Up Close and On the Ground With Canada s Intrepid Tree Planters atlasobscura.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from atlasobscura.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Blood, Sweat, and Tears: The Astonishing Labor of Tree Planters in Canada
By Ellyn Kail on July 9, 2021
Rita Leistner still remembers the day she planted 6,000 trees. It was 1989, and she was working as a tree planter in the Canadian bush, a job she held from 1984 to 1993. Tree planters need to hit around 2,000 trees per day to make minimum wage; the best of them can exceed 5,000. “Most of that day is a blur because it was such an insane physical ordeal, but I’ll never forget the number,” she says. She estimates she planted half a million trees during that formative decade in her twenties.