By: Alex Peters

One of the craziest stories I can recall from treeplanting draws from the advice and management of a terrible rookie crewboss. This story is about bears, but more specifically it’s about how one crazy crewboss showed no fear or regard for her planters. It was the second shift planting a contract in Beardmore Ontario and the bugs hadn't even hit yet. I was slowly planting my day away when I saw a group of planters convening on the road nearby. I was still new to the concept that every six to ten seconds wasted I would lose eight cents on my daily earnings, so I went over to see what was up. When I got there I found that earlier in the day a bear had stalked a girl a good 75M to the road before other planters noticed her yelling and backing away. They came to the rescue and the bear ran away.

Submitted April 2008

By Nate Gosse (2005)

Early on an already warm May morning, day three of our cycle, a crewboss and four planters were asked to return to a block to fill in some "missed" sections. I was chosen to be one of the lucky five shuttled off in the wonderfully beat-up, unsafe, and leaking F-150 extended cab which I believe every reforestation company owns.

By Nate Gosse (2005)

What's the difference between a rookie and a vet? A lot, but mainly it's how each approaches their day. Although good technique and stamina goes a long way in tree-planting, it's of critical importance not to spend every waking moment telling yourself how much you #%^@ing hate your job and your life.

It all happened right here.

Submitted by: Scott Chisholm

It was about 4:30 AM and I was sleeping in my tent. I remember that I was dreaming about something fun, probably margaritas on the patio at Earls on day off. Then my dream started to change. I was back in my tent listening to the sounds of the forest. One of those sounds was some sniffing and heavy breathing. Hmm, who could that be? This could be an interesting dream!

Submitted by: Marcelle Chisholm (Jacques)

I say that all the time (it's sounds funny since the American Pie movie). I say it a lot because I have so many stories from planting. One of my favorites is the good old stick in the face story. It was more like a log but who's gonna argue?

Submitted Anonymously - For Good Reason

Now I wasn't there, and it's a good thing I wasn't, because I would have been in a lot more trouble that you would have been in. I was their boss. And who knows, under the right circumstances, I would have joined them.

Here is a infamous Maytag Man story from Grande Prairie, Alberta sometime in the late-ninetys.

It was a road show bush camp project about an hour south and in to the bush from Grande Prairie. The crew had been working hard, and making good money. They had gotten to know each other over the last few weeks. This was going to be a gib and fun night off in the city.

I think they crew spent the night in the Moxies lounge. Apparently, they had nice waitresses there. I'm sure they ran up a huge tab, likely playing "boat people", and they shut the place down. Entering the streets, they saw the prize - a 30+ foot tall Maytag inflatable on top of a roof. They had to have it.

I think I know who did the dirty work, but it really does not matter. They got the Maytag man, his fan unit, and took him home to camp the next day where he was inflated (pictured).

Apparently, they had their way with him. I'm told that some of them climbed inside his head and hot boxed it. This is all hearsay, of course.

Submitted by Wig Walters

For many university students, the brutal labour of tree planting provides the summer paycheque necessary to return to school in the fall. The mental drain of the task is equivalent to cramming a BA's worth of term papers and exams into a two-month period. Physically, it is the hand and shovel answer to the mechanized mass-harvesting of British Columbia's most prized and threatened resource, trees.

Submitted by: Rod Sears