What Happened to Treeplanting

It occurs to me that I should perhaps say a little of why I am back in London in late May, rather than August, and what happened to tree planting in North Ontario for the summer, and even why I have been spending my days at the college, for people who might read this blog who don't hear from me in other ways, and would otherwise not know.

To put it shortly, I did go to work for Treeline. I lived and worked just under three weeks in the bush camp and nearby blocks, learning how to plant trees, and doing it. After those three weeks, I still wasn't making more than $28 on most days, and I had to pay camp costs of $25 per day. I was making enough for that, reliably, but not enough to make a significant actual profit.

And I might have stayed anyway, and not minded, because $3 per day is still profit, and I was paying my "rent" and food, and the work was definitely doing some good for my fitness, and the community and the experience were challenging in a way that I knew was doing me good in other ways.

Then someone told me that soon, the camp leader would be asking the foremen to talk to their planters who were still only making $28 on some days and try to push them up to making more quickly, within the coming week or so, or encourage them to leave. It seems there would be some questionable legality to hiring someone who is only making $3 a day to take home. It might have caused trouble with slave labour laws. That made me feel unwelcome. I also didn't think I'd be able to bump my production up enough within a week, but the main thing was that it made me feel unwelcome, like the friendly acceptance I'd been greeted with and shown without fail was conditional, and that made every hardship seem suddenly much, much less worth enduring gracefully. Suddenly, the wonderful thing that gave me the strength to be okay with so many bad things was broken and crippled.

For the next day and a half of work, the only pleasant thought I could hold in my mind was quitting. So I quit. Then I came home.

The coffee shop whose wifi I am using will close soon, so I might write the rest of this tomorrow.