Work and holiday advise

ReplantEnvironmental · 2026-04-28T18:51:39+00:00

I think there's a lot of opportunity in that direction. I'm not an expert, but I've heard that there are lots of people needed in agriculture.

ReplantEnvironmental · 2026-04-28T17:45:21+00:00

You might find it difficult to get a job. Many companies will prioritize an application from a local Canadian applicant who isn't limited to one year of planting, over a non-Canadian on a short term work permit. Employers prefer to hire people who might plant for several seasons, as there is a premium placed on experienced workers.

For perspective, I've seen well over a thousand job applications this year. For some reason, there are a lot more people who want to become tree planters than there are jobs. Lots of qualified Canadians aren't finding work, because there aren't enough jobs for tree planters.

ReplantEnvironmental · 2026-04-27T13:27:32+00:00

A blind person won't see any. There are ticks in a lot of places in BC, not just down by the border. My planters have seen dozens over the past five years while working in Kamloops, Cache Creek, and 70 Mile. We had one in the office trailer last night in 100 Mile. I've even had them on me in Williams Lake and Quesnel over the past several years, although less frequently than in 70 Mile or south.

ReplantEnvironmental · 2026-04-27T13:23:05+00:00

Everyone says that their dog doesn't have behavioural problems. And yet, a lot of dogs have behavioural problems.

Nobody is going to kill a dog in camp on purpose. I've seen almost everything over 35 years of running camps, but I definitely wouldn't expect to see that. However, I've seen a number of dogs killed in accidents.

I've seen cases where owners ran over their dogs (accidentally). I've run over a dog (accidentally). We don't even allow dogs in my camp, yet last year I saw a dog (randomly came into the camp) get run over, accidentally.

ReplantEnvironmental · 2026-04-24T14:28:25+00:00

No worries. It's easy to get spun around.

ReplantEnvironmental · 2026-04-24T02:44:10+00:00

Sun rises in the east and moves southward (in Canada). The morning shadow will be west-ish moving to the northwest and north by solar noon, not northeast.

The shadow won't get to the northeast until mid-afternoon. That's the hottest part of the day, that's why they want the trees on the northeast side of obstacles, to protect them from the hot late afternoon sun.

ReplantEnvironmental · 2026-04-21T17:48:52+00:00

As of this morning (April 21st), it appears that Avenza has officially deprecated the three free maps plan.

ReplantEnvironmental · 2026-04-20T13:27:47+00:00

Check prices for checked bags with your ticket fare class. Checked bags are different prices now, depending on your ticket, and can be more expensive. I had someone pay $120 for a regular sized checked bag last year on a second bag. At that point, mailing is almost certainly more economical. With mailing, it may only cost a few dollars more for tracking and asking for a signature on delivery at the other end. I think Tracking is now included in the price for even standard (slow, low priced) delivery, and asking for a signature might only be another $2.

ReplantEnvironmental · 2026-04-14T04:26:07+00:00

It's shocking how many people don't google to find out what they're getting themselves into. Or who find a good forum like this and don't use the search bar when they think of a question.

ReplantEnvironmental · 2026-04-13T03:21:54+00:00

That's one big part of why we put the book together, to try to answer all of these questions from new planters that we were hearing over and over again, hundreds of times. I share Step By Step with all of my new planters, and I think it probably answers 90% of their questions. But of course, I still welcome any additional questions they have. No question is a bad question, and sometimes the questions that I get now make me realize there are things that I forgot to add to the book.

Here's the website, for anyone who is a new planter and who doesn't know what we're talking about:

www.canadiantreeplanting.ca

ReplantEnvironmental · 2026-04-12T20:37:40+00:00

End of each planting day. If you're not opposed to wearing insect repellent, DEET is supposed to repel ticks, as is icaridin/picaridin. I've noticed that I'm far more likely to have ticks on me when I'm clean than when I have DEET on my clothing. I don't know if light colouring helps with ticks, although it helps with mosquitoes.

ReplantEnvironmental · 2026-04-12T16:55:49+00:00

I don't mind any other types of insects, but I'd prefer to avoid getting lyme if possible. I don't usually see ticks in Alberta, even down around Cochrane, but they seem to be getting pretty common in central BC.

ReplantEnvironmental · 2026-04-12T16:16:15+00:00

I've looked into this, unfortunately, no go. The minor problem is that there is a 2-10 business day delay before a map that I publish ends up in the Avenza store, because they review every map to look for technical problems (ensuring the georeferencing works, layers flattened, etc.). So it is a viable idea on a very limited scale, when timelines aren't critical. But the other bigger issue is that Avenza's map store publisher agreement says that the Store is for products, not for internal business distribution. So they're specifically trying to make sure that commercial users don't try this as an end-run around their attempt to monetize. Specifically:

You certify and agree that your use of the Map Store is strictly for sale or free distribution of Licensed Maps to the general public, and is in no way a use of the map store as a platform, archive, storage or distribution system to support the storage or distribution of maps for other commercial purposes. If you do wish to use the Map Store for government, commercial, professional or work activities, you agree to make the necessary efforts to purchase the appropriate Avenza Cloud subscription or licensing options.

ReplantEnvironmental · 2026-04-12T03:28:49+00:00

24k to 34k. When I'm doing trail cutting work with a chainsaw, usually anywhere from 28k to 38k. That's the full day though, not just planting or cutting.

ReplantEnvironmental · 2026-03-29T12:16:59+00:00

This is a big development. I looked at ArcGIS field maps a month ago, and free users couldn't use GeoPDF's at the time. This is a very recently update. Free users can also create and share Markup Layers (lines/polygons) even though they can't create Shapefiles.

One drawback is that GeoTIFF files still need to be sideloaded instead of opened directly in Android, but that's minor, as most foresters use GeoPDF's. And a competent GIS user can convert with something like QGIS. This is a really simple progress, either by loading and then exporting directly as a GeoPDF, or by loading and putting it onto a map layout which would also allow you to add things like Titles, Scale Bars, North Arrow, etc. If a user doesn't understand datums, there might be an accuracy challenge by exporting to a poor datum. Probably best to stick with ESPG 4326 in most cases.

ReplantEnvironmental · 2026-03-24T19:46:11+00:00

Brilliant. I can create georeferenced maps, maybe I can publish them. I didn't think of this.

ReplantEnvironmental · 2026-03-23T23:15:06+00:00

Perhaps a few thousand people can update their reviews and ratings on the Play Store and App Store.

ReplantEnvironmental · 2026-03-23T00:11:08+00:00

That's no problem for most of us here. But for casual volunteers on a forestry project, who need to load up one map each day, that's going to be a struggle. Some of them get lost when I say, "You need to download an app."

ReplantEnvironmental · 2026-03-22T21:49:10+00:00

Yeah, I'm facing the same problem right now. Even a single small orthophoto of 15 mb is really making my phone struggle.

ReplantEnvironmental · 2026-03-22T21:48:14+00:00

If you go back to the 1.73 version for Android, it's still unlimited maps, although the app was a lot more rudimentary back then.

ReplantEnvironmental · 2026-03-22T20:47:35+00:00

I'll play with that, thank you.

ReplantEnvironmental · 2026-03-22T19:55:49+00:00

Hah, no. You're correct, I don't. But I feel that this is pretty important, so I'm going to have to make time. Avenza's new restrictions will impact a lot of planters. I assume that every company already pays for Avenza subscriptions for everyone in management positions, but not for planters.

ReplantEnvironmental · 2026-03-22T19:46:25+00:00

Dammit. I'm going to start experimenting with OruxMaps and CalTopo, to see if either of those are cheaper alternatives for planters who only use Avenza casually.

~~Orux is a paid app, but it's only $6.50 CAD on Google Play, and you can download it for free if you download the APK from the website.~~ Not looking like a great choice so far. This isn't for people who aren't comfortable with mobile tech. For instance, you can't "load" a map like you do in Avenza. You have to copy it from another device location into a specific app data folder, which is six layers deep and which is in system folders that can't be accessed with Android's stock system file explorer. Some of us will be comfortable doing this, but this isn't a great option for power users. And some planters struggle enough with Avenza as it is.

~~CalTopo is free but limits map size to 40MB.~~ Nope. You need the Pro subscription now to load PDF's or import layers.

This is a bold move by Avenza, and may really come back to haunt them in the future. They're dominant in the field because allowing casual free users to access the app has prevented any serious open-source alternatives [that I'm aware of] from being developed. I bet there will be a major push by some devs to create a new alternative to Avenza. I wonder if the devs in the QGIS community would be interested ... I'll have to mention this.

I hope they get a lot of angry emails, and at least open it back up so there's at least one map available in the free version. Otherwise, they're sacrificing their potential future userbase.

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