You
That good
And the tree planner to construction
When I first started planning off is the third season bronze a member Rick coffin was my foreman
He said go plant behind that guy, and there's a guy about my height, and he was flying his planning
It's about three bear root to every one that I was doing and
That's like I said to Rick. I go who is that guy? He goes. Oh, it's Franz Otto. How old is he now?
46
So he's only seven years old
The guy's a fucking machine he's an animal. What do you mean?
That guy is
Well, he's trying to be me
You
You
There's been a high baller and a low baller I
Mean obviously there's a numbers aspect here right a high baller puts in more trees versus a low baller
but a high baller is somebody who
Who?
Who not only puts in more trees they put in more trees every day they come to work every day short days
They still make their average long days late days
You know they're out of the truck. They're ready to work. They plant till five they come in and
Low ballers the guy who's the last one out of the truck who's
You know when it comes to crunch time you got to finish a block
It's not the low baller who's putting in those numbers to get it done. He's not he's not leading the cluster. He's not
Yeah, he's not he's not getting it done in the end. You're not gonna rely on him
The crunch time high baller is gonna bring it get it done one boy
Number one is you have that tree in your hand because you if you open your hole and the trees not there
You're wasting time searching for it. It's number one. You want a tree number two
Get it to shovel in
Open it by pushing back and some people just straight up pull it forward
I usually do a C-cut which means you're going over here and lifting up that side making you kind of a triangle
My tree would slide into the side here
Then you pull out your shovel
Now you can close it in many different ways depending on the soil. I can just pull it out kick it
Or I can shovel close it first like that and then knuckle it or I could just
Straight up plant it and then use my hand. Maybe I shoot in front first then shoot right behind it rip that off
That's my screeping method
Then I close it because a lot of people will kick at it and feel it gone
A lot of people will shovel screef like that, but I don't believe in putting two hands on my shovel
I think that's a dirty dirty sin because if I have two trees of hands in my shovel
I don't have one hand on my tree
In 1986 I started tree planting. I was 16 years old and I found myself halfway up a mountain in British Columbia
I said to myself. I'm never gonna do this again
This past spring I found myself still tree planting 15 years later. I knew I had to move on but I didn't want to
Without a good memory something to remember it by
So I decided I'd go out and set a world record for the most trees planted by one person in one day
And that's what I did
The Hall of Fame
I'd say that we created it because we wanted to be able to recognize people who really stood out and
Not being able to the Hall of Fame doesn't
There's there really no rules to it. It's you can recommend or not nominate somebody and they can get put in the Hall of Fame
Occasionally we'll have people say no that guy shouldn't be there. We only planted six days and we'll pull them off
but
It's just a way for us to recognize some of the cool people we met and just for other people to enable other people to
recognize the real leaders be them tree planters foreman
cooks, I believe there's some cooks in there and people like Ed Walters who started up bush pro and
Invented current day tree planting equipment
If you're one of the people in there, it's kind of neat to see what other achieve what other
People have been nominated to the Hall of Fame to see where others set the bar for excellence be it number of trees or being an excellent
Foreman or life-long achievements like planting one or two million trees. It's just neat to see where
Where your colleagues set the bar for excellence?
Anything you can do to motivate yourself to put in an extra half box or box
Make all the difference
Yeah, that's a cool picture. Hey, it's almost like that the Sasquatch. Hey, you got this blurry picture picture of this guy
And look yeah, all the nominations. It's got lots of nominations. It's cool.
Oh
So our rookies I thought worked hard today and did a good job. So we'll give them a round
The people who are around me who know me and whose opinion that I value and respect
I mean, they know that I'm I'm still enjoying it. So they don't see why would you give that up?
I've always I've always like loved music
I swear like my parents put like pink Floyd through headphones on my mom's stomach or some shit like that because I am just like
Always just been in love with that old-style music. Looks good, eh?
For real, the guitar almost saved my life. Yeah, without kidding because when my mother died 12 years ago
I always I was really addicted to guitar this year and I play a lot and that tell me to pass my bad emotion
And yeah, that's it. That's pretty cool
For probably a week after that fight on the highway
We had groups of 10 15 people standing on the other side of the highway in the bar on Friday Saturday nights waiting for
The crews to come out and go to the bar so they could get them before they even go in
They actually had to be banned from going to the bar and banned from leaving the property after work
I have to work
I'm not sure that bridge
Let's go
Oh, yeah, I'd heard about Franz Otto everybody's heard about Franz Otto if you've been around planting for a while
Yeah, he's kind of like, you know, Achilles or something, you know, even if you've never met him
You've heard about the legendary Franz Otto, but I think like, you know, tree planters need somebody like that
There's always somebody to talk about mythically that you maybe have never met, but it's always, you know, planted a million trees in one day
Or achieved something, you know, there's exaggeration, rampant exaggeration, keep that in mind
What we're doing is working with the environmental organizations of the province, 13 of them, who bulk up together in order to, with one voice, tele-government
We want a continuum of activities in the forest for carbon credit for our abstract benefits
So we want to be able to conserve forests to protect them and get credits for that. We want to be able to grow new forests and get credits for that
And we want to be able to do the forest management activity in between, which is some conservation, protecting areas on streams
And some enhancing and improving the forest
We want all of that continuum of activity to be available, to be used in British Columbia Forest with the benefit of the atmosphere to avoid climate catastrophic climate change
We were expecting some major changes to go down in the world, that never quite happened
But we, you know, when we were planting trees for a warehouser we didn't feel like we were planting trees for the corporations
We were planting those trees for ourselves and eventually they would come back into our hands, you know, the people
But it didn't quite work out that way
We had a revolutionary notion about what we were doing in this particular way
Pretty much, at least in the beginning, it took something like that to gut it out
You know, there's nothing worse than a green tree-planting crew who knows nothing about anything with a mean inspector on a 60-degree slope and a driving ring
I mean, could you imagine worse conditions to be working under? No, you can't. There aren't any
That's over there at the ends of each of these two side blocks. I definitely need planning
I'm out here in British Columbia planting trees in 1970
And I'm in doing some grad work on the philosophy of religion, which is my area of interest, but also researching this book
And after a while I went, you know, after by 1971 it was very clear I'd rather be working in the wilderness of British Columbia
Making change through practical work with friends than being trapped in the negative zone of academia
Researching all this stuff that is not very...it's very depressing, in fact
And it was an interesting counterpoint to have that life choice evolve as I was developing this book and also developing the reforce station business
And it was very clear what was the path that I preferred
Woo-hoo!
I mean, I didn't see myself working in a conventional job
I never planted a tree for a contractor
Every tree I ever planted I was working for myself
So that notion of being your own boss was pretty powerful
And there's plenty of bullshit, but we got to make our own bullshit
This is how the Hodads looked when we started tree planting, so I've kept one
It's a forest service issue
And ideally you're coming at the spot
You've got to end up with your hand on the ground
So the back of your hole is vertical
Because if you end up like this, you've got to...
The sheer difficulty of it, the pain of it, actually forged a bond
Which has lasted to this day
Like, you know, I'm not...I'm not...
When I go to town, I mean, guys that weren't even on my crew, we were Hodads together
Just like we're brothers, I mean, just given
You don't even mess around with the small talk, you just go straight to the brother, you know, the sister too
That's the other thing we did, we brought women fully into the tree planting industry
There were none when we started, and by the time we were done
Probably a third of the people who had been Hodad members were women
And proved that they could plant trees just as good as anybody, any man
So, brothers and sisters all over the Northwest, I mean, I run into them every day
Cheers
So, when was the first time you heard about Franz Otto?
The first time I heard about Franz Otto was around 2000, 2001, when I started planting
And, I mean, in the north and interior of BC
If you're planting or you're around planting, his name comes up
It's hard to work in that business and not hear about Franz Otto
He's the guy whose reputation is putting in incredible amounts of trees
And doing basically anything that has to be done to make sure he gets in huge amounts of trees
Pretty sure he said to the tree line
Okay, well, we'll figure that, we'll leave it till last and get it
Well, we'll get it figured out
Kind of can see what's in there
Do a straight ahead
He's kind of looking here
Keeping up with Franz Otto is always a bit of a problem
Yeah?
He's pretty quick, huh?
He's a quick boy
How long have you been working with Franz for?
For 15 years
I guess, first time I met Franz Otto, he planted trees
I don't remember, he probably remembers what year it is, he planted trees on my dad's wood lot
But I don't, I don't remember what year that was
Apparently he's quite a tree planter too
Oh, he is, he's a fantastic tree planter
He's the fastest, I mean, one of the first times I heard about Franz Otto
I was working for this guy, Dave Reynolds
And Dave Reynolds is a really legendary planter in his own right
Formaned crews for upwards of 20 years
And was a big time planter on the coast
Yeah, this guy, we came onto this block with a really creamy block
All these really soft mounds of earth
And this one guy gets all excited and he starts running around
Just sticking his shovel into every mound
And he's running from mound to mound
And someone says, what's he doing?
Because we're just kind of walking out for this little pre-work, pre-work conflab
And someone says, he's doing a Franz Otto imitation
And Dave turns and says, oh, you know Franz Otto?
And I say, well, yeah, like, he's a pretty fast planter
And Dave says, he's the fastest
And so, you know, there's all these little, he's a real legend
You know, people just knew about him
It's just going to be Buck one, the hard-hitting bruisey boy
Leads everybody in this game and hits, he's not even hit through the playoffs
He's been a real physical player
You know, Tom, I was asked earlier today on one of the radio shows
Well, they can contact the league about toppling
So the big thing is that there's two types of bears
Black bear, grizzly bear, black bear, smaller
And it has a shorter snout that's a little bit curved
Grizzly bears are a long straight snout, big claws
And a big hump
Planning for me was always about, was always a means to another end
And that's why I didn't like it at first because I saw it only as a means to another end
And it took me a few years to actually just enjoy my planting season
With grizzly bears in the attack, you can play dead
And a lot of times they won't kill you, they'll just mess you up and walk away
And it sounds weird, but they will, they like their meat rotten
So they just leave you to die and they'll come back in a day or two once you've started to decay
Grizzly, black bears don't do that so much
I was pretty lucky, I planted under Guilossal
And I remember when I was quite young, hearing about Gui, he was one of these old legends
And he'd kind of said, oh, when he was done foremaning, he just wanted to go back and plant
And still make a fair wage
And he's back doing that last year, he retired from foremaning
And it's just so that they're planting him in one other person
So yeah, Gui's 50, I won't tell his exact age, but yeah, he's out there planting
Do you know how many trees he's planted?
Not quite a few
Is that nearly 2 million?
Yeah, they use I think supervising for a long time
Yeah, I mean I didn't plant as many as that because I was foremaning
Foremaning and supervising for like 15 years or so
Well, one of the other things Ted and I did, in 1972 we'd planted our first full season in 71
And winter of 71-72 we were at College Hus, which was the Gestalt Institute of Canada
One of the Gestalt Institute of Canada as well
It's like a human potential school?
Yeah, you know what, there's Gestalt fritz pearls, the whole Gestalt movement
But the area of interest for Ted and I was just exploring this whole concept of self-responsibility
And when it came to tree planting, we did that sort of as a, you know, that's what people with problems were led to
Helping them understand this self-responsibility and here's how you can deal with your own problem
And that's really all the process was about
You know, there's more energy out there, so we're maxing out at 35-4,000
With those guys?
Yeah, and so once we got to the shovel, we broke those barriers again
They're pretty green
So we're going to just, let's do a couple of these
So this blade is much harder than this blade
See this blade is cut right into this
So we're looking for toughness and hardness
And we want a balance of toughness and hardness
I started attempting my world record on the morning of June 30th at 3.30 am
My shovel hit the ground and a single red pine seedling was planted
By the time the sun went down 19 hours later at 10.30 pm
My feet had slammed the hole closed on 15,170 trees
My hands were so damaged from tenonitis I couldn't hold the shovel
I couldn't bend my fingers for days after my feet were swollen
The nails from three toes fell off
But I was so ecstatic I could have danced all night
I'd set a new record for the most trees planted by a single person during daylight hours
I felt total completion
I wrote this for a week
There you go.
This is all just shit.
Tree...
Well, I didn't know what the thesis would be.
I didn't know what I really...
I knew that I wanted to write about tree planting, but I didn't know what it meant.
That's why I was so attracted to the job for so long, and that was really the impetus.
I wanted to discover why it was that I was so fascinated by this having this experience of just work.
And I think what it boiled down to for me was there's something about the adversity of tree planting that I find very attractive.
And I think probably people who climb mountains or do extreme arctic expeditions or people who put themselves in harm's way for whatever reason,
they feel some sort of pull of that kind of physical adversity because it somehow makes them feel more alive or it somehow distills a kind of happiness for them.
I find that it's so ironic in a way because we live in this culture that is always sort of gravitating towards more and more consumption,
more comfort, more ease when in actuality I felt most happy when I've had the least amount of comfort.
So that's probably what, that idea is probably what pushed the story along.
I used to represent Tim Davis, it's really in your face this camera.
I used to represent an artist named Tim Davis who's no longer represented by the gallery, but he's a great friend.
And he was her professor at Yale and he called me up at the end of the semester after she presented her thesis project,
which was the tree planting series, and said that he really thought I should take a look at this work because she was the most talented and energetic student he'd ever worked with.
No, it's my opening. You can't do this to me. This is like stressful enough as it is.
The content of the work of kids having this shared experience, that aspect wasn't as interesting to me as just the way that she captured the way that people work and play and interact with each other.
So you work with Franz Otto?
Yes.
How long ago was that?
Good question. 1995.
1995?
Yeah.
Are you still planting?
I just finished my last year this year.
Do you have any stories that you can share about Franz?
All I know is we left, I forget where we were planting on the island somewhere, and we left there and we actually went to Zanzibar's camp in Golden, and we drove there together.
And yeah, I met one of his ex-girls this 1995, just a bit of a ways ago, and he's energetic, you know, very energetic.
One thing I remember actually, because as it turns out, he's quite a fast planter, and I was decently fast, but when I went to Zanzibar, I decided to slow down.
And I remember him being visibly irritated that I wasn't really going for it, competing against him. That's one thing I noticed.
Yeah, he's super, like, he'd go around and introduce himself to people and go, hi, I'm Franz Otto, and basically I'm going to kick your ass tomorrow, kind of thing, right? Kind of thing, and he would. He's, you know, he's mental, he's a mental case out there.
It's kind of up here, it's a no-no, you know?
Only for cattle, right?
If it's like obstacle planting, a cow isn't going to step on a stump, right? So if you plant the tree next to it, it probably won't step on the tree.
Or, you know, a log, or a big rock.
So I don't know, I did get to plant with him a little bit, went for a little fall contract. Yeah, there's Franz Otto on the block, and, you know, he's a pretty modest, quiet, like, humble guy, but, you know, he gets the bags when he's crashing through willows like a possessed ape.
It's pretty intense. Highballing everyone.
The average planter could put in probably 1800, he could put in 4000.
So, you know, he could more than double an average planter.
My hubby and I, you know, we planted together, and we were sort of, you know, above average planters, and he could sometimes tie us if we added our tallies together.
How's it going, camera guy? Pretty sweet, Chris.
How are you? Good. You liking it? Yeah. Yeah? You like that you don't have to plant it? Yeah, hey. Fucking hey.
So I heard on the internet somebody said, somebody wrote, Franz Otto used to drink honey on the block for quick energy. Is this true?
No, I don't recall ever sucking honey, maybe out of flowers, but, you know, I didn't bring any jars of honey to the block.
Sometimes surprises me where, you know, stories come from. They're so far-fetched, but, and I've been hearing that for quite a while, so it's just almost comical, you know, it's like, where do these stories come from?
Like, they're getting bigger and better by the minute. When people meet me, they're really surprised that I'm not, you know, six foot six and 280 pounds and, you know, full of muscle.
That's the first thing they comment on is, wow, I thought you were bigger than that, but yeah, people just seem to need, it's like they need something big to believe in, and I'm just not big.
Rye bread. German rye bread. That's the ticket.
I like, I like having my space, you know. I mean, I like other people too, but it's nice to be alone on the block with the dogs.
I get a really good night of sleep, don't have to drive in the morning. I can plant more trees that way. I don't plant fast anymore, so.
But I can still plant long time, so I'll make up that way.
It's pretty nice because two of my best planters end up forewarning now, so it's just like, it's a little bit of a way that it passed on, you know.
So, you know, Matt is also forewarning, but Audrey and Matthew, they started their first tree. They planted it with me, and now they have their own crew.
They have really strong, you know, good people planting with them, so I feel happy about that.
Friday night, you should make sure you have your camera ready, because I'll almost guarantee you that tree planters are going to go across the street to the bar, and there'll be some kind of incident.
Because usually on Friday and Saturday nights, that's usually how it ends up here.
We should get tea, and we'll watch the snow fall.
Let me get a new lunch.
It's bullshit. Fucking bullshit.
No work, but I really like the snow.
This is like, well, because we got stood up yesterday, so we didn't play yesterday, we didn't play the day before that, we're not going to play today.
My friends, Audrey would say on a day like this, they would be walking in three inches of snow, and all you can see is the snow melting.
We would just plant behind them as he walks their piece.
I've had lots of jobs. They have plenty of city jobs, office jobs, and I found them, you know, the challenging part was boredom, because I would often, tree planters, you know, when you see them at work doing other things,
they've finished their tree planting careers, they are often sort of binge workers, you know, they'll go attack whatever tasks they have to do, and get it done with in half the time that they're allotted,
and then they'll sit around and, you know, potentially be bored for a while afterwards.
So that's what happened to me on the job, I would sort of like do a full day's work, and, you know, maybe four or five hours, and then spend three hours trying to look busy, you know,
but that looking busy and being bored that I found, you know, completely difficult, like I was more willing to go and kill myself doing manual labor than I was just putting face time.
Try a few trees. Nice trees.
And I guess a lot of them are people that travel for apparently?
Yeah, people who travel in off season, they just like wanderers.
Oh yeah, backpackers.
Stuff like that.
I just finished backpacking over in Asia for six weeks.
How was that?
It was awesome. I'm moving there.
Do you work in off season?
Uh, no. I just travel, because I can't.
I usually go to cheap places, that's why I went to India, because it's like so cheap and my money can just get stretched out like really, really far.
But I'm kind of getting sick of that whole like just stretching every penny thing and just like eating like really cheap, like greasy rice and stuff like that.
I don't know, getting kind of sick of that, so I don't know, I'm gonna have to spend more money and not stay longer.
At least I get to see places, that's pretty sweet. I feel pretty fortunate about that.
I talk to a lot of people and my travels are like, holy fuck, I haven't even been there and I'm like 60 years old.
Oh sweet, I'm in a good way right now. It's cool.
I'm in a good way right now.
I'm in a good way right now.
I'm in a good way right now.
Constructively they like to hide them. You can see under here, these cones, crafty little guys.
Here we have our cones.
I just separate them from the duff and the f-layer, all those things that create mold and have all the organisms in them that create mold and collect the good ones.
It's piece work, so the harder you work and the more time you put into it and the more ground you hike and the more money you can make at it, for sure.
So then I prefer it. It's something to do in the fall and it still keeps me in the forest working, which is where I really like to be.
And I think it still feels like I'm doing something good, even though I am stealing from a squirrel.
What inspires you as a planter, Chris?
Well, I don't know. I just do it for a job. I work for an honest days dollar like I was saying.
I'm not inspired to be competitive. I'm not the best. I'm not worried about that kind of thing. I just do it because it's a job that I live.
I have a passion for it. I don't know exactly where the inspiration comes from.
I guess just being in the wide open spaces and the places that it takes me, it really has a lot to do with it.
What about the older planters?
The older planters, yeah. Scott really inspires me because he's a really happy guy and he's lived his life tree planting and I think that he inspires me with just the freedom in the guy's life
and the way the guy inspires other people to enjoy being where they are. He really, really loves being there.
Just his spirit for it and his drive in life to do what he loves and live the life he loves to live.
He's 40 years old and learning to surf and stuff like that.
You just wouldn't find out of a person who's lived and worked in the same cubicle for the last 40 years, just life has been sucked out of them and this fellow seems to just have a never ending life force because he does what he loves to do and lives where he, you know, does what he wants to do.
I don't know.
What happens if I can't?
Over the years that I worked, I always knew I was going back and always looked forward to going back and I haven't written off that I'll go back next summer either, but this is the first year where I feel like I'm out.
I mean, last year of my season between forming and planting was 100 and some days. I bought 100 days because I planted more days than I formed in last year.
And I was like, I feel good doing this. I was still having fun right to the very last day and really enjoyed it. This is the first year where I feel like, nah, well, it's not that interested in it.
Sometimes when you need that job, you think it's good just for a few years and for people it's just a step in stone, you know, they just plant for a few years, make money for college or university or whatever and then they move on to something else.
It's also a good lifestyle. It's a good job. I always feel good about planting trees. I mean, I went to university, I could have done other things, but it just seems that that was more fitting for me to just be out in the woods most of the time and planting trees is a good feeling.
How long do you think you'll keep planting and traveling for?
I don't know. I've got to ask my body that. I don't think my body is going to last much longer to be honest. It feels good. It's like planting. It's almost like hungry for it a little bit.
I don't know, maybe two more years and then I'll maybe get an education of some sort. But until then I just like music managed like jamming around and like just playing music because it literally carries people through their life.
I mean, like everyone's going to listen to music to like the day they die and if someone can like bring that emotion to the table and like someone picks up on it and it makes their day better, like that's all I kind of care about, you know, it's just like making other people feel good.
So if I have this talent to like play music, then I think it should be shared with everybody. So I would, I'd be willing to dedicate my life to it for sure. I think I already have.
Yeah, that's like me with my community friend. When people laugh, you just keep their good vibration. That's really cool, man.
Yeah, it's a good feeling.
This is hard.
Actually, don't fall. Just do whatever you're comfortable with.
I don't know if I can go any further.
It's vibrating.
When you love something so much and you want to hit the top, that's all it's about. It's not about the money. It's not about beating somebody's record. It's about beating yourself and being at the top of your game.
You know, I think a lot of people, you know, it might happen that, you know, they've accomplished something and they're happy with that. That's where it stops. They've done it. They go home and they feel good about themselves and they won't do that again the next day.
Whereas myself, with planting, and I guess it's like that with anything in my life, is that, you know, okay, you put in your first 3,000 trees, you can, you know, go home and rest on your laurels about that, and is that the end?
It wasn't like that for me. The next day I'd want to go out and plant a hundred more than that, and the next day after that, plant a hundred more after that, and it just kind of wouldn't stop.
And I think what was happening was there was unrealized potential, and it just kept growing, you know.
And, you know, again, you have to remember that all the ground is always different, so your opportunities are not always there to really see what you've got, you know.
I was an average planer. I'd put in 1,200 trees a day, say, but when I realized that it's all about managing your time out there, you know, are you ready?
You know, do you got your boots on? Or, you know, are you putting them on?
Do you have, you know, all your gear in place? Did you forget something that's important during the day, like your shovel?
Is it in the back of the truck? And, you know, you can be out there tree planting, or you could be out there tree planting.
You know, it's like, I think, you know, it's who you are. Like, if you like to do something right, or do it as well as possible, I think that's either who you are or who you're not.
And, you know, it's kind of like, I believe that if I was just a ditch digger, I would want to be the best ditch digger, you know.
I mean, I don't have any plans on being a ditch digger, but if that were the case, I would want to be known as, like, the highest quality, best performing ditch digger, you know.
And ditch digging is sort of like, has a negative sort of sound to it, but in Europe ditch diggers are really important.
I mean, I don't know if you know about that, but they are.
You know, whatever it is that you do, you try to do it with everything you got.
And tree planting, you know, it was when I was doing that, I think that's how I looked at it.
I think that's how I looked at it.
I think that's how I looked at it.
Ha, ha, ha.
Ha, ha, ha.
Ha, ha, ha.
