experienced planters and other industry stakeholders. In the future, the main focus for further development will be to improve the educational and training information being offered.
Traffic to the site is pretty decent, averaging around four hundred unique visitors per day during the slow parts of the year, and well over a thousand visitors per day in the months ramping up to the spring/summer planting season.
Incidentally, I also do forestry-related consulting work, including presentations and speeches. I also do writing or ghost-writing for clients, which includes everything from blogs to advertising to magazine articles, and more. If you'd like to hire me for writing services related to silviculture or forestry, feel free to contact me with your proposals/requirements.
About the Author
I've been planting trees in Western Canada for quite a while. After starting as a rookie planter with Tawa, I acted as a foreman and/or camp supervisor with them for four years including the years they were taken over by PRT Nurseries. After PRT shut down their planting operations, I joined Folklore Contracting and I've been a foreman and/or camp supervisor with that company since then. During breaks in planting with Folklore, I've also worked on contracts with Waterside, Hi Rise, Outland/New Forest, Natural Borders/Coast Range, Timberline, a number of coastal companies, and some east coast companies. During my silviculture career (up to and including mid August of 2024), I've officially planted 1,342,116 trees. As a crew leader (at six different companies), my personal crews have planted a total of 15,395,643 trees. As a camp supervisor (at three different companies), I've directly overseen projects totalling 147,967,308 trees. Yes, I like to track numbers.
I also own and operate a company called Replant.ca Environmental through which you can sponsor the planting of trees to build forest reserves and demonstration forests, which are protected from commercial logging. We plant hundreds of thousands of trees in public parks each year.
I've published several books about tree planting and other unrelated subjects. Visit my author website for more details: www.jonathanclark.ca
Although it seems that tree planting is the core focus of my life, it's actually just a side gig. I'm basically a perpetual student, having finished three Masters programs so far, and I'm much more well known around the globe for my music-related work than I am for planting. This is thanks to music production work, DJ'ing, and music-related tutorials on YouTube. Visit this page to learn the rest of my story: Full Biography