Like me, Debbie was extremely competitive. She strived to match me step for step, tree for tree. She also liked to clown around, injecting her uniquely twisted brand of comedy into our day in order to break up the routine. Sometimes, at the end of a particularly difficult run, she’d stop, turn and belt out a few lines of an Ethel Merman tune at the top of her lungs. I lost it every single time. It was right around that point in our friendship that I realized that I needed to be with this woman. I loved everything about her: the shimmer in her deep green eyes (I could swim in those eyes), her lithe frame, her nonchalance about having mud on her face, the sweet aroma of her jasmine oil, her flawless Ethel Merman impersonation. I wanted to spend the rest of my life with this woman, even though I knew I was nowhere near her equal—intellectually or emotionally.
The atmosphere around camp on the final night of the Purden Lake contract was jubilant. We were a tight crew. We were happy with the money we were making and our energy was good. We were also on the cusp of a two-day break. There was going to be a party in camp that night, the only question being: What form would it take?
It was from this buoyant reservoir of high spirits that the idea of a talent show surfaced. It seemed that everyone had something (or someone) that they wanted to interpret in their own way, in their own special humiliating way. The idea snowballed in a matter of minutes. Chairs were all turned toward the stage and people began huddling together in small troupes, hatching basic storylines for their moment in the spotlight.
Performances ranged from impromptu skits to poetry readings; from duelling bongos to John Wayne impersonations. Some of it was top-shelf entertainment. A couple of smartasses even decided to re-enact my long trek home from the cutblock that one night. Toward the end, as the creative juices began to ebb, people began pointing in my direction. It seemed to be a given that I’d break out my acoustic guitar for the final act of the evening. Truth was, I hadn’t touched my guitar in over a month. It was lying on the floor of my tent, in its case, covered in candle wax, work socks and underwear nightcaps. When I announced that I had no intention of playing—due to a swollen injured index finger—people unleashed a chorus of boos and hisses. Luckily, I was saved by a bright set of headlights spotted off in the distance, making their way toward camp. It was the head forester from the logging company. In the back of his truck were two large metal tubs filled with crushed ice and beer. It was his way of thanking us for planting healthy seedlings all across his division. Within minutes, there was an orgy of drinking, smoking, music and dancing inside the Quonset hut and out.
Copious amounts of cannabis were being consumed that night, and everyone seemed to be partaking except for a small group of new arrivals who were keeping to themselves. Among this group was a medical student named Dr. Josh. Josh was an interesting study. The man oozed charisma. He towered over us all at six foot seven and had a booming voice to match his imposing frame. He spoke his mind, and he liked to stir the pot. As a large hippy circle materialized outside—it rotated participants in such a way that everyone could pause and greet the person next to them, saying the first thing that came to mind before shifting to the person next in line—Josh and I watched wide-eyed from the sidelines. When the leader of the swirling mass of love and patchouli graciously encouraged Josh and me to join in, Josh, without skipping a beat, bellowed out, “We’re good eyeballing it from here for now.” I was pretty open-minded back then. I was curious. It appeared to be a little too delightful for Josh, though. He nudged my shoulder and proposed, a little louder than necessary, “Let’s go shotgun some beer, young fella.”
It was a great night. I was really beginning to feel as if I had found my place on Barrett’s crew. The night would have been even greater had Debbie not made a point of reminding me that she was meeting her boyfriend in town the very next day while we were on our break. She retired early that night in order to be fully rested. I was a little hurt when she abandoned me, but there were plenty of distractions to be had that night.
The next morning, as the sun emerged from the cold eastern horizon, there was no time for hangovers or leisurely sleep-ins. The breakfast horn sounded at 7:00 a.m. and within one hour, the camp was completely dismantled, the Quonset hut lying flat on the ground like a giant deflated hot-air balloon. Gear was packed into large wooden crates, and a long line of trucks were idling, waiting, ready to receive their loads. What was once a thriving community, a myriad of multicoloured tents spread out across four acres of wilderness, was now a string of tightly packed bundles assembled neatly on the side of the road, ready to be tossed aboard any vehicle with extra room. I remember being struck by the contradictions in this crew, from a gyrating mass of free-hippy-love-shit to a tight unit working with military discipline in the space of only a few hours.
As I helped load the trucks, Barrett approached me and asked if I wouldn’t mind taking care of one of his four-by-fours over the course of our break. That’s when I knew I was officially in. Barrett took great care in assigning responsibility for his vehicles. I was a bit blown away by the offer, which I eagerly accepted, and suddenly I found myself with a great set of wheels to boot around in during my two days of R and R.
When a treeplanting crew arrives in a community, it’s akin to a circus rolling into town. We attract attention. We stand out with our parade of bush vehicles, our trailers loaded down with ATVs and gear, our wild hair and free-hippy-love-shit attire. Our hacky sack circles and impromptu jam sessions.
The Nechako Inn in Prince George was where every treeplanting company in the region settled themselves when they had time off between contracts. If you can imagine an uproarious wall-to-wall house party, one that spills out onto the front lawn and into the street, that’s what the Nechako Inn was back in the day. It wasn’t unusual to have a group of complete strangers—planters from other companies—barge into your room in the middle of the night looking for a lost friend, a beer or a couch to crash on. Most of the rooms, which reeked of weed and tobacco smoke, were pockmarked with dozens of cigarette burns about the carpets and drapes. The mattresses on the beds were all well broken in—from what, I dared not imagine—and the fabric on the couches and chairs was tattered and threadbare. But strangely enough, there was an easy, comfortable feel to the place. We were at ground level. We were also all living on borrowed time with the next project looming over us like a menacing storm front on the horizon.
Prince George was a thriving resource town back then. There were a number of mills in the region that supported a significant percentage of the population, and they paid very decent wages. Judging by the quality of many of the stores, restaurants and watering holes in town, those wages were generously plowed back into the local economy. There was a small price to pay for all of this prosperity, though: the pulp and paper mills belched out so much sulphur in their emissions, it was nearly impossible to escape the stench of rotting eggs. The locals proudly referred to this as the “smell of money.” After a few hours in town, the olfactory senses somehow seemed to adapt.
While walking the streets of Prince George during my first real day off in four weeks, I marvelled at the number of treeplanters that had descended on the poor town. We were everywhere. We stood out, easily identified by our filthy work clothes and long hair; our backpacks and hacky sacks. It was a total invasion—I’m sure that was how the locals viewed it. We jaywalked along every street, forcing traffic to a standstill. We travelled in mobs. We monopolized public places. Worst of all, we formed drum circles in the middle of busy sidewalks, often near the entrances to health-food stores and all-you-can-eat buffet restaurants. It was a spectacle. If it wasn’t for the fact that we were all flush with cash, we likely would’ve been rounded up, issued one-way bus tickets and stuffed on the next coach headed back east.
Our second contract of the season was along Williston Lake. I had never even heard of Williston Lake, a 250-kilometre-long monstrosity created by the W.A.C. Bennett Dam. There were no roads leading into this project, so Barrett had arranged for two water taxis and a barge to transport our trucks, camp and crew to a point along the lake where a series of logging roads had been pushed in, approximately halfway up the extremely remote eastern shore.
After one night at the Nechako Inn, a night that resulted in precious little rest or relaxation, I drove to the town of Mackenzie, where our trucks were to be loaded onto a barge later that evening. After dropping off Barrett’s truck at the loading