Last blog post here in White Court

Oh wow this summer has gone by so fast and I have been busy packing up and getting everything ready for the trip home and getting my files organized at work. It’s hard to put all my experiences this summer into words from fun hikes through the woods to brain testing moments at work. So instead of a final blog postings here about all my experiences thus far I’m going to write about why you should join this growing industry or just try to get out there and make a best of yourself!

So like most people I was very hesitant about traveling across to a place I didn’t really know much of or how you would fit in with the community. But with a little bit of courage and realizing how good of an opportunity this is I decided to go for it. But most people just don’t want to leave their comfort zone and would have never have left out on this journey for this I say you never know your true potential until you really have experienced everything and with the skills I have learned or improved being out here I know they will help me greatly for whatever the next obstacle I have to climb.

            When people sometimes hear I’m in forestry they sometimes ask “oh you’re the guy killing our forest” and this is a huge misunderstanding forestry currently has never been  so innovated and just cutting tree down is a very small percent of what the field actually is. Take Ontario for an example the law is on crown land any tree in the forest must be inspected and marked before anything is removed or altered on crown land and under the code of arms for tree markers it states you always mark the land so it improves because of your actions. So instead of the common misunderstood term “forester” being a bad guy ruining the forest and land for future generations is instead actually somebody trying to make the forest better than what it was before. This just doesn’t go for making sure you have big trees in the future this means the improving the state for wildlife, insects, even mosses and herbs to survive and flourish in there ecosystem.

            There are many different jobs and fields as a forester such as you can design road layouts, track hauls, scale lumber  mark trees, analyze maps, follow tracking patterns for various different species of wildlife, plant trees or harvest them, silviculture and working in a greenhouse growing trees or shrubs the list is almost endless. And every one of these fields is growing and a great time to get into. So if you’re reading my blog thinking about getting into this field or different ways you can improve your skills just remember that forestry is a growing innovated field and this is the perfect time to start!

            As for my last few weeks here they have been busy trying to get things packed and planned but even here at Millar Western I have been on my feet trying to accomplish as many roads/culvert inspections as I can before I leave. I have another Intern Connor Vale helped me try to get as much as I   possibly can done and during our adventure I found a massive moose antler this will be a great souvenir for when I go back home and this shows all the cool things you can find out in forest if you just keep your eyes open for it!

            There so many things I wanted to do this summer before I knew it I booked myself every weekend with different activities but if I had more time here I still wouldn’t of done everything I wanted to do here in White Court and the surrounding areas. I even found a website about different things to do in White Court! The link for the website will be at the end of the blog. White Court is strong community that really looks out for each other and under stands that people need a break from there busy work hours and just need to get away so the community holds lots of activities throughout the summer like party in the park and pool leagues.

            I will keep blogging after this post about my trip back home and different forestry practices and how they differ from each other across Canada so keep an eye out for my next posting when I get home on the 27^th and I can’t say enough of how much I appreciate   this an opportunity with Millar Western and being on The Greenest Workforce for their first year hopefully I have inspired others to try out for this amazing opportunity or at least look into forestry or the forest with a different understanding. Thank you again next time you hear from me I will be back in Ontario

 

http://kylewaterman.blogspot.ca/

http://www.rubored.ca/tabid/442/Default.aspx

slideshow!

              This summer is flying by and is almost to an end. I have been to the Edmonton mall a few times now, a rodeo, jasper national park and even to the falls here in White Court!  And since so much has gone on recently I decided to put some of my extra and old photos in a slideshow posted online. I will have the link to the slideshow in the bottom of this blog post.  In this slide show I have pictures of the Edmonton mall and the huge pirate ship inside of the mall. I have some more photos of the rodeo I went to a few weeks ago. There are some old and new photos of me inspecting culverts and even one with me at a new culvert made this year that I got the chance to see get put in from scratch. There is a funny picture in the slide show of a white board with different stick people with names doing different things these stick people are some of the people I work with and the white board has been growing through the summer so far with all the different people I get the pleasure to work with, see if you can find me in the picture. There are some new photos of when I went to Hard Luck Falls this past weekend, it’s a relaxing hike up to the top of the canyon where you get an amazing view and even can go down some stairs to the bottom of the falls. I have some good photos of logs piles and different things I find out in my adventures like the tipi in the slideshow it’s located down one of our roads and made me turn my head twice when driving down the road because I wasn’t expecting anything like that. A few photos I really enjoyed taking are some the different equipment used for logging in our current time, the different equipment is a grapple skidder used for picking up the logs after they have been dropped and delimed.  The other equipment is a delimer and a feller buncher both of these machines is used hand and hand to get the trees ready for the skidder. The feller buncher drops the trees down on the ground by a giant circler saw and grabs the trees with giant claws so when the trees is cut from its base so it can move the tree around and place the tree where is needed to be in a nice neat pile. The delimer does just what it sounds like it picks up the trees and runs it through its giant drums and tears off the branches and even cuts them up to the right length. Some of the other photos I have are of some the maps I make up and cool things I see throughout my day.  Hopefully you enjoy the slideshow I still have some extra photos that haven’t been posted yet if I get enough likes with this video I know I should make another slideshow at the end of the summer. But till next time keeping having a good summer!

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xnjcIe7syr4

Weekend at the rodeo!

            So these past two weekends have been full of excitement. I started my first weekend by going to a rodeo I talked about in my earlier blog. I have never been to a rodeo before and I was looking forward all week to go to one. They had many different competitions ranging from all ages but my two favorite competitions they held were the bull take-down and they held a bucking competition for ages 7-10 with sheep which I thought was adorable to watch.  Each cowboy who tried to overcome each challenge gave it their all and each of their times were very close to each other making competition fierce between them. The rodeo was a great experience and even if you needed something else to do just in case you dint like the competition being held at the moment they had different carnival rides also going on.

            To end the week I went out for a nice late night swim down at the rotary park here in town but the swim made me wide awake and I didn’t want to just go home and doze off so I went out for a pool game with some of my friends I made here in town. I was surprised the town was still so alive in the late hours.

            The next weekend I planned to just relaxed and go for a swim but friend from college back in Ontario moved down to Grand Prairie and came down to white court for the weekend to visit me. After talking and going around town with her it made me really start to miss home again and made me think that this summer is already almost over and it makes me torn whether or not I can’t wait to go back home but I’m enjoying all my experience this summer so far and can’t wait for the next thing to happen to tell my readers about it. So With my last blog posts through august I will try to add as much photos and other content to my blog as I can for you my readers

goose, newspapers and events ohh my!

So much has gone on these past few weeks I have been in two different newspapers regarding my internship and even had a reporter come out to talk to me! During the interview they asked me about what I thought about the way I got this internship because it was a very unique way to apply and different questions that are along that line and the other newspaper I am in is congratulating me on my internship from Millar Western. The links to the different newspapers are in the bottom (July 12^th the other link will be posted). I’m also posting some pictures of some log piles that I marked to be harvested along the road I did my disposition on I was talking about in my other blog. The log piles you see are at every kilometer down the road for at least 23 kilometers in total. Each log pile is a different size and in total is a lot of cubic wood. This weekend a Rodeo is happening in Whitecourt and I can’t wait to go! I have never been to a rodeo and I will be taking many photos to show my readers here on the blog so hopefully you’re looking forward to seeing them. I even had some close encounters with some of the wild life here in Alberta some of them a little too close for comfort. Earlier in the week I seen my first moose and it was just slowly walking across the road I never knew moose could be so big, too bad I dint have my camera on me to show you my readers a picture and my other close encounter was with a family of goose going across the road they were at least 10 metre’s away and I got out of my truck to get a close up with my camera and when I got out of my truck the mother goose brought her head like a snake and started hissing and slowly coming at me. I ran back into my truck and started laughing at what just happened and missed my chance at a good photo of the family. The only good photo of the wild life I have seen so far is of a hawk on some power lines on the edge of the forest and I will post the photos in this post also. But this week has been full of adventures and puzzles working and trying to find the different culverts and what should be done to them in the future I even had the opportunity to ATVing out to a few culverts. But I will have my next post up soon with some pictures of the activities that are going on this weekend till next time!

http://eedition.whitecourtstar.com/doc/Whitecourt-Star/wcpr_071013/2013070801/3.html#2

Culvert inspections and overview

For this blog I have created a quick video on what a culvert inspection is and a few things we look for when we go out to do one of these inspections just click the first link below.  I will be doing lots of these inspections through the summer because I’m currently in charge of completing all the inspections for all the roads under Millar Westerns FMP. Also I’m glad to see all the feedback I’m getting back from the survey I put out in my last blog and realized that you my readers are enjoying reading about the white court community and I will put this in consideration when  making my next upcoming blogs. So far this past week I have been doing culvert inspections at work but on the long weekend I went out to the rotary park here in white court to go see some local fun and go swimming to break the heat. This was a great way to break up the week and makes me look forward to the next upcoming event that will be held at the rotary park. If I get some positive feedback from this video I included here I am thinking about making a few more of my blog post different events of my day. I also want to add that the link below is of a manual for going out to do culvert inspections and you can watch the video and go through the form to see some of the main points I address on the video. Thanks for taking some time out of your busy life to read these blogs and take my survey last week till next time viewers!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ftefpVwkvhE&feature=youtu.be

http://srd.alberta.ca/LandsForests/LandManagement/documents/RoadwayWatercourseCrossingInspManual-Sep20-2012.pdf

Daily adventures

So much has gone on recently! I have been given big projects to make center lines on old and new roads; a center line tells you where the center of a road is so when making a road and is used as a blueprint where future roads or changes can be made. After I received this project I quickly came to the realization that the road I was making the center line for was inaccessible for any type of vehicle and I spent two days getting stuck and covered with mud and soaked past my shoulders, I can’t complain though I did have a lot of fun going through the mud and water. My current project now going through all the roads doing culvert inspections, the maps I was working on earlier last month were preparation for this massive project. In a culvert inspection you look for under sized culverts and if there is erosion on the site you need to make lots of notes and come back later to put up silt fences to slow down the erosion from getting to the water and try to help out and vegetation that could hold together the landscape.  Also during this inspection you are making sure that there are no problems that could affect fish that could be going through the water course. I’m really enjoying this project so far and it’s something I’m almost taking full responsibilities for. So with this blog post I included a link to a survey about my blog and if you can take a few minutes out of your day to go through the survey it will be appreciate. I’m hoping after a people complete my survey I will get a better understanding what people want to hear about and see in my blogs. Also during this week I will start to attach photos I have been caching to different post like some of the culverts I have been working on and different adventures I have been up to on my days off!

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/QZ6V8Z9

this is some sediment fences and coco mats I installed and planed out  

Working with Millar Western so far…

So I have been in Alberta for one and a half months now and have met some really good people and seen some pretty amazing sights but I think it’s time to reflect on all of my experiences so far. When I first started working for Millar Western I was very nervous that I wasn’t skilled for some tasks I might have at hand because I have traveled from such a far place from where I learned them. But Millar Western made me feel very comfortable when I started and gave me time to allow my brain to process all the changes and procedures I would be working with. I have been given tasks that make me feel like I’m accomplishing something important and try to challenge you along the way which I really enjoy. The mountains and almost everything I see up here either walking through the forest or driving through some of roads still take my breath away from how gorgeous the landscape and wildlife is. But even though I’m still warming up to Alberta I do miss Ontario and all the great things we have there but there is still so much to see here like that Badlands or the Banff park. I’m looking forward to what the next couple of months have ahead of me and what more experience I will gain working with Miller Western.

Working with contractors

These past few weeks I have been given the responsibilities to flag out the disposition along one the main roads Miller Western has in its FMA. This is a project that has taken lots of time and accuracy to make sure I keep between each of the boundaries of the disposition.  The first week of layout I was running the ARCPAD  and walking down the center of the disposition and another FPAC winner of the contest that got me working here and gaining good experience like this, was going to the edge of the disposition and marking it out with flagging tape. After a few days of just marking way points and just running the ARCPAD Millar Western brought in a contractor to help with this project. I showed him how to work the ARCPAD and got geared up to do some running through the bush and mark some trees! Aside from just going down the disposition of the road we also marked out cutblocks to be harvested and allow space for all the lumber to go that is being taken away from either side of the disposition. This was a fun task that allowed me to bring out my compass again to retain a straight line though the bush. We also had a string box to measure out how far we walk so we can always have perfectly square cutblocks. I am currently at the 21KM mark on the road and need to reach the 23KM on both sides and need to place 2 or 3 more cutblocks between the KM.

Outside and having fun!

Now that I have had a feel with how things are being done around here I have had the cool experience of using Arcpad. It is what it kind of sounds like its Arcmap but on a tablet and can be used in the field. After playing around with using the Arcpad I was sent to walk around the forest and mark/measure out where the cut block boundaries are going to be for the Grouse Road area.

As we were driving around the last two days I got to see a cinnamon bear! It’s a cute bear that doesn’t grow very big. I’m seeing some pretty amazing sights just being out here in Alberta but the change of altitude still makes my ears pop.

Weekend of being sick and a weekend of fun!

             These past two weekends were almost polar opposite of each other the first I spent the weekend sick and tried staying in bed to make sure I’m ok for when I go back to work. This weekend was the long weekend and wanted to go see a mountain because I never seen a mountain before. So I headed up to Jasper Park and went to the Athabasca’s Fall’s which was breath taking and a long fun road trip. I even got a little lost and nice police officer gave me some directions to help me get back home. I wonder where I will go next weekend!?

 

 

 

 

 

Paper work and culverts!

I spent the last few weeks in the office making up maps and going over what should be done first and where to go to get it done, but it’s been so nice outside so I got some tasks that would let me get some fresh air and see how the different inspections are done. The first task I received was to go out and remove one culvert and install four others. This task took about four days and was a lot of fun seeing the forest and getting down in dirty putting in the culverts. The other task I did was to drop off culverts to other roads and this was a little bit of a nervous task because I didn’t know the area that well and I had a trailer full of culverts for where I was going but I ended up getting to where I was going in time and everybody was proud of the work I completed in these two weeks and now hopefully will give me the opportunity to work on task like these again.

 

Pictures of the trip here

 

            So the start of my pictures here is a cake my loving sister made for me from scratch she is currently taking culinary here in Ontario and I thought the cake was amazing but she didn’t like how it came out very much. Next photos are of me gearing up to cut the cake with the right safety gear and hatchet to go with the theme. The last few photos are of me in font of each border I went through to get here one of these photos has my mother on the left side.

 

 

 

First Weekend!!

            For my first weekend I wanted to go back to the West Edmonton Mall and explore it again.  After a long drive there I spent the day looking around and spotting out all the things I want to pick up for my friends and family back in Ontario. The day was a high of 30 degrees and I wasn’t feeling the best so I decide to leave around 4ish. I realized very soon that getting to the mall wasn’t that bad but going back home was the hard part. After two hours of being lost I finally found my way out! I ended up everywhere but where I wanted to be like at another huge mall and the zoo even. I took Sunday off for myself and just relaxed at the house. Time to get ready for another full week! Until Next Time

 

 

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First week and orientations

After I spent the weekend relaxing getting use to the time zone and exploring area I had my first day on the job Monday. I was nervous if my skills could give something back to the company or if I what I learned in Ontario could help me at all in Alberta. But once I arrived at the training center a sat down in a circle with many different summer students all like me nervous and ready to show case there skills. After we went through all of our paperwork I found myself more at ease and ready for the rest of the day. Through the day I met many people all with smiles and excited to meet the new intern. I spent the rest of the day after meeting everybody going over there rule books and codes.

            I awoke the next day all excited and ready for whatever the day could bring me and headed into work. I spent the day going through the mill and taking a tour throughout the camps in the surrounding area and tried to on my ride quiz myself on all the different codes and regulations. My roommate just arrived the night before from Vancouver and once work was done I took him around to explore the area.

            I spent the next two days working on Arcmap and feeling like I was actually doing something really important for Millar Western and really enjoyed myself. I started to make friends in the office and make good impressions on the people around me. I even got invited to go out on road trip to go tear down a beaver dam! This was the first beaver dam I have ever seen and really had fun taken it down and seeing the roads the beaver flooded out come back to normal.

            The last day in the week I spent going over off-road training and ATV training because of the lack of lime stone and rock driving in the woods or through dirt is a very different from Southern Ontario plus this got me out of the office working on maps and really got to enjoy the forest and its surroundings.

           

Quest to Alberta

Entry #1

On my blog I have a video of me trying out for the Greenest Work Force internship for Millar Western. Because I’m currently writing in this blog it means I won! So I started my trip from southern Ontario all the way to Whitecourt Alberta. The trip took me three days in total and was very exhausting I left on a Tuesday morning and arrived Friday night, I will post some pictures of my travels on a later date. I arrived in Whitecourt late Friday night and Millar Western heard I was staying in my truck as I traveled to the west and didn’t want me to unpack everything late at night once I entered Whitecourt so they paid for a nice hotel for me to stay in overnight and paid for a nice warm breakfast in the morning. It was a good break from sleeping In the backseat of the truck. To help me with my travels my folks came up with me and towed the car behind them this made driving a lot more easily and safe. Once the sun came up we awaked after I nice sleep in a warm cozy bed and headed off to Millar Westerns head office to meet with the staff and acquire my keys to my apartment.  I was welcomed with smiles and even my parents were brought in to talk with the staff and had the opportunity to ask some questions. After I got the keys to my apartment I unpacked my things I headed out to explore the area and get use to the town for the weekend.

Background Information

I was born and raised in southern Ontario and lived most of my life in the city Peterborough. I lived there till I hit high school then moved to a small town of Havelock where I learned most of my forestry practise through a very cool program that over 3 years that taught me how to fell trees, run sawmills and work in different industries in the forestry world. After high school I worked on fire suppression units with pipe layout and planning but always wanted t go back to the forestry field and after a couple of years of doing that and being manager at a small time logging company I went to Fleming collage for two years of my life taken Forestry Tech and will be going back to take Urban forestry and hopefully going to Lake Head university. But before Urban forestry I will be working at Millar Western for a four month placement. I worked or been in many different fields in the forestry world and love to keep learning more!

Green Dream Internship Video - http://thegreenestworkforce.ca