Early June was when we arrived back to High Prairie. Finally, I was going to start doing the job I thought I was going to be doing from the get-go, block layout. If I had to explain layout to anyone who did not know what it is I would simply tell them, I scout out areas to harvest wood. There is a lot that goes into it but essentially that is what laying out a harvest block is. To start off, someone higher in position than myself plans the location of the cut blocks (some say harvest blocks instead) which are pieces of land where machinery will harvest wood from. Blocks are drawn onto a map database which we all have access to.
This is a screenshot of some blocks we have yet to go into, you can see the grey outlines on a map of a possible area to harvest wood from.
From there we can see the blocks through a map on our work tablets then go to these blocks to check out what is in there. We mainly search for wetlands, streams or any sort of waterway. This is important because certain types of waterways or waterbodies need a buffer for environmental reasons (In practice this means that machinery cannot cut within a certain distance of the waterway, a “buffer” of standing forest is left between the water and the logging). It is also important because machinery could easily get stuck in certain swamps or bogs. Waterways we find need to be marked on the map, with our GPS we can draw a line as we walk which allows us to map out anything we find. While checking out the blocks we also need to take note of the condition of the timber, wildlife and anything else that may be relevant.
Accessing the blocks can be a challenge, in most cases they’re in remote areas meaning we drive down a lot of dirt roads to get to where we need to be.
Once the road is too bad for a truck to make it down, we unload our quads and keep going.
And once it finally becomes too much for a quad, we walk the rest of the way.
When we arrived back to High Prairie, we learned that we would be doing layout in blocks that have been burnt by wildfire. This meant that on top of what we do in regular layout we also had to map out areas of burn and differentiate between burn severity. In some cases, wood that has been burnt can still be salvaged and used to make OSB which is why we map it out. When we do layout in burn, we call it “Salvage layout”.
When we differentiate burn, we sort it into three categories, root, red and black
Black burn is not able to be salvaged, the fire has burnt the entire tree.
In most cases we can salvage red burn as the wood inside the bark is normally in good condition
We can salvage root burn as well, this is the least severe burn as the wood is barely affected.
Here is a screenshot of what a block looks like once we have laid it out, the blue lines are mapped waterways, and the red lines are areas that have been burnt. The little shapes (Stars, triangle and circles) are comments, wildlife points and block notes. These are important because it lets us take note of what we see, how much good wood is in the blocks; what type of wildlife are present and anything else. We have all been working hard to lay out all the burnt blocks because they should be harvested this season or next year by the latest. The trees are already dead therefore the wood is left standing, drying out and degrading as time passes on which puts us on a time crunch to harvest it while it can still be used. Since returning from Saskatchewan this is what we have been up to nearly every day.
With the amount of time spent on foot in remote locations, it is also important to carry the right gear with you, here is what I carry on me everyday doing layout:
Some of this equipment may be less self explanatory than others, a compass, knife and first aid kit are iteming any adventurer would carry and be familiar with.
The GPS system is what allows us to map out waterways or burnt areas in the block, there is a power console which I put in a pouch and a receiver which sits on my shoulder to collect accurate data. This system connects to my tablet by Bluetooth so I can edit what I am mapping (We use a program comparable to google maps to do this however it has a few more features). Despite this way of mapping there are some instances where we need to physically indicate the location of water which is why I carry ribbon as well. We ribbon boundaries of water so that it is visible to the loggers operating machinery. I have a field guide as well which has some information on identifying certain plants and types of streams or wetlands. The Garmin In-Reach is a very important piece of kit as it allows you to communicate without cell service (Which is needed often).
A lot goes into block layout, an interesting skill set is needed to be proficient in this job because you must be able to handle yourself in the woods while also having a solid academic understanding of how the forest works (The science and whatnot). Laying out a cut block is a crucial step in making sure OSB makes it to the local lumber mart (In fact it is the first step). The importance of efficiency is made clear by the heavy machinery used to harvest wood, it does not move quickly and is expensive to run. It only makes sense to send in people on foot to map it all out before sending in such heavy equipment.
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