These pictures were taken in July of 2001, while working for Mostowich Lumber in Fox Creek, Alberta.

Chris Durupt, taking garbage off the block.

Stephen Campbell, complaining about how the supervisor "misinforms" the planters. Unfortunately, this time it was true ... the Mostowich checkers escorted us to a landing and said, "Come on, it's a couple kilometers down this road ..." But it turned out to be seven kilometers away, which was a ridiculous walk for the planters. To make things worse, Millar Western was flying planters (from another Folklore camp working off the same landing) to blocks that were CLOSER than the ones that Mostowich had us walking to!

Sean MacKenzie, covered in mud.

Bryce, taking tallies from Mike Bayer.

Dylan Koslick and Dave "Big Dog" MacDonald, working on the first aid tent.

Cara Yeates, a bit muddy at the end of the day.

Chris Goudreau, learning how to use the electric shifter on the quad.

The beehive burner at the Mostowich mill. We were allowed to burn our empty boxes in here, which saved us a lot of trips to the dump.

Kelly, throwing empty cardboard boxes into the burner.

A group of planters, trying to figure out what to do on the day off.

A horse fly. These things are really annoying on hot days later in the summer, and mosquito repellent doesn't seem to deter them.

A bunch of boxes of trees in the cache. The ones on the left are pine, and the bluish-green ones on the right are spruce.

A photo of one of the narrow logging roads. On the days that the weather is good, the dust on these roads is ridiculous, and you have to drive very carefully. Always drive with your headlights on.

The temperature at the cache. The wax is actually melting on the empty tree boxes that the thermometer is sitting on.

Changing a flat trailer tire at four in the morning.

A buried pipeline warning sign. The areas around Fox Creek, Whitecourt, and Swan Hills (most of northern Alberta, come to think of it) are covered in pipelines and poisonous gases. We usually get evacuated from our blocks once every second or third summers due to gas leaks.

The front of my truck. The bumper is bent down from winching trucks out of the mud, and the winch is actually broken in this picture and won't reel in.

A photo of a GPS unit on the dash of the truck. This unit provides details about position, time (Greenwich standard), altitude, direction of travel, etc. in real time.

Brent Stewart.

Kelly Duduman, showing off his battle scars. This is from the quad incident that made him resign his job as a foreman.

Glen Larsen, of Mostowich Lumber.

Jennifer, who just unloaded an empty net from the cargo bay of the chopper, which is about to take off and pick up a full sling of trees.

Jill Smith, laughing because she's embarassed about the camera.

The quad road into one of the chopper blocks.

Christie McPhee.

Garry Gray, trying to untangle a roll of rope.

Scooter, planting some trees for the training video one night after supper.

If you hold onto the tree as you kick the hole shut, you are much more likely to plant a straight tree. I've always thought that learning to plant perfectly straight trees is one of the most important skills you can learn as a planter ... not that the trees will be any more likely to survive, but straight trees impress checkers and make them think that the quality is good.

Garry Grey, realizing that it's time to trade in for a new helmet.

Jason Johnson walking back to the cache, with Chris Goudreau in the background.

An oil derrick in the early morning fog, on the edge of one of our blocks.

Fraser Miller, "That's both trucks from our crew you see, making it home safely, but zero for two for Team Soehl!". We managed to pull Jonas' trucks out of the ditch the next morning.

Nick Chng.

Greg Mancuso, wearing part of his shirt sleeve on his head to keep the sweat out of his eyes.

Will Lepore.

Oisin Carroll.

Scooter, "playing in the mud" on a hot, sunny day. This is why many foremen in Alberta wear rain gear all day when they're quadding trees, no matter how hot it gets.

The first aid tent, destroyed after a really heavy windstorm hit camp. After I told Jim, he said, "You idiots ... you should have put a few pieces of wood by the tent to hold it down." Well, we did, but the same storm managed to snap trees in half that were over fifteen inches in diameter, and it looked there might have been tornadoes at the same time a few miles down the road.

The showers, destroyed by the wind storm.

The mess tent, completely overturned and ripped open by the storm.

Jeff Ohrt.

The edge of a big puddle that had thousands of tadpoles in it. There are hundreds of frogs and toads everywhere on the blocks at this time of year.

Glen Larsen, showing us a little bit of Alberta mud, up close. Glen and Mike were incredibly helpful checkers, especially when it came to getting trees into blocks with tough access.

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