These pictures were taken in June of 2006, while planting for West Fraser's Hinton Forest Products Division. This contract has turned into our "core" contract for the past several years, and most experienced planters think of it as "coming home" when they get back to the area.

Tim, changing a tire on the quad.

We watched Stephane, standing in front of the mirror for about ten minutes, staring at himself. We were laughing at him because we thought that was a little too introspective, until we realized that he was listening to the Oilers hockey game on the truck radio.

Loading the five-ton truck full of garbage boxes.

A tree planted in one of the burn blocks. We had two burn blocks on this contract, which was a nice throwback to a decade ago when burned blocks were far more common. However, these were not prescribed burns - there had been a wild fire and it had burned most of the two blocks, much to the delight of the planters. The blocks had just been logged (stump-side processing), so the parts that didn't burn were just horribly covered with slash. Luckily, we only had to plant the burned sections, and we'll hopefully come back to do the rest next year after the slash starts to break down and some site prep is done.

Shelley in the rain, laughing at Kent after he got his truck stuck on a landing overnight on a night off, when we thought he was still in town watching the hockey game.

Quadding trees down a pipeline to a block in the distance.

Kent, plotting one of the burn blocks.

Joanne, eating an apple.

Cody Montgomery, telling me that someday soon I need to take a photo of his famous red "cow pants."

"Can you do anything with these nails?"

A symbolic photo of new by old.

A water bottle sitting on the quad.

A box top. It is interesting that a lot of people still call these stickers the "boxtops" when I haven't actually seen stickers on the top flaps of the tree boxes in about 15 years. It makes sense to put them on the ends of the boxes, where they can be seen when they are stacked in a truck or reefer, rather than on the top flap and out of sight. So technically, they should be called "box ends."

Sean Jackins.

Julie Richards, planting in the burn.

Jackie, taking a drink.

Travis, bagging up.

A quad road through the block.

A view from the top of one of the burn blocks, across the face of the burned hill, with the green valley in the background.

Another healthy looking tree in the burn.

My rubber boot. Almost time for a new pair. Once the hole is bigger than six inches across, it's time to go shopping. You may think to yourself, "With a hole that big in the boot, how does your foot stay dry?" It doesn't.

Another photo of the burn block, taken from the top of the hill. If you look closely, you can see how lucky West Fraser was with this fire. Very little of the good standing timber surrounding the block was destroyed.

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