It's hard to drive through Jasper without taking the obligatory picture of a CN rail engine.
I had to get a photo of the monument too.
... and then some wild sheep joined the party.
Ok, back to work. Sort of. Until the snowstorm grounded the helicopter, and everyone had to walk out.
Someone flipped their truck on the Goose Tower Road. The roads get slippery pretty quickly. I gave the guy a hand in rolling his truck back over (with my winch) and then I took him into Swan Hills.
More snow the next morning. This provided us with a good excuse to sit in the trucks for a few hours, waiting for the snow to melt, and watching Pineapple Express on the iPods hooked up to the truck stereos.
Is that Pete I see down there?
Everyone picks on the little guy. Especially when all the other quads start getting flats and we run out of spare tires. This photo is particularly pathetic if you look closely at the one remaining tire on the quad and notice that it too is flat.
The guys from the K&C Nursery, examining trees with one of the Millar Western representatives.
Conor brought these trees to camp to help illustrate the importance of picking a good microsite. The large tree on the right side of the photo was a planted tree, about three years old, which had been planted in a good high microsite. The tree in the middle was planted at the same time, but in a poor & low microsite. The tree on the left was a natural that started to grow at about the same time as the others were planted.
Glenn, one of my solid multi-year vets.
Slings of trees laid out waiting for the helicopter to arrive in the morning.
Andrew, with Aaron close behind.
Greg's crew, meeting back at the trucks at the end of the day.
A couple of Alberta's SRD (Sustainable Resource Development) officers, visiting us to make an inspection of the planting project. It was quite a surprise seeing Osman - he and I went to the same University back in New Brunswick several years ago, and we didn't expect to run into each other in the middle of the bush in northern Alberta.
Greg's crew, coming over the hill and up to the trucks.
An old bumper sticker on the back of P4, my lovely purple truck.
Nate Gosse, foreman.
Sarah.
A tin plate on a tree, confirming that we're on the correct block.
Big Pete.
Checking to make sure that the quad is tied securely into the back of the truck, with a ratchet strap. Apparently, the RCMP can give out fines if the quads aren't strapped in properly.
I'm not sure what Ellie and Kyla are doing here. Nobody is really ever sure. Perhaps they are pretending that they're tubing on a river somewhere.
Cynthia.
Millar Western is very conscious of the environment, and their Environmental Management System standards become more refined every year. In fact, I think that one of the planting contractors who was here last year might have not measured up to expectations when it came to building quad bridges over creeks and ephemerals, so here you can see we're trying to make sure that our quad bridges are raising the bar for the industry.
Greg and Tony, changing a quad tire.
Here's Emma, lovin' it.