Timberline Reforestation

[Slash Monkey]

anyone have contact info for these guys? the phone number on canadian treeplanting.com is bunk and the info about them in the contractors list from tree-planter.com is also no good.

[Tommy10]

[Edit by Administrator, February 10th, 2016: I just updated the following to be the correct current contact info].

Timberline Reforestation
RR3 S36 C40
Nelson BC
250-229-2118
Email: timref@columbiawireless.ca
Web: http://www.timberlinereforestation.ca

I think this info is current, hope it helps.Good Luck getting on with these guys, They're the top of the line in the treeplanting world

[tuna]

timberline has been bought out by Nik Brink, former supervisor for SOS(southern okanogan silviculture) and Zanzibar.

You can reach him at 250-357-9965 or his cell 250-505-4362

[MiddleAgeMayhem]

timberline has been bought out by Nik Brink, former supervisor for SOS(southern okanogan silviculture) and Zanzibar.

You can reach him at 250-357-9965 or his cell 250-505-4362

Sort of.

He's 50% owner.

[Mike]

I'm surprised that nobody has talked about these guys more, given their legendary status. Anyways, here's a typical review:

Timberline, Fall 2012, Coastal

Hello everyone! Time for another of your favourite company reviews, providing as much solid and honest and unbiased as humanely possible (which isn't saying much, given the humanity we have to work with, but hey, we'll take what we can get, right?)

This was my first time doing coastal planting, so some of this review is likely to be commentary about me, not about planting on the coast.

As always, more solid information for this industry is valuable for weeding out weaker companies, such that people know who the better companies to work for are, and know who the worse companies are and can avoid them, producing worker shortages for weaker companies. More information = killing bad companies, and helping the good ones get good people...so maybe we could get someone aside from me doing this, too :P


Too long, won't read:
Overall, I liked Timberline. I'd recommend it to any coastal planter, but any coastal planter has probably already figured that out. I can't comment on their interior season. Organization was good, prices seemed fine, living conditions fine, weather was awful (incredibly hot), and Nick Brink is just like Chuck Norris.


Full review (it's only 3 pages):
We started in Port Alice, BC.

Timberline works 3 and 1's, 7am leave, 4:30pm stop. Hotels, cook for yourself. Everyone ranted about how awful the hotels we were in are, but they seemed fine to me. I think it was a “grizzled ole coastal vet” thing. Most of the burners on the stoves mostly worked.

Safety was a bigger concern than I've ever seen it, and taken very seriously. Probably a coastal thing. Caulks, hi-vis vest, hardhats, pretty standard (also Island Timberlands policy, one of the mills we worked for). Climbing helmets worked if they were something certified. I didn't find the hardhat quite as awful as I thought I would. Also, hows this for being proactive about safety? Nick went out and bought everyone these “hard hat cooling pads” that construction workers in the states use. It's a little water (sweat) soaked cloth pouch of those extra-absorbent water granule things, designed to help keep cool by being the equivalent of a wet cloth on your head all day. It seem to have some effect.

The port Alice camp was between 22 and 24 planters, +3 foremen and Nick, who was also on the block either every day, or most days. There were 4 new planters to Timberline, but they all planted on the coast, though a couple of Timberline's interior planters that season were also doing their first coastal contract. It was a very experienced camp, with many planters in their 10+ year range, and a few at 20+.

Nick still pounds every day while managing the company, highballing and putting in over 10000 trees per day, himself, apparently.

Timberline doesn't use fixed crews and doesn't use commissioned foremen; I was initially leery, since I'd had non-commissioned foremen be a little...less concerned about keeping me working than I'd like...in the past, but these guys were unbelievably excellent and very hardworking.

Port Alice drives were long; 1 hour to 1.5 hours.

Prices in Port Alice ranged from 24 cents to 30 cents (fill plant). Nick gave out numbers a couple times of trees we'd planted (and divide by number of planters/number of days) and knowing prices (or being able to guess), earnings for the fall coastal, even during the 1st two shifts, averaged somewhere between 280-320$. I made less than that, and less than I had in the interior...but coastal rookie, right?

Port Alice weather was good enough (some rainy/misty days, some overcast and not bad days, some sunny and a bit warm days).

The shift schedule was 3 and 2 (waiting for a delivery of more trees), 3 and 1, and then 1.5 days in Port Alice, starting on August 24th.

Coastal slash is nothing like interior slash.
Coastal steep is nothing like interior steep.
I thought I had planting trees before.

The coast was also beautiful in a way that was totally unlike the interior. Mountains on ocean is awesome. Also, cooking for yourself is way more awesome than I thought it was going to be. Being able to bring out a litre of high quality juice that had been frozen the night before on a hot day? A beauty that you'd never get in the interior.

The 7.5 day contract was 207000 trees with 35k fert. With 24 planters, that's an average of 8625 trees each. With 22 planters, that's an average of 9410 trees each. So, average of ~1200 to ~1300 (I divide by 7 then rounded down, because that .5 was less than a full half day). With an average price (this is real guesswork) of 24 cents, that's a camp average of 288$. If the average price was higher (which I think it probably was)...regardless of how you cut it, average somewhere between 280-320$, with some confidence. Which I imagine is not bad for the first 7 days of a fall coastal plant.

Species mixing (Hemlock, Fur, and Cedar) and microsite selection for specific species was quite difficult.

This contract was for WFP.


The Port Alberni Contract:

Again, people rant about this place (the town, the hotel). I'm uncertain why on both accounts. It seemed fine to me.

This was an island timberlands contract. Some people split off and went to Courtenay, some new people started working here. I can't say anything about the Courtenay work, except that it is mostly or entirely people who live in Courtenay, and they do 5 and 2's I heard.

There were two really bad things about Port Alberni in my mind: 1) Wasps, I hit ~4 nests in ~15 days of work, which was really, really unpleasant, and 2) The crazy heat. There were no wasps in Port Alice; I never even heard of someone hitting one while we were up there. But Alberni, every day...my room-mate had his eye swollen shut at one point.

Alberni was also the hottest place in Canada for several days. I imagine that had something to do with Nick Brink's presence. Me-wow.

There was a fair bit of helicopter work on this contract, and some people did early or varied leave times for that. Also, we did a couple early mornings/early quits to dodge a bit of the heat.

We work 3 and 1 *5 and then 2 (or 1.5, really) days at the end.

Jordan Tesluk does audits/interviews on the block, we get paid 15$ for them. They're exactly what you'd expect them to be.

At one point we're planting burns. They burned on non-reclaimed road. We were planting non-reclaimed road. That was kinda silly.

There were very few/basically no organizational faults. Never waited for trees. Always everything punctual. The couple times I got sent to do something weird-ish (several blocks, clean-up a few pieces on a block) I always made regular money or got a reasonable day rate. One day we finished early and didn't have anywhere else to go and lost 2 hours of planting time...but the block was well priced such that it was still an okay day. The only thing I can think of is one morning getting up for a 6am leave to go to heli staging, but the helicopter didn't come until 7:45am anyways, when staging was only ~1 hour away.

The heliblock was one of the hardest things I've ever seen.

We did some “roads and burns” but there were no burns and the roadsides were planted, so it was basically just bumping density along roadside. There were a few places with large open patches, but not many. Lots of wandering, but then it was dayrate anyways...so it was okay that it was a little strange and ambiguous.

Oooh, here was a good one, actually. We drive to a block. Unable to find it. We go to an active worksite where they are chopping and stacking wood and doing cray things with huge machines.

Turns out that is the block we're supposed to be planting. Literally under their machines. We drive around doing other bizarre little holes which I'm unclear on why they exist --- like, stock failure due to dry soil, or machinery? Literally, there'd be a 70 tree hole at the front of a block...or a 200 tree hole at the front of this block.

[Nick tells me via e-mail that these were probably decked wood present when planted, then removed, or piles left for firewood that hadn't been removed.]

I feel like some of the companies I worked for in the past would not have day-rated people for that, and it would have been an awful day. Dayrate makes everything okay.

So overall:

Pricing: I couldn't specifically say if it was good or bad, having no coastal comparison. I made ~5-15% less than I did in the interior on any given day, which is about what I expected. Some people grumbled, and some people were contented, which seemed about normal as well.

Organization: It was as good as I've ever seen, which is not quite perfect, but plenty good enough.

Living conditions: The hotels were fine. Cooking for myself was fun and awesome in a lot of ways, even if I spent slightly more money (hotel costs were 20-25$/day, more or less: usually we were informed on monthly rates).

Quality specs were challenging, and required a bit of extra thought and care (especially with species mixing) but not so over-the-top that they felt incomprehensible. Density (4's and 5's were typical), especially on steep slopes with the crazy slash, was a bit of more of a challenge, but again, not out of my league, just “I can't put my head down and plant, I need to pay attention all the time” sort of thing.

Any further questions feel free to ask.

[Mike]

Timberline: Spring of 2013

I planted with Timberline March-April 2013. They started approximately March 1st, though I didn't arrive until the 13th due to my work with Wagner, and the chaos that resulted from returning to Canada after my Scotland plant + eurotrip

Timberline works 3&1's, 7am-4:30pm, and I worked in Port Alice. Getting into Hardy/McNeil for internet/groceries from a less shitty overpriced grocery store was sometimes difficult without owning a vehicle; the foremen often worked on the days off.

The money was the best I've seen on the coast (still slightly weaker than the interior). We do a fair bit of ferting, which isn't bad. We have a couple partial days due to snow.

There was a block that was bad enough at 22 cents to get a price bump to 24 cents in places. Prices ranged from 20-30 cents with +3 cents for fert. In general, the pricing felt both consistent and fair with few exceptions; there were occasional blocks that felt “very good” and occasional blocks that seemed a little weaker, but not the same level of dart-board pricing that most companies have. The work in general was pretty good, and coastal vets that had seen more were mostly glad to be working there --- except that Port Alice is basically hell and spring coastal is rainy and icy.

There was one particularly mediocre block that I got sent on a cleanup crew for where a few of us were supposed to finish it and another block nearby, but 7 different pieces that only had 100-200 trees left to go in them (according to the planters) took somewhere around 3000 trees. Which is a hilarious demonstration of vested interest in saying the bit you have left is smaller than it actually is when you don't like the price. It was immediately followed by a particularly nice set of blocks to balance things out.

The foremen are all very good; Phil is particularly hilarious and amazing. There are a few people with only 1-2 years of coastal experience, but most have more. Camp average is probably 300$, or higher even.

Ultimately, planting coastal with Timberline is very solid. I'm not planning on doing coastal again, but you could definitely do a lot worse than working for Timberline.

[Scooter]

Camp average is probably 300$

Interesting that you say this, and also that you say that Timberline has probably the best prices that you've seen. Another bit of reinforcement that Interior earning potential is better than the coast in many cases.

Having said that, I believe that average daily earnings on the coast are still better than average daily earnings at Interior companies, even though the potential earnings for any specific average planter is probably better in the Interior. But that's only because the average coastal planter is so much better than the average Interior planter.

But the question of earnings potential on the coast vs Interior is probably up for debate. It's sort of like comparing apples and oranges in many cases. Different planters are skilled at different types of ground. I wouldn't go so far as to say that the coast is inferior all the time. For the very best planters, the coast is probably better. For less skilled planters, with say less than four or five years of experience, and most of that in relatively flat and slash-free ground, the earnings potential is definitely far better in the Interior. (I'm also ignoring the fact that there are some really shitty contracts in the Interior that are terribly underpriced, which of course makes all my assumptions rather pointless and invalid).

Anyway, a specific company thread is probably not the best place for this kind of debate. Back to Timberline, I've definitely been satisfied whenever I've worked there.

[Mike]

Actually, thinking on it, average might have been a bit higher than that. But yeah, I think Interior>>Coast. A coastal planter at an equally good interior company will do better. Interior averages lower once you include weaker companies. I agree completely.

[Scooter]

Here's current contact info for Timberline, also a new website:

Timberline Reforestation
RR3 S36 C40
Nelson BC
250-229-2118

Email: timref@columbiawireless.ca
Web: http://www.timberlinereforestation.ca