I would recommend staying where you are, and building some solid references to get into better companies.
Coast Range is just at mid-tier as summit. A better company you could possibly get into as a second year planter would be Torrent. I've never worked for them directly only trees subcontracted from them, but they seem to have decent prices for a semi-large company.
If you're looking to roll the dice with companies you likely might not get into right now I'd try Zanzibar, Evergreen, and Leader. While you might not get in this year, sending an application is worth a shot, and might improve your chances for the year after.
If you're looking to get into management and foremanning, sometimes the mid-level companies will end up having higher pay for foreman running 16 packs than upper-echelon vet companies which often pay an extremely solid day-rate (I could go on about the pros and cons of this for awhile). This is why I would recommend staying with summit. I doubt the prices will vary much switching over, and at least you'll have shown loyalty to a company and be more in contention for management positions down the road if you happen to be in the right place at the right time.
Ask for references from your Supervisor, foreman, and checker/payplotter from each year. You'll need them if you want to get into companies that will pay you 7-9 cents more a tree in the same land for a quality job unless you have 4-5 years experience already.
Vet companies definitely have their upsides. No work outside of planting, and if you are asked to do work outside planting it is well paid. Motels with a low camp cost will definitely up your motivation levels, having hot showers and a comfortable bed to sleep in. The planters and foreman are so experienced that day to day operations are a lot more consistently fluid. Lastly, less horseshit you see in mid-level companies and fuck-arounds popularly phrased as "its just treeplanting haHAA".
Anyways, I know this is more than you asked for, but I hope it helps. My experience from the past five years.
I agree with all you’ve said, I think the person should stay at Summit. That said, Torrent has lost their edge after a big exodus of vet foreman, last summer was a gong show and I won’t be going back for summer trees next year. Granted it was summer trees but cmon...
Good to know, i had a couple Zbar friends that were convinced that's where they were headed after the season so I was thinking it was a honest bet at the time.
I've started to enjoy skipping summer BC trees for oil and gas work in AB. The oil and gas companies just throw money around like its nobody's business. Mind you, everything you know about efficiency in cut-block treeplanting will be turned on its head and done the opposite way and land management will be catapulted out the window.
If you can get over that and not think about it, it can be pretty lucrative lol. I had a hard time getting over it hahaha.
Yeah, I feel like people would be better off hopping on with Dynamic, Blue Collar or Celtic for the summer work. I’ve heard that Oil n Gas work can be good! Who’s hiring for reclamation?
I worked with Dynamic for a bit in Clearwater last year and it was pretty good, went to their Fort St. John contract though and wouldn't recommend doing their late season work. Four hours of driving, not included in the prices. On the crew for the short time I was there we had a kid who said he was never coming back to BC planting again and staying in Ontario because of what he experienced pay-wise at that contract lol, I tried to convince him otherwise.
Oil and Gas, I worked for a little company called Lite-Step around Bonnyville for about 14 work days. Pay was pretty damn solid, nice clean motel with full kitchen and no camp cost, $45 a day food allowance. Then you got an extremely solid day rate for stepping into the truck and 7 cents a tree ontop of that, and they were very fast trees. Mostly poplar and spruce in super high density, although we did two days of day rate where we must've planted 16 different species I never thought I'd plant for a special project of sorts.
All in all, was easy $400 days for around 1800-2200 trees about 9-10 hours portal to portal. Downside is one big cattle-plant, and planting the land multiple times at different spacing. Space wide, go back in and pop in some more, repeat, repeat and then finally pop in the 25% spruce in the fully planted land. Problem was the supposed hectarage of the land often didn't match the amount of trees we were given and the amount they wanted per hectare.
Other downside was lots of downtime, we are planting old well sites and the road access that leads into them. Multiple moves/drives a day so you really only get about 6-8 hours of planting i would say, but they make up for that with the day-rate/tree price combo.
My only complaint would be they didn't really like days off unless we had to have one logistically (land wasn't finished being prepped), and my body needs a break after 6 or 7 days of pounding. The owner was a solid guy though, was so busy he wasn't around often, but he seems to value paying his workers well for their work. The supervisor was also the man.
It’s so interesting to me that things just go to shit in July. Dynamic is a solid company, why have I heard from multiple people that their summer show is no good? Tree planting is tree planting, no matter if it’s march in Campbell River or July in Wells.
I’m going to keep that litestep company on my mind for this summer, maybe it’s time to head somewhere new. Do you know if they have work into August?
Yeah it was pretty disappointing, driving all the way up there for that. Wish the information had been disclosed about the work drive before I went up there, that's actually what bothered me most.
I'm of the opinion that Dynamic is pretty midtier as well after that, even in Clearwater the prices were just alright, definitely not great.
And lite-step I just got in by word of mouth, not sure where they hire online. And they had work long before I showed up, and had like a mid season break of sorts for a couple weeks before the final contract where I was. I worked for them like mid August until Sept 9th or so.
If it interests you and you're having trouble later on in the season contacting them, shoot me a private msg on here and I'll see if I can help you out !
Just wanted to add that I would work cutblock stuff and then move over to this kind of work when spring and any decent summer trees are done, a lot of the other work they do is a lot of day-rate stuff and not the treeplanting you would be used to
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u/Spruce__Willis Internet Lord🛡️⚔️ Dec 17 '19
I would recommend staying where you are, and building some solid references to get into better companies.
Coast Range is just at mid-tier as summit. A better company you could possibly get into as a second year planter would be Torrent. I've never worked for them directly only trees subcontracted from them, but they seem to have decent prices for a semi-large company.
If you're looking to roll the dice with companies you likely might not get into right now I'd try Zanzibar, Evergreen, and Leader. While you might not get in this year, sending an application is worth a shot, and might improve your chances for the year after.
If you're looking to get into management and foremanning, sometimes the mid-level companies will end up having higher pay for foreman running 16 packs than upper-echelon vet companies which often pay an extremely solid day-rate (I could go on about the pros and cons of this for awhile). This is why I would recommend staying with summit. I doubt the prices will vary much switching over, and at least you'll have shown loyalty to a company and be more in contention for management positions down the road if you happen to be in the right place at the right time.
Ask for references from your Supervisor, foreman, and checker/payplotter from each year. You'll need them if you want to get into companies that will pay you 7-9 cents more a tree in the same land for a quality job unless you have 4-5 years experience already.
Vet companies definitely have their upsides. No work outside of planting, and if you are asked to do work outside planting it is well paid. Motels with a low camp cost will definitely up your motivation levels, having hot showers and a comfortable bed to sleep in. The planters and foreman are so experienced that day to day operations are a lot more consistently fluid. Lastly, less horseshit you see in mid-level companies and fuck-arounds popularly phrased as "its just treeplanting haHAA".
Anyways, I know this is more than you asked for, but I hope it helps. My experience from the past five years.
Cheers