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. You might have a good tan too, if you want a farmer's tan.

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. I do have Google ads at the bottom of a lot of pages on the site. When they're at the bottom, they won't be too annoying for readers. And who am I to turn down the advertising revenue? After all, it amounts to a few free cases of beer each year.

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.

About the Author:

Jonathan (or Scooter as he is more commonly known) has been planting trees in Western Canada for a while. After starting as a rookie planter with Tawa, 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, 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 fall of 2011), he has planted 802,000 trees. As a foreman, his personal crews have planted a total of 13.626 million trees. As a supervisor, he has directly overseen projects totalling 61.761 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).

During the fall/winter/spring, Scooter works as occasionally as a bartender in Sackville, 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. Scooter also is studying professional music production, with the goal of opening a large professional music studio in Atlantic Canada in late 2012.

When Scooter isn't planting, he is kept busy with a number of other activities: taking occasional 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. You can also check out Scooter's DJ Fan Page on Facebook if you enjoy that kind of music.

Send e-mail to Scooter: jonathan.scooter.clark@gmail.com