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I was hired as a Woodlands intern with Weyerhaeuser Grande Prairie, which meant that I would be working within silviculture, operations, and planning in a split role. My summer was filled with all sorts of different jobs, such as boundary layout, block re-ribboning, drone flying, road maintenance, and many other jobs that continuously kept me on my toes.

I got a set list of blocks that were to be sprayed, and I needed to walk them to ensure that all waterways had 40-meter buffer boundaries flagged off and check to make sure that all other ephemeral streams were either dried up or not flowing. The last thing we want is to get chemicals into a waterway!

Normally I wouldn’t volunteer to wake up at 5am to sit in a truck for three hours or so but its beautiful around Smithers and I thought it would be a nice change from the endless burnt blocks and fire weed around Fraser Lake. Plus I was in good company with my two bosses and fellow summer student.

I’ve seen firsthand the effort that is taken to ensure that harvesting is done in the most sustainable way. Recent cut blocks are surrounded by multi-age stands, varying from 20 to 60 years old, ensuring that a large span of land is never cut at once. Having multi-age stands is important in ensuring that wildlife and biodiversity still have room to grow while we fulfill our wood needs.‍

The diversity present in nature has also helped me be more okay with myself. Nature shows me that diversity is a natural part of life and doesn’t make me any less.

That's why I knew I was going to stay in Lac-Saint-Jean. In Saint-Thomas, the plant is beautiful and the atmosphere is very pleasant. It's very easy to work with the people here, they are dynamic and want things to work. I am very happy in my region and I want to continue to develop here, in my region.

Final blog photos of my trip to the Yukon!

This summer, I had the privilege of working in Human Resources. Coming home from university, I couldn’t wait to start and was curious as to what my responsibilities would be. I assumed that my job would consist of setting up interviews and conflict resolution. And while that might be some of what I experienced; it was just a small fraction of what I actually did. The majority of the Summer I spent working on two main projects. The first one was revamping our mill’s internal website, TNet. I spent time fiddling around with the site, looking for ways to make it more efficient to navigate. I am proud to say that the site now looks awesome!

Beaver dams, steep slopes, access routes, and places to land a helicopter during layout are other elements we may be looking for during this process. While data and imagery are available to help plan the blocks, seeing it from the sky can often provide a much clearer and more current picture of the forest.

I wanted to use this blog to reflect on my summer and share some of my experiences. As you all know, this summer I worked at Alberta Newsprint Company, however, one thing I did not tell you in the beginning is the many different departments I worked in! So here is a fun little timeline from my summer: