Highballer by Greg Nolan

Author:Greg Nolan
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Tree planters, British Columbia, Canada, Biography, Tree planting
ISBN: 9781550178692
Publisher: Harbour Publishing Co. Ltd.
Published: 2019-06-21T16:00:00+00:00

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As we approached the end of the third week in Port Eliza, Ricky, Zach, Sherry and I were called in for a private meeting with Ryan and Scotty. They offered us the opportunity to separate from the main crew and take on a special mission. This would entail sailing back down the coast and hooking up with two trucks. Once mobile, we’d travel up to the north end of the island and embark on a series of planting scenarios that required, as Ryan so generously put it, “a crew with a certain flair.”

We were all sufficiently flattered by the offer and agreed to the arrangement without hesitation. What we weren’t made aware of at the time was that the project was bid “site unseen”—the individual sites were not visited and examined prior to a bid being submitted. They were assessed and bid using aerial photographs, topographic maps and verbal descriptions. This is normally a recipe for disaster as maps and aerial photos do not reveal the actual physical characteristics of a setting. We embarked expecting adventure and fat dividends. I would soon be reminded that lofty expectations in this industry are best kept in check.

After making our way back down the coast on the same freight ship we had travelled up on, we ventured off in two trucks that were waiting for us at the loading dock. We were a six-pack: Scotty, his wife and planting partner, Elsie, Ricky, Zach, Sherry and me. It was a tight crew and we really enjoyed one another’s company—a very important consideration with small treeplanting crews. Actually, Lady and Rio made us eight.

Our first project required travelling up the northwest side of the island, but since it was too dark to properly navigate the complex network of logging roads at night, we decided not to push it. We would travel as far a small town that was in the vicinity of one of our “missions,” sleep in the trucks overnight and worry about setting up camp early the next day.

During our long drive up-island, feeling a sense of liberation at being cut loose from the main pack, I decided to do something I hadn’t done since the Mesilinka River contract six months earlier: I agreed to join everyone in smoking a big fatty—a “gagger,” as Scotty liked to call them. When we were within a stone’s throw of our destination, we looked for a place to stop and blaze up. We found an ideal spot at the edge of a lake, one that had a large open area between the shoreline and the road.

It was nearly 9:00 p.m. and now pitch-dark. When we cut the engines, there was an ineffable calm in the air. The steep rock faces and forests around us fell into hushed silence as if eager to eavesdrop on what we had to say as we emerged from our vehicles. As the weed was passed around our tight little circle, I warned everyone that I might need a space helmet.

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