Eating Dirt: Deep Forests, Big Timber & Life with the Tree-Planting Tribe

A tree planter’s job is undeniably repetitive. But the complex role these semi-nomads play in re-foresting Canada is anything but boring.

Charlotte Gill—a “lifer” tree planter herself—dishes on the unique lives of this subculture in Eating Dirt. Tree planters are both part of the problem and part of the solution in Canada’s conflicted forestry industry. Considered saviors by some and delinquents by others, they are a quirky crew. How tree planters live and work comprises a surprisingly fascinating—and sometimes dangerous—lifestyle.

Explore a world most of us can’t imagine: the clear cuts of back country British Columbia and Ontario. What happens to those razed lands? How do all those tiny new trees win their chance to sprout up to the sky and repopulate the forests? This is the stomping ground of tree planters.

But there’s even more to Eating Dirt. Gill explains how forests grow. She exposes the disadvantages of new growth monoculture and the hopeful promises of replanting. Best of all, she describes her own inspiring relationship with the forests that become her temporary homes.

Charlotte Gill’s award-winning talent shines unexpectedly luminous in this tale of grit and struggle. Eating Dirt is so poetically written and provides such unexpected insights that you’ll want to read and repeat until its seeds of understanding sprout in your mind.

Get your copy of Eating Dirt here.