These pictures were taken in May of 2006, while planting for Millar Western Forest Products near Swan Hills, Alberta.

An elk, photographed at dusk. This was a very tame animal, and didn't seem bothered by me in the slightest.

Julie, helping to fill the water reservoirs.

Unloading boxes from the reefer during the camp setup.

The big truck.

Travis McLellan, a picture of calm in the midst of a hectic helicopter staging setup.

Some of our camp trucks, lined up at the staging area.

Log decks on a nearby block.

Jason Wilde. And he was.

I took this colorful photo while standing on the quad, waiting for people to bag up so we could walk in and set them up in their pieces for the day.

Sheena Morrison.

Anna Christine-Murray.

Kent Borgstrom, modelling his self-improvised raingear shorts.

Max Theobald, wearing his test model rain jacket from Motoca.

This may look like a flat road, but looks are deceiving. It actually goes quite steeply downhill. In fact, the "rise" that you can see in the road behind the trucks is even a downhill slope, just slightly shallower than the steep part that the trucks are stuck on. Our ETV is at the top of the hill, waiting for the large truck to pull the water truck back downhill out of the mud, so we can get out to the highway.

Drew Freeman, with Charles Wilkie in the background. Drew moonlights as a high school physics teacher during the "academic year," and plants during the summer when school is out.

Glenn Chapman.

Dinner in the mess tent. After several days of fog and rain, the sun came out just before dinner so the windows finally got opened.

Anna Jackson, our assistant cook.

Andy MacCallum. Those trees in front of him were our first run-in with individually wrapped, frozen plugs.

A game of baseball on the landing. We were waiting for a helicopter for three hours, but it was too foggy to fly, so a little recreation was in order. The planters can use their shovels as bats, so it's always good to keep a softball around in the truck on helicopter contracts.

Jean-Phillipe Vermette.

Sheena & Anna.

Conor, our checker from Millar Western.

Piss cans (water backpacks for fire fighting) fastened to the front of a canopy truck.

Stretching in the morning before planting. Or crying.

Loading planters into Mike's "A-Star" helicopter.

Martha and Sumaya.

Checking out a block map.

Boxes of trees in the truck.

Spare tire.

Planting on one of the blocks.

Aaron Khatava, waiting for the helicopter.

Jacob and Justin, looking at photos while packing up gear at the end of the contract.

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