The Truth About Tree Planting in Ontario’s Northern Wilderness 25 U...

Tree Planting ain’t for Tree Huggers. It’s 2 and a half months of brutal off grid, tent camping, bug infested, tear making time of my life.

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I knew what I was getting into as I had sold army surplus to dozens of tree planters the years prior. I was well aware of the hardships ahead of me. Or so I thought. It didn’t matter because at the end I was $12,000CAD richer. Which helped me get to China.

Let me take you on a little photo and short video journey of my time in north of the Great Lakes where I lived in a small tent for two and a half months.

I have to start with the mosquito's. The insects were the most brutal thing I have ever had to deal with in my life. One could not breath without inhaling bugs. They were dive bombing us at every moment. Even in our tents we needed to spend a few minutes killing them before we put our head down or the buzzing continues.

Can you see those black dots? Each one is trying eat me.

If any skin was showing for even a moment this was the result.

We started with over 60 planters many of us rookies. We ended with less than 35, as so many dropped out due to the hardships or injuries. Some were just homesick. Our group traveled from Thunder Bay in a caravan of 12 vehicles including 2 buses and a transport truck. We drove north for 7 hours. We planted at 3 different sites but we spent the most time outside of a small beautifully quaint town called Mantouwadge.

This was my home for 2.5 months. It was great. I pitched my tent on flat gravel and dug a small ditch around it. This is the best spot to keep the rain out of my tent. It wasn't the softest but it sure was good on the back after bending over to plant a tree 2000+ times in a day.

This was one of the last days. Everyone that survived. By this time we had all bonded and had tales to share for the rest of our lives. This is everyone who was on the team, supervisors, tree runners, cooks and grunts.

We were paid $0.08 cents per tree unless we planted over 2400 trees per day than we would be paid $0.10 cents per tree. It sounds low but once you have the strength and the mentality you can plant thousands of trees per day. I peaked at 3226 trees in one day. My season total was over 55,000 trees. But I was by no means a great planter; I was actually average. The best planters did 5,000 per day totaling over 100,000 trees.

Getting round the site to and from the pick up spots could be several kilometers in between so we would need a ride some of the time.

We also got government tax breaks and bonus’s. We didn’t pay tax because we were working for the Ministry of Natural Resources to replenish Canada’s lumber industry.

We also got a 25% bonus (from the Federal Gov) on our salary for something called Remote Workers Allowance because our job so far from civilization. We lived off grid. No electricity except for the generator used to keep power the mobile kitchen. No cell phone, TV, internet and we had to drink purified water from a nearby pond.

Yes we drank from the nearest source of water which was a pond created by Beavers probably a little less than 10 year before. The Beavers long gone as it over grew into a swamp and pushed the fish out.

The closest thing to modern technology was the kitchen trailer which was powered by a gas generator to run the fridges and stoves. It was kind of loud which kept the bears at bay. We were in the heart of bear country. I saw them a few times but never got a good photo sadly.

The water from the pond was pumped into the trailer where it was cleaned by charcoal filter to take out the impurities and solar UV to kill and bacteria and stored in a huge tank. It tasted fine and nobody ever got sick. We had a shower tent that sometimes had hot water but it was usually cold. We also had a huge tent where would congregate inside with tables to eat and talk, get drunk when it's raining etc.

A couple photos of some of the best planters out there. They took home a lot more than me. They had been doing 3-5 years and kept getting better.

Living so far away from civilization it's amazing how well small groups of people band together in harmony. To be honest when you have no choice but to put up with those around people tend to get along better. We just deal with it. We were all sharing the same hardships and stories around the camp fire of the snakes and moose we saw.

Most of us were just crushed at the end of the day. The cold wet rain, the mud, the unending barrage of bugs.

The campfire was the only warmth. We got to dry out our boots and socks.

To plant over 2,000 trees you can not stop to swat bugs, you can not stop to wipe sweat and tears from your eyes, if you do you get covered in mud. This was near the start of the mission. My beard is short and you can see I have been touching my face to chase the bugs away. I had to put tape over my ears to keep the bugs from going in them

I tried covering up all my skin, which got quite hot the harder I worked. By the start of July I had to take it off and face the bugs, which switched from the mosquito's to Horse and Dear flies which take chunks out of you.

Compared to this photo which in the last couple weeks of the mission. My character has changed as well as my appearance. I have a whole new appreciation for hard work and dedication. I will never consider a job to difficult to do again any job I am asked to do I will do it, I will try and I will succeed. It was life altering.

In this pic on my left eye I got hit in the head by branch as I was crashing through some brush the day before. It nearly knocked me out, I got dizzy, and nice war wound bruise.

While living in the wild the friendships you can make are life long bonds.

Once we got to our site we needed to have everything required for the day. food, water, trees etc. There were no trips to camp which was an hour a way. There were no canteens or shops.

We needed tree runners with ATV's to bring us trees when we ran out if the trails were too rough for the trucks.

Here I am planting a tree.

The million dollar sunsets were awe inspiring..

The priceless blue skies that went on forever with marsh mellow clouds passing by. The only sound was the occasional airplane.

If you have a few more minute please check out my videos.

This is my incredibly covered in mud, surrounded by mosquito's bragging about my successful day.
36 seconds

Here is a quick peak at camp and it snowing, wet snow.
30 seconds

Well I hope you learned something about tree planting. It's really not a bunch of hippies playing the bush. They would last a day, well some lasted a couple weeks. Its hard work, period.