This page has been set up to share photos & video relating to the "Wrapping Up" chapter of "Step By Step, A Tree Planter's Handbook." Visit www.replant.ca/books to see books about tree planting.
If you're going into your first season as a planter, make yourself a promise: No matter how hard the physical work seems, promise to yourself that you won't quit for 31 days. If you make it that far, you'll have made it through the hardest part of your career, and the job just gets easier from that point onward.
If you've ever read the book "Outliers" by Malcolm Gladwell, you'll know that he suggests that it takes roughly 10,000 hours of practice to truly master a profession. Don't be discouraged if you're having a hard time after only three weeks of planting. At that point, you'll probably have practiced for not much more than 120 hours! Planting DOES become easier with practice. Lots of practice.
Keep a diary. You'll probably want to refer back to it someday. You may also want a written record in case you have problems with your company, and you have to make a complaint with your provincial labour board. Make notes about your production, your block numbers, your locations, the weather, who you planted with, the prices, what time you left camp, what time you returned to camp, and anything else that might be of interest to you in the future. A lot of people eventually start tracking their lifetime planting totals, but you have to keep track of your production from the start to be able to do this accurately.
There are free apps such as GeoCam that will take a photo with your phone, and overlay the latitude and longitude over top. This is really convenient in case you someday want to come back to visit your trees on the first block that you ever planted, or anything like that.
The "Rite In The Rain" tally books are awesome for keeping track of tallies.
Here's a planter making notes in her tally book at the end of a planting day.
In British Columbia, the Employment Standards Branch is the division of the Ministry of Labour that investigates complaints that workers make about companies. Every province has some sort of similar government division. If your company is not treating you properly, in accordance with the labour laws of the province within which the work was done, don't be scared to lodge a complaint with the appropriate agency.
For more information about tree planting and forestry in Canada, visit the Forums (the message board) on the Replant.ca website.
Click here to see a page listing books related to reforestation in Canada. If you received a photocopied version of this book from your planting company, or you're a trainer at a Canadian planting company, click on this link for more information.
