Tree planting started as a summer job, but it also taught me what it means to be Canadian

This First Person is the experience of Jackson Bonn, who lives in Belleville, Ont. For more information about CBC's First Person stories, please see the FAQ .

It was a brisk morning and some light smoke from nearby wildfires still hung in the air. I gathered my crew of tree planters and gave a quick safety briefing. From there, each planter worked in the section of land I’ve designated for them on that day.

For most of my 12-hour shift, I rushed around from planter to planter, making sure everybody has tree seedlings to plant and that they are being planted in the correct place. Planters loaded their bags with 13 to 18 kilograms of these seedlings, working to plant a clearcut of spruce trees that was harvested a few months prior.

I threw my shovel in to open a hole in the ground, planted the tree and moved on to the next. I imagined myself like an Olympic freestyle swimmer. Trying to make my movements fluid and natural, I pretended each strike of the shovel is another stroke in the water.

I’ve been a tree planter all my adult life. Every summer, I, along with thousands of other individuals, congregate in remote pockets of the Canadian bush. Logging and fires remove vast swaths of Canada’s forests annually. These areas need to be replanted and we are the workforce paid to do so.

Depending on the terrain, most tree planters will plant between 1,500 to 5,000 trees a day. They’ll do this every day, getting paid a “piece rate” per tree planted. When I plant 2,000 trees at a rate of 17.5 cents per tree, I’ll make $350.

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When I began tree planting as a cash-strapped 18-year-old freshly returned from a gap year trip to Southeast Asia, the allure of tree planting was real: do a few months of hard work, save some money and come home to “normal life.” I wanted it all: the dirt, the camaraderie, the opportunity to excel at something in a way I never had before. I was entering this unknown world with eyes wide open and threw my shovel into the dirt for the first time with little thought about the impact it would have on my life.

If you know a tree planter, you might know how all-consuming the job can be.

As a result of the job being so physically and mentally demanding, tree planters can be a prideful bunch. I’ve always been amused by planters referring to their eight months away from the bush as the “off-season,” but I get it. For me, arrival in the bush every April signalled a return to where I felt most comfortable — a place I could let down barriers and reconnect with the friends I was missing.

But there is a very real, perhaps unappealing truth to my relationship to tree planting that I reckon with – it’s just a job. I don’t plan on being a career tree planter. As much as I love the work, I have other ambitions.

So, in 2025, I decided to forego my annual pilgrimage to British Columbia in favour of a quiet summer on the East Coast.

I enjoyed my time away, and my body especially appreciated the break from the gruelling physical labour. After an extended period away, I feel like I’ve grown an identity beyond the job.