BC Wildfire Photos, Fall 2017

When I was doing some reforestation viewing work in October and November of 2017, I ended up driving around many regions throughout central BC.  I was stunned by how extensive the wildfire damage was.

Obviously, the wildfires had been in the news for months, as it was BC's busiest fire season in history.  Several records were set, including records for the total amount of area burned in the province in a single year (1.2 million hectares), the number of people evacuated (over 65,000), and for hosting the largest single wildfire in BC's history (the Plateau fire, at 545,000 hectares, which is the size of Prince Edward Island).  More statistics can be found at these links:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017_British_Columbia_wildfires

https://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/safety/wildfire-status/wildfire-statistics/wildfire-season-summary

Despite the news coverage, and despite knowing the scope of the damage, it was still very surreal to drive through those areas.  There were a few areas where I drove for over two hours through completely burned out devastation.

A very small portion of this area will be replanted by hand in 2018, but most of the burned area will have to rely on natural regeneration, and it will be decades before natural forests regenerate.  The amount of burned area is far beyond the scope of BC's reforestation industry to address, and even if enough tree planters and funding could be found to tackle the problem over the next 5-10 years, all the western Canadian forestry nurseries combined don't have nearly enough capacity to produce the required amount of seedlings.

On a positive note, a lot of the area that was burned had pine trees, and lodgepole pine comes back very quickly and densely after a fire.  This is because the cones usually survive fires, and the heat opens them so the seeds can escape and start a new forest.  However, that only applies in areas where mature stands burned.  Any areas that were logged in the past thirty to forty years wouldn't have the necessary mature trees with cones to initiate this process.

All of the photos here are from the Cariboo region, and specifically, from four different fires:  The Hanceville complex, the Plateau complex, the Central Cariboo complex, and the Gustafsen fire.  These areas were located to the west of 100 Mile House, Williams Lake, and Quesnel.

A lot of tree planters in central BC are going to be working in these areas in 2018.  For more information about tree planting in BC, visit www.Replant.ca

All photos on this page may be shared publicly or commercially without compensation, as long as you leave the attribution to Replant.ca either in the photo or as a text attribution.

Tree Planting Books: Eating Dirt

About five years ago, a book came out that focused on life in the coastal tree-planting community.  The book was called "Eating Dirt," and was written by Charlotte Gill.  I eagerly read it as soon as I got my hands on it, and wasn't disappointed.  Charlotte was a tree planter, but the book didn't focus entirely on planting. There was also a lot of background about the logging industry in general, and some background on tree physiology and historical biology, with both local and global perspectives.

At the time, I wrote a very short review and made some notes.  I've been tempted to read the book a second time since then, but I'm also working on writing a couple books of my own.  I really don't want anything in her book to influence what I'm writing, which is why I've reluctantly refrained from a second reading.  However, I took my original notes and I'm posting them here today because I want to remind planters about this book.  At some point over the next several weeks, I'll share some notes about three or four other books that should also be of interest to planters.

Charlotte Gill, the author, was a planter for over twenty years.   She started in Ontario, but moved out west.  When she was still working in western Canada (up until just a few years ago), she worked eight or nine months each year, predominantly planting coastal projects (the professional part of the industry), plus a bit of southern Interior work in the early summer months.  Many of the people that she mentioned in the book are people I know.  When I'm planting on the coast, I usually work in the same area where she did a lot of her work (the north Island), and I've worked for the same company that she often worked for.




Here's an excerpt from a review by Quill & Quire:

"A thoroughly Canadian story, Eating Dirt is not out of place alongside other classic memoirs of the bush by Susanna Moodie or Farley Mowat."

Eating Dirt was the winner of the BC National Award for Non-Fiction, and was also short-listed for both the Charles Taylor Prize for Literary Non-Fiction and the Hilary Weston Writers' Trust

There were a few things in the book that really caught my attention. For instance, she was talking about the amount of ground that a million trees covers. When this is quantified in acres or hectares, it somehow seems less impressive than her way of illustrating: one million trees covers five hundred city blocks in Manhattan. My own camp usually plants close to six million trees a year. I didn't really think about how much ground we cover until I thought of it as almost three thousand city blocks.

Another interesting fact is that when you're in a full forest canopy and you look up, it probably looks like the branches of adjoining trees are all intertwined above you. But they aren't. The trees are able to somehow sense their neighbours and the branch tips almost always stays a few centimetres away from each other. Of course there are occasional exceptions, but natural avoidance is generally the case. Charlotte mentions a lot of facts about trees and nature that seasoned planters take for granted, but which would probably surprise readers who aren't planters.

Charlotte also talks about the number of calories a planter consumes in a day: around five thousand. If anything, I think this is an under-estimate. It's hard to count calories accurately in a bush camp, because most planters just load up without measuring portions, and shovel the food in as quickly as possible. But I've always been curious about caloric intake, I've always tracked my own personal food costs while planting on the coast, and I've sometimes made attempts to measure my calories. A normal person might be shocked. Here's a fairly normal example of what I might eat in a day on the coast:

Breakfast: 970 calories

3 yogurt cups = 240 calories
3 cinnamon buns with butter = estimated 375 calories
Bowl of strawberries = 45 calories
Four hard-boiled eggs = 310 calories

During Day, While Planting: 3,835 calories

4 pepperoni sticks = 320 calories
8 granola bars = 1280 calories
About 1/3rd block (150g) of marbled cheddar = 600 calories
A cup of chocolate chips = 805 calories
Anywhere from 8-12 bottles (500ml) of water = 0 calories
Three bottles of Gatorade (591ml) = 390 calories
One half of a large bottle of Clamato juice = 440 calories


Dinner: 3,415 calories (which I eat over a period of a couple hours)

Two cups of rice (bazmotti/risotto/brown/long grain) = 400 calories
1/2 bag of cheese perogies = 840 calories
A third of a bunch of asparagus = 30 calories
1 large chicken breast = 165 calories
Half of a bunch of broccoli = 105 calories
Half cup of butter (1/4 pound) on these previous items = 810 calories
Half cup of cheddar cheese on these previous items = 265 calories
1 litre of almond milk = 360 calories
Large bowl of ice cream = 440 calories
A couple gatorade containers of water that I take to bed = 0 calories

Total for the day: 8,220 calories
(and about a dozen litres of fluids)

A lot of planters who work hard for 8-10 hours per day can eat this much food, day after day, and still lose a significant amount of weight as the season progresses. Back when I planted full-time in the Interior, before I was a supervisor, I typically lost about 25 pounds in the first 6-7 weeks. By the way, I vary my diet a bit from day to day when I'm coastal planting - I really enjoy meat, so some days are a lot more protein heavy (fish, chicken, or red meat), and pastas or quinoa are often a staple on the coast too.  It all depends on my mood.  I've been having a lot more smoothies full of fruits and juicing greens lately too.

Tree planting is a job that most people would hate. For actual tree planters, it's more of a love/hate relationship. For people who've never done it, this book is a great insight into one of the strangest industries in Canada. Check it out if you can. Here's a link to order a copy from Amazon:
http://www.amazon.ca/Eating-Dirt-Charlotte-Gill/dp/1553659775


And while you're waiting for your copy of the book to arrive in the mail, here's a link to a lot of tree planting photo galleries that I've taken over the past ten years. Each of the photos on this page is actually a link: click on it, and you'll be taken to a page with dozens of other photos. In all, there are several thousand photos that I've put online:

www.replant.ca/photos

 If you'd like to learn more about the Canadian Tree Planting industry, visit:

www.Replant.ca

 

Trip To Antarctica

Earlier this week I spent a few days getting photos online from a recent trip to Antarctica. I also did a bit of DJ’ing while I was down there, and have recordings of three live shows online. I’m finally getting around to my last project associated with the trip, ie. a description of what we actually did. However, before I do that, if people are curious about seeing the photos that I took, the gallery is at this link:

http://www.djbolivia.ca/photos_antarctica2010a.html

I’ve got a few of those photos here in this blog post too, but in much smaller size & resolution. Really, you need to go to that photo page to do them justice.

Anyway, our trip lasted from November 20th to 30th, aboard a Russian scientific expedition ship called the Akademik Ioffe. The trip was organized by a friend of mine, through Quark Expeditions. There were a total of 107 passengers on the ship, although a smaller group of 17 of us were friends who were travelling together.



November 20th – Day 1

We arrived on the ship at about 4pm, turned in our passports (which the ship’s crew had to hold onto during the voyage), and got settled into our cabins. I was in a triple, and the quarters were obviously tight, but still quite clean and comfortable. We had a quick introductory meeting in the dining room at 5pm, and our expedition leader suggested that we go explore the ship and hang out on the top deck for our departure at 6pm.

We had dinner at 8pm, and a lifeboat drill afterward. Then, after watching our progress from up top for a bit, I headed to bed. I already had a scopolamine patch on to prevent nausea, and I took a gravol too, just to be safe. I expected a pretty rough trip, since there was a Beaufort force 11 storm ahead of us. That basically means waves of up to fifty feet, just slightly under hurricane force winds. However, the seas weren't expected to be bad over night, since we were protected by land for a while yet.



November 21st – Day 2

The anti-nausea drugs really put me out. Not only had I slept through the first night with no problems, I also slept through most of our first day at sea, although I had really intended to do that so I could be caught up on my rest for the adventures ahead. The ship’s crew ran lectures and demonstrations all day, with sessions talking about whales, seabirds, and several other topics. I skipped most of them, in favor of resting.

The Captain made a decision to hide behind Cape Horn before venturing out into the Drake Passage, since the weather was so bad. We actually spent most of the day fairly stationary, without making any real progress. I think a lot of people were disappointed by this delay to our adventure, knowing that it would cut down on our time in Antarctica, but I knew that the crew knew what was best. I was nervous about getting sea-sick, so I didn’t mind avoiding the storm system. I’ve only ever gotten sea-sick once in my life, during a storm on a ferry to Newfoundland, but that was definitely one of the worst feelings of my life. I figured that lots of water, only moderate amounts of food, no alcohol, scopolamine patches, gravol, and lots of rest should keep me in good shape. So far, so good. A lot of people were having trouble at supper though. By that time, we were well underway into open seas, and the ship was dancing around quite a bit. Certainly not as bad as I had expected – average big waves of probably only around ten feet. But of the seven people at my table at dinner, five bailed before eating their main course.



November 22nd – Day 3

Gravol tends to make me pretty thirsty. I had a sink in my cabin, right beside my bed, and I am pretty sure that I drank a couple dozen glasses of water. But I didn’t ever feel sick. From the sound of things though, a lot of other people were. It seemed that everyone wearing scopolamine patches were mostly OK. The crew put on more presentations throughout the day.

Our private group was given access to the Lecture Lounge for the evening, to use as late as we wanted. We moved all the chairs aside and set things up for a night of entertainment. The group stated off by doing a “Century Club” of sorts, which they called “Power Hour.” A real Century Club is one ounce of beer per minute for one hundred minutes. This group changed the rules a bit and went with an ounce and a half per minute for one hour. So in the end, they were ten ounces short of a real century. Needless to say, I had nothing to do with these shenanigans, wanting to keep my supper down. Somehow though, everyone in the group made it through without any nausea problems.

Once the drinking games were out of the way, I set up a system and played a couple hours of Drum & Bass music for the crowd. Shipboard Rave number one. We also had a couple projectors, so we could project random video graphics on the walls, and they had a Wii set up in one corner. I recorded my set, and it can be downloaded from my website. This was a bit of a historical moment in my DJ career. Normally, I’ve always mixed on turntables or CD players, but it was obviously impossible to bring a full set of that equipment with me, halfway around the world. Instead, I used Ableton to play my set, and tapped into the ships entertainment system for a speaker system. This was not the first time that I used Ableton for a live gig – I did that once before at Defcon in las Vegas in 2008. However, this was the first time that I actually recorded the set. I think it turned out pretty good. Here’s a link to that:

http://djbolivia.blogspot.com/2010/12/mix-bolivia-live-in-drake-passage.html



November 23rd – Day 4

This was supposed to be our first day in Antarctica, but because of the storm delay the first day, this was our last day of travel through the Drake. People were starting to get used to the ship’s motion already, and I don’t think many people were sick. The ship’s doctor was also handing out extra anti-nauseants like candy.

I spent a lot of time on the deck of the boat during the day, watching several different types of albatross species, some other sea-birds, a whale, and our first signs of ice.



November 24th – Day 5

We were in Antarctica when we got up. And I might add, we got up early. There was a 5am wake-up call, because the expedition staff wanted to fit as much activity in as possible, to help make up for our lost day. We got into the Zodiacs (motorboats) and went for a cruise at 5:30am at Orne Harbour. We came back to the ship for breakfast, then went for another cruise at Cuverville Island. Some people went climbing, some people went kayaking, and in the afternoon we did a full beach landing at Neko Harbour. Penguins everywhere! We ended the day with a very tasty BBQ up on the deck of the ship.



November 25th – Day 6

The weather was pretty bad in the morning, so we didn’t get to go out in the Zodiacs. However, we went for a drive in the afternoon at Almirante Brown and saw a couple of bases. However, the ice was too bad to get the Zodiacs to show. We did see seals and a whale up close, and of course lots more penguins and blue ice. It was American Thanksgiving, so we had a turkey dinner on the ship. After supper, about thirty of us went camping and all of the non-campers also did a short landing at the camp site in Paradise (Danco Island). That was pretty cool, and possibly the highlight of my trip. I got to play a short DJ set while camping. That’s an interesting story in and of itself, which you can read here:

http://djbolivia.blogspot.com/2010/12/mix-bolivia-live-in-antarctica.html



November 26th – Day 7

We got up early and went back to the ship, and had a solid breakfast. I had a quick nap after breakfast, and then we went for beach landings at Jougla Point and Goudier Island. This is where we saw Lockroy Station, a British outpost. The outpost is manned for six months a year by four Commonwealth staff. Imagine spending six months living and working in a remote outpost at the bottom of the world, surrounded by penguins, with no cell phones or internet, and almost no electricity! I’d have internet withdrawal for a while, but it still sounds like heaven to me. I picked up a job application, just in case. I saw a couple seals and lots of penguins, and a few whale bones. I also bought lots of postcards at the station gift shop. After lunch, there was a quick zodiac cruise at Damoy Point, plus the kayakers and skiers went for special events. After dinner, we did a special “Titanic Night” and I DJ’ed in the ship’s lounge for quite a while, a bit of jazz and then a full DJ set. Here’s a link to that:

http://djbolivia.blogspot.com/2010/12/mix-bolivia-live-on-akademik-ioffe.html



November 27th – Day 8

We spent the day today in the South Shetlands, which were a bit less snowy and ice-covered than the places we visited the previous three days. We did a beach landing in the morning at Whaler’s Bay (Deception Island), and another in the afternoon at Half Moon Island. Whaler’s Bay gave everyone a chance to do a polar plunge. After supper, we knew that we had to start heading north for Ushuaia, and this would be our last view of Antarctica. I spent several hours on deck, watching the scenery, before we finally headed out to the Drake Passage.



The Rest of the Trip

On the 28th and 29th, we passed through the Drake Passage once again. We had waves of about twenty feet one night, but everyone was a lot more comfortable going through it this time. I skipped the gravol, and just used a scopolamine patch, and felt fine. We got back to Ushuaia on the morning of the 30th without any incidents, and everyone headed off for more travelling, or to return to their homes.



If you want to download a PDF summarizing the wildlife that we saw on this trip (probably of interest to the biologist types out there), click here.

One recommendation if you ever take this trip. We drank our ship completely out of mix by the last night of the trip (mind you, I think that can partly be blamed on our small group). If you're going on this trip, and take a bottle or two of alcohol with you for your cabin, make sure you don't forget to take mix too!

Before I go, here's a late addition (June 25th, 2011): some video footage from the trip, set to a dubstep remix of Avicii's "Penguin"




All in all, it was a pretty amazing trip. You’d think that it would be easy to get sick of snow and penguins, but I’m definitely hoping to head back in November of 2012. In fact, I’m going to organize a group tour that would be open to any of my friends and associates from Mount Allison University, and also for music industry friends. Let me know if you’re interested! And again, if you haven’t already checked out the photo galleries that I have online, go up and check out that link at the top of this page. The smaller photos that I included in this blog posting really don't do the trip justice!

Armin van Buuren Photos

This past Sunday night, I got a chance to see Armin van Buuren in Halifax, Nova Scotia, courtesy of Underdog Productions. I wasn’t actually playing on the bill that night, I just went to relax and take some photos. It was my first night using a new camera (a basic Canon XSi digital SLR), but I managed to get a few decent shots. Here's the link:

http://www.djbolivia.ca/photos_armin2009a.html

I owe a big thanks to Armin for being so accommodating with the photography.



Armin has been ranked by DJ Mag as the #1 DJ in the world for the past couple of years. To lend credence to this assessment, consider this: his signature A State Of Trance radio show is listened to by thirty million fans - every single week. Wow. I’ve had my website online for about seven years and I’ve only had around fifteen thousand mixes directly distributed during that time (although I’m sure with pass-alongs, the number is probably a lot higher).

Armin is Dutch. He’s got a law degree, but wanted to give up that career to pursue his love of music. He’s a producer, who has a number of huge hits, both as singles and from the several albums that he has self-produced. He doesn’t use an engineer – he does all of his own production work. He loves his fans, and is always happy to sign autographs and shake hands at the end of his shows.

Some of Armin's well-known hits include Love You More, Blue Fear, Exhale, This World Is Watching Me, Communication, In And Out Of Love, Burned With Desire, Serenity, and Yet Another Day (and a few of the older tracks in this list have only been officially released on YouTube very recently, so they haven't had a lot of views yet). But that's only a very short list of tracks that I could quickly find videos for. For a full look at his portfolio, check out Discogs. The list of work that he has produced is simply staggering.

Check out his website at www.arminvanbuuren.com