Weblog: Ospika: First Shift

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Today is our first day off. I haven't had any time to write on the previous days because my day is completely full just working and doing the necessities. I'm just going to ramble about whatever comes to mind.

This is my daily routine:

So as you can see, I have about half an hour of spare time every day.

The times between start of work and lunch, and lunch and end of work, look like they're uninterupted, and they are, but I do get some natural breaks whenever I have to refuel, change the blade, or change herbicide canisters. This happens about once every 2 hours. I usually take the opportunity to just rest for a few minutes and eat a snack. The first day I didn't snack, and I ran out of steam much more quickly.

Contents of pack:

The brush saw is attached at my hip to a harness. The first day, my shoulders hurt really badly because all of the weight of the saw was on them, in addition to the weight of the pack. Now I do up the harness as tight as it can possibly go, even though the position of the saw isn't quite as good, because it puts most of the saw's weight on my body rather than my shoulders. It's too bad the waist strap on my pack isn't better. It mostly does the job of keeping the weight off my shoulders, but is uncomfortable because it has no padding. Next time I'm in PG I should pick up some foam to pad it with.

The herbicide bottles have been a problem. Often a canister only lasts for an hour or so, so I run out long before lunch. Then sometimes I get a canister that lasts for the entire morning or afternoon. Now I'm getting the hang of what they should weigh, and I'm repressurizing them before loading them into my pack, and it's going much better.

The views from the block we're working on are spectacular. I kept forgetting my camera, and on the last day I brought it but left it in the truck because it looked like it might rain. It'll probably be another day or two before we're done the block (most of the crews have gone on to another block, so progress is much slower on this one), so hopefully the weather will be good and I can get a picture. So far none of the pictures I've taken here manage to convey how amazing the scenery really is. I wish I had a telephoto lens, because the mountains always end up being small in the background, which doesn't convey their scope very well.

The weather has been really good. It's been sunny most of the days. One day it was quite hot, but it didn't bother me (actually I didn't even notice, the only reason I know it was hot is because everyone else says it was). Yesterday it was overcast in the morning, and the rest of the day was a mix of sun and cloud. There were a lot of mosquitos yesterday, and they are able to bite right through my shirt. Unfortunately I can't spray bug dope on my shirt because it's synthetic (deet melts plastic) so I had to live with it. My shoulders in particular are absolutely covered in bites. Next time I'll wear cotton so I can deet it.

The first day I got a lot of bruises on my legs from "pucks". When you cut a tree but the stump is too high, you have to cut the stump down, and the bit that gets cut off goes flying at high speed. The second day I discovered that the direction you cut it affects the direction the puck flies, so now I only get one or two pucks in the shins or knees a day (vs. about 20 the first day).

Dinners remain good and I'm ravenous by the end of the day. I'm eating amounts of food that I never imaged I was capable of. Breakfasts are another story. I'm never very hungry in the morning, and frankly I have trouble getting a lot of the food down. I know I need carbohydrates to keep me going for the day, but they're only available in the form of bad french toast and dry pancakes. So I eat a lot of fruit and force down some of the other stuff, in addition to having a sausage and some scrambled eggs (which are okay).

The work is hard and I don't particularly look forward to it in the mornings, but when work is over, I feel better than I ever have before. Everything takes on an intensity that it never had before. Contrast this with an office job, which usually leaves me feeling lousy at the end of the day (though when I'm out there, I often think to myself that I wouldn't mind being in a nice office).

By the end of the day I'm sore, especially my feet, but nothing compared to what some people have to endure. One guy's feet are so blistered that he had to take yesterday off. His sheets are covered in blood in the morning. A bunch of people are having trouble with their knees, and many people have some kind of sores that are getting worse with every day worked, and developing infections. I have nothing of the sort. The skin on the bottom of my feet is getting really thick. I think pretty soon I'll be able to walk barefoot on gravel and not feel a thing.

After the second day, a couple of people quit. There were rumours going around all afternoon, and then I found it that it was two of apartment-mates from when we were staying at UNBC. Of all the people here, they're the last ones I would have expected to quit. It's too bad, they were both really good people and I was sad to see them go. Since then there has been a steady trickle of people quitting. The thought has certainly crossed my mind. A lot. According to the guys who quit, I could leave and still get EI as long as I do before I get my first paycheque. Also, quitting now would mean I don't have to pay for my saw because it's so new (Apex just charges a rental fee for the days I used it). But I think I'll stick with it. This kind of intense work is something I think I need. Procrastination has always been a big problem for me, and here there is no time for it.

As a result of people leaving, the crews are being shuffled around. I've been transferred from Ian's crew (which was really big) to Vincent's. I'm happy with the change. There was never any problem, but I don't think Ian liked me all that much. Also, the music Vincent plays in the pickup is more varied and to my taste, not to mention how nice it is to be exposed to more French music. This crew is mostly from Quebec, which is cool (I seem to end up hanging out with Quebecers more than anyone else, even though I can reraly understand what they're talking about amongst each other). Only trouble with being on Vincent's crew is that his twin brother, Felix, is also a foreman, and they often work together. The only consistent distinguishing feature is that Vincent has an eyebrow ring, so I can't yell his name from far away to get Vincent's attention because he has to be close in order to see the eyebrow ring.

On one of the days, we left our saws on the block instead of taking them back with us. This was great, because it gave me the opportunity to run as fast as I could down the hill to the pickups, which was super fun. I cut up my face when I tripped over a log, though.

Yesterday, it was announced that the previous day too many crop trees had been cut, so today if we cut one down, we had to carry it around in our packs and take it out with us. I called it the "tree of shame". Luckily I managed to not cut a single one. It's a good thing the area I was working in had quite mature crop trees which are much easier to pick out than the tiny ones in some areas.

At the end of the workday, the guys start blaring music from the pickups. It's one of the more surreal things I've experienced, being in the middle of the woods with all kinds of music mixing. Kind of an Apocalypse Now moment.

One of the guys who's been to Canadian boot camp says this work is harder. But another guy who joined the French Foreign Legion says that their boot camp was harder.

It turns out that I gave one of the guys I'm working with (who's on my new crew) a ride when I was driving to Parksville once. He was hitchhiking to Tofino. When I lived in Parksville, I drove between there and Victoria a lot, and picked up hitchhikers just about every time. At first I didn't remember, but now it's coming back to me.

There are two phones at the camp. One is the "standard" way to phone out. You can either call collect, toll free, or use a calling card, and are allowed to talk for up to ten minutes. It hardly ever works. There's also a satellite phone, which we're allowed to use, but only for a minute or so because it's so expensive and they have no infrastructure for charging for use. I'd like to give my parents a call, so I'm checking the "standard" all the time hoping that it'll work. They tell me that the last time it worked was four days ago.

We work 4 days on, 1 day off. At first I assumed that the first half-day we brushed was included in the shift (4 day period). As we worked a couple more days and I saw how these guys operated, I started assuming that it was in fact not included, which was confirmed when I asked. From what I hear, they push extra hard during the first shift so that people will quit sooner rather than later. But it's hard to separate rumor from fact in this place.

Last night I stayed up later than usual because of the day off. After dinner a bunch of us were in the TV room and watched Goldmember (just as funny the second time). Afterwards some of us went down to the beach. As usual, I was the only anglo. This morning I caught the tail end of Undercover Brother, and I wouldn't mind seeing the beginning one of these days. Today I've mostly been lazing around, spending a lot of time just lying in bed. I spent about an hour doing some basic maintenance tasks on my saw as well. I finished reading "The Waiting Land: A Spell in Nepal" by Dervla Murphy, which is one of the best travelogues I've read (Jenny, thanks for reminding me to seek out her books, too bad the PG library didn't have "Full Tilt" in).

At 8pm there was a meeting. The rumour was that they were going to anounce we have to work fire hours because of how dry it's been. Fire hours go into effect when the fire hazard goes to extreme, and mean that we can only work until 1pm, and we start at 4am. If the hazard stays extreme for two days, we would shut down entirely. In fact, we don't have to work fire hours yet, but if it stays dry for two more days we will. We probably should be in fire hours, but none of the weather stations in the area have been working, so there is no fire hazard. We have all been moved to level 1 on the pay scale, which means a whopping $90 a day, and most of us will be moving up tomorrow or the day after, though they weren't very specific. Other than that, the usual "motivational" speach: work 110%, this week will be harder than the last, don't take breaks during work, etc. Those speaches have the opposite of the desired affect on me, and also make me mad.

The word of the shift is "Tabernacle". The French equivalent is the word I hear the most while I'm out there.

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Posted on Sat, 7 Jun 2020 at Ospika Camp, BC, CA (altitude 716m) (map/google earth)

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