Questions from a Quebecer

[Scooter]

Yet another email from a month or so ago ...

hi,

my name is youri and i have 3 planting years experience in quebec. I want to plant in BC this summer and i want to have some information of your compagny.

-first, what is the difference with the land in BC and the land in quebec?
-Do we sleep in tent ?
-how many tree we plant approximatly per day?
-how is the campcost?
-how many cent for each tree?
-when the contract begin and finish?
-and finaly do you take guys of quebec?

i think its finish for today, thanks for respond and sorry for my bad english.

- BC land is generally more mountainous, but not always. The scenery may look better in BC. There will also be a lot of dead areas where the Mountain Pine Beetle has killed vast mountainsides of forests.
- Most people sleep in tents. Some smaller companies work out of motels fairly often, and even the big companies will sometimes work out of motels on short jobs.
- As many as possible. Good planters with a couple months of experience, who work hard, should always be able to make $200/day, if your company prices the trees according to what I consider "appropriate levels." Therefore, if you are working on 20-cent land, you should expect to be able to plant 1000+ trees per day. If you are working on 10-cent land, it is probably a lot easier, so you should expect to be able to plant 2000+ trees per day. If you are a good vet who has at least one season under your belt, you should be able to plant more than this.
- Camp costs vary from company to company. And some companies also have different levels of camp costs depending on which province you are working in, which contract you are doing, and your level of experience (ie. some companies give discounts on camp costs to returning experienced planters who have worked for the company the previous year).
- I have planted trees, since 1990, for as low as 5 cents per tree and as high as 60 cents per tree. The norm, if you're working in the northern interior of BC or northern Alberta, is around 10-12 cents for easy ground and up to 20 cents for tougher ground. It completely depends on the blocks.
- Most planting takes place in May/June/July.
- We accept planters from all parts of Canada. Technically, we accept foreigners too, although since getting a work visa is so difficult if you are from outside Canada, this rarely happens. Mostly, we try to hire Canadians from any part of the country.

This page will give you more information for the type of questions that you are asking, I think: http://www.replant.ca/camplife.html

[mwainwright]

do they accept guys de quebec? i would say that a fair percentage of BC planters are quebecois. at least in the double digits.

[Scooter]

Yeah, and that's actually a good topic that could be brought up here. Which companies are known to have higher percentages of Quebecois? I guess that depends on the camp supervisors, because "birds of a feather run together." I've always heard that West Coast Brinkman (and Loki in Alberta) had a lot of French employees. Someone told me years ago that Seneca and Nechako also had higher-than-normal percentages of French-speaking employees, but I don't know if that was true, or if so, if it is still accurate.

I was actually talking with someone earlier who wants to do a major page on Replant where he is going to translate a whole bunch of the key info (especially for new employees) into French. It will probably take a while before we get that online, but it will be a good resource to have on the site.