Mark's Day in the Mud at Whitecourt

My vocational day in Whitecourt was once again an absolute "cracker' and was very well organised and relevant thanks to the Whitecourt club. I met a Silviculture Forester (David Hughes) at The Alberta Newsprint Company (ANC) and we quickly made excuses to jump in the truck and go for a drive. Our first stop was to an active harvesting site where I got to learn about how ANC runs it's harvesting operations especially in terms of sequencing of events.

Harvested block -logs have been snug to proposed cut road locations where they will be processed and loaded onto trucks

Lodgepole, Aspen and Poplar Forest in its virgin state

We discussed block layout, snigging patterns and road construction. We also kicked a bit of dirt about and discussed appropriate site preparation techniques ahead of replanting. ANC replants nearly all of its harvested land and spends considerable time and effort in preparing the site to ensure proper establishment of appropriate species. Next stop was to an active site preparation operation on a site harvested previously. I got to see a skidder in action which was line cultivating ahead of planting. I had never seen a skidder fitted with any sort of cultivation equipment before so this was interesting. Here we had a chat about soil conservation techniques and planting techniques and also found some good quality mud! After another lengthy drive through the bush talking about forestry and occasionally fishing we arrived at a pine improvement orchard which came very close to being burnt out in recent fires. Shame those bloody mozzies didn't get burnt out as they were fierce here. We also found a good quality patch of greazy mud and I was surprised at how poorly these oversized 4x4 utes handle the mud!. I had a great day and we drove all day and saw nothing but forests which was kinda nice

Slow Growers. 30 something year old planted Lodge Pole Pine