by Evan Wolfe (M24) and Lydia Etherington (M25)
Fall 2022 Issue

Each summer, small towns around Canada are terrorized by truckloads of college students and hippies who share one common goal: plant as many trees as they possibly can. We invite you to take a glimpse into the culture we called home for four months of the summer - the feelings we felt, the stories we earned and the lessons we learnt.

From the Watershed (Lydia)

You start each day with a number in your head.

You wake up sore. Your knees protest the simplest of movements and your knuckles split as they bend. The only part of you that doesn’t ache is your feet: numb with Christmas toe. Your tent floor is a blanket of dirt, and the air lingers with a smell you’ve long gone blind to.

Your number arrives. It floats behind your eyes as you pull on your shredded leggings and busted boots. Stumbling through camp to the kitchen trailer, you feel your number follow you.

Coffee poured. Lunch packed. Water jug filled. The last of your tiredness is shaken off as the bus jumps and lurches down the bush roads. You start to feel awake, the edges of your mind coming into focus around your number.

It doesn’t matter what your number is, as long as it sounds like success and feels like hell.

When you start your rookie season, vets will overwhelm you with advice. What to eat, what to wear, what music to play. You’ll try to mimic the highballers who strut around camp. Tape your fingers, braid your hair, and don’t eat bacon for breakfast. Every second of your day is crafted with that number in mind until you’re face to face with an empty piece, bags heavy with trees.

Then, the bus pulls away. You start each day tired, bruised, and ready, with nothing but the shovel in your hand and the number in your head. Ahead of you are ten hours and a few hectares of clear-cut forest.

The freedom is dizzying; trees tower over you in every direction. You can scream, spit, piss, dance, sing, and run naked into the lake. You can and will cry, sweat, trip, and think about giving up with every second. Piles of Slash will claw at you with each step; tearing your leggings, brutalizing your knuckles, and crushing your knees.

The hours stretch on and your number moves away from you like a mirage. You lose two hours replanting j-roots, one hour waiting for more trees to be delivered. Horse flies, black flies, and deer flies swarm your face with each breath. Shit. Your shovel hits a rock and a current of pain shoots through your wrist.

Standing in your piece, shovel in your hand, you tell yourself there must be a better way to do this. You’re doing everything you can. You can explain it all to your crewboss at the end of the day: you’d plant more trees if you had the right boots, the right land, the right weather.

There is no use in stopping, thinking, and rationalising the rows of empty trenches ahead of you. Nothing you do will scare away the bugs, dry your boots, or heal your wrist. You either throw your shovel into the ground, or you don’t. You either take another step, or you collapse. You have ten hours, and you fill them with choices.

Each day you start with a number in your head, and you end with one in your book. Whether those two numbers are the same shouldn’t matter. Not really. The sun will keep setting, the jack-pines will keep growing, and the cook will have dinner waiting when you get back.

But you’ll know. If you hit your number, your body will ache as you crawl back into your sleeping bag and you’ll crumple at the thought of planting another tree. But, for a reason that you can’t quite explain, it feels good. The kind of good that makes you forget, for a second, that the rest of the world exists.

And if you aren’t happy with your number? Try again tomorrow.

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From the Duster (Evan)

Three days in
And body sore
Aching limb to limb

Your only consolation is:
Night off
So work hard today
Until the fun begins

Rocking rhythm
Hips swaying
Arms popping
Feet boogie to the beat

It’s arrived
Your sweet freedom the block
A surge of waves a warm
Relief

No more silence
No more thought

The camp is our second home now
One we will miss a lot.

So we party til the sun’s up
We dance the night away
Cause summer knows the truth
That here our hearts will stay

Because when the world starts turning

And the summer sky begins to fade

We won’t forget the people that we’ve crossed
Or the memories that we’ve made

 Midsommer

Drag Night

That day we survived a bear chase

Bush Prom

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Stories for another day: 

1. Stops ATV. “Get In Loser, We’re Playing Fruit Ninja With Real Knives”.
2. The Inspectors Pay Us An Unexpected Visit On Naked Plant Day
3. No, You Can't Drive Your Car Into The Mess Tent And Make It A Rave Tent, I Don't Care If It Was Allowed Last Year
4. That we all Witnessed A German Transvestite Lap Dance Sesh 
5. BUuurRRrrpPPpp! “The Maple Syrup was a GoOd iDeA…”


Planting playlist:

A collection of songs that were classics around camp and some that just have tree-planting vibes.