Promptly after high school I jumped to the U of Alberta in the sciences faculty and was on the road to my bachelors degree. The best part about University is that your time off goes from about 3 months in high school (2 in the summer + combination of holidays throughout) to about 5 months in University. School is a part time job at absolute worst. Worst being if you actually keep up with your assignments and homework (I didn’t). That left a lot of time in the summer to either do nothing and party like some people I know, or work your butt off so you didn’t have to take out student loans. My first couple of summers in University were spent at the sawmill in Sundre, working my butt off.
THE SAWMILL
The bottom rung on the totem poll at a mill is usually the clean up crew, or maybe if you’re lucky, you stack wood. It’s basically the easiest most mindless job on the planet, but you get to listen to music and you get paid over $20/hour. After being on the clean up crew for a couple weeks, I stepped to post stacking. This was a rather unusual job that consisted of putting many round pegs into a giant square bin. I basically picked up posts off of a chain and stacked them in a ban that was close by. Some of these posts were 2″ in diameter some were 10″. Some posts were 6′ long, others were 12′ long. Anyway you cut it, I pretty much felt like this at the end of the day:
My forearms were giant, and it looked like I had no neck. Not only that, but from working outside I had a wicked farmers tan that was so crazy that even with my shirt off, it looked like I was wearing a shirt. I could pretty much do any job for four months, so one where I could back to school a tanned looking 185 pounds of muscle is a good one. Unfortunately, both years after working at the mill, after 4 months of school I was back up to a 200 pound cream puff (the freshman and sophmore 15).
THE SILVICULTURE SUMMERS
I spent my next two summers following around tree planters and regen surveyors in the foothills around Nordegg. It was my job to make sure trees were growing. Tree planters are in ridiculously good shape. All they do is walk up and down mountains, carrying a bunch of weight, and bending over 2000 times a day. They looked like they were having fun, but I think they were basically crazy. I had to be in good shape just to keep up with them. Along with the morning gym trips to the brand new Sundre pool/gym, I managed to finish another summer at a lean mean 190 pounds. Then came the Junior and Senior 25.
LAYING OUT CUTBLOCKS
After rounding out my university career at a pudgy 210 pounds, I started laying out cutblocks in the Kananaskis area of the province. This was my favorite job working outside. I got paid (kind of, it covered rent, food and student loans) to hike in forested areas and I never had to walk up anything that was greater than a 40% slope because harvesting machines couldn’t go up there. I also pretty much had the final say in what trees were going to be cut down and which ones would be left for wildlife, to help with erosion, and to act as seed trees. Most days at this job consisted of walking 15-20km and tying flags on trees for 6-8 hours a day. According to the myfitnesspal app on my iPhone, every day just from walking for work I would burn almost 3000 calories. Needless to say I dropped 25 pounds in 6 months doing this. I could run 10km in my sleep, backpack for days straight and almost dunk a basketball. I basically looked like Wolverine running through the forest without the claws.
SINCE WORKING OUTSIDE
Since I finished my degree I ended up working in front of a computer and driving a lot. My jobs have been pretty sweet, but they’re not active at all. They also lead to eating out a lot and once again, I feel like a cream puff. I really took for granted what it was like to work with my hands and have an active job. I spent this last weekend working outside doing some landscaping and it felt good. It may be time for me to revisit working in the outdoors or in the mill. It’s rare that you can enjoy being outdoors and keep physically active while getting paid. You can in the forest industry.