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, rated by Manpower Canada 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 is difficult, and is usually only attempted by young people in their twenties. Mentally, it can be devastating. In terms of financial rewards, there is 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. Maybe you'll have a good tan too.
About the Website:
This website is not endorsed or supported by any corporate sponsors, at least not at the moment (see below). Any businesses or corporations that are mentioned in a positive light on the website are only mentioned because the author (Scooter) thinks that they offer goods or services that planters will find useful.
Initially, the point of developing this website was for Scooter to let a few close friends know what was happening to him during the summer, to save him from having to write letters. However, it started to grow in popularity as more people became interested in the diaries and the photo pages. After a few years, training material was added, which would be useful for new planters industry-wide. In coming years, the main focus for further development will probably be to improve the educational and training information being offered.
Traffic to the site is pretty intensive, averaging around five 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. Although the main site was initially the area that attracted the most interest, and still does for non-planters or potential planters, the message board has become the main attraction for experienced planters.
This site makes no revenue from advertising or other means. I don't want to post Google Ads, because they're annoying and they would detract from the main content of the site. Accordingly, if you'd like to make a small donation to help keep the site going, click on the donate button provided here. Now let me clarify first that I don't expect site viewers to just open their wallets arbitrarily. The way I look at it is this: I don't expect anyone to donate unless I can provide something of greater value in return. So if you take several hours and read through this site (or have already gone through it), and if you've gotten tangible benefits, then it would make sense to consider making a very small donation. For instance, if you get a job because of this site, then maybe you'd consider chipping in a ten dollar donation. If you're a first year planter and you've used the information that you've learned from this site to increase your earnings in your first season, then maybe you'd consider throwing in a few dollars. Finally, if anyone is feeling really generous and wants to donate $50 or more (personal or corporate donations), then I'll even list you here as a specific sponsor for the site in appreciation for your consideration (if you want). Don't worry if you don't have PayPal: as long as you have a credit card, you can donate. And remember, even a small contribution helps to cover our extensive annual server costs.
About the Author:
Jonathan (or Scooter as he is more commonly known) has been planting trees in Western Canada for a very long time. After starting as a rookie planter with Tawa in 1990, he thereafter 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 central interior (BC) planting operations in the fall of 1994, Scooter joined Folklore Contracting, and has been a foreman and/or camp supervisor with that company since then. During breaks in planting with his primary employers, he has also worked as either a foreman or planter on contracts with another half dozen or so other companies including Waterside, Hi Rise, Outland/New Forest, Natural Borders/Coast Range, and others. During his silviculture career (up to and including the end of the summer of 2009), he has planted 756,000 trees. As a foreman, his personal crews have planted a total of 13.283 million trees. As a supervisor, he has directly overseen projects totalling 53.270 million trees. For the last several summers, Scooter has tried to keep daily diaries on this website, to talk about some of the amusing and annoying adventures that can happen while planting trees. Scooter also has a separate Blog that was started in 2006, but the blog is not specifically devoted to tree planting (although a few planting related items sometimes appear on it).
Check out the YouTube video above for a short biography video about Scooter.
Here's a photo of Scooter as a camp supervisor. People who know him from his job working at the Pub probably wouldn't believe how dirty he gets.
Another photo of Scooter at work - this time pulling a stick out from under the engine of the quad.
During the fall/winter/spring, Scooter works as the manager of a campus pub at Mount Allison University in New Brunswick. As you might guess from the photos below, the job there is almost the polar opposite of planting: working until five in the morning, sleeping until lunch, and staying very clean. The diversity in switching between the two positions every year makes each job a little less monotonous, although transitions from coast to coast are sometimes tricky. Luckily, the planting season and the university's academic year don't quite overlap, which makes the dual-employment situation possible.
Here are a couple photos of Scooter at work at the Pub. Most people who know him from his tree planting life probably won't recognize him looking this clean.
When Scooter isn't planting or running the Pub, he is kept busy with a number of other activities: taking university courses (he already has a B.Comm and an MBA, and has almost completed a second Bachelors degree in History and Hispanic studies), doing video production and web site design work for another company in the Maritime provinces, doing some moonlighting as a Professional DJ, or studying music through the Berklee School of Music in Boston. He was also one of the three founding directors of a small not-for-profit corporation in New Brunswick that raises funds for cancer research. Visit the Conduct Becoming website, where you can help join the fight against cancer by purchasing an inexpensive CD featuring student performers from Mount Allison University.
Send e-mail to Scooter: thepub@nbnet.nb.ca
