Editor in Chief:
Shani Blankrot
Treeplanting! Go for it!
Damon (4th year Mechanical)
T
he most difficult article to
write would have to be an ar-
ticle about treeplanting. There is
so much to be said about the indus-
try and the experience that all past
attempts quickly fragment-
ed into uncorrelated, loose-
ly connected thoughts and
observations. Perhaps in a
similar manner that Kurt
Vonnegut’s final novel
did. Nonetheless, however
uncorrelated, there were
fragments that drove right
to the heart of the situa-
tion. The comedy inherent
in all things; whether you
are taking on the subject of
tree planting or your disap-
pointments with modern
society. So here goes…
There is nothing like
waking up at 5:30am in a
UNBC campus dorm, feel-
ing for the role of duck
tape to wrap up your plant-
ing fingers. Fingers which,
if you are lucky, you will
jam into the ground 2000
times by the end of the day for
that $250 in piece work. Or, if you
are useless and came treeplanting
to ‘do your part for the planet’, or
some bull like that, you will bare-
ly plant enough trees to pay your
camp costs and will generally be a
nuisance to fellow planters.
What is treeplanting? Treeplant-
ing involves replanting logged
sections of Canada’s forests with
foot-long seedlings. A logged plot
of land is called a ‘Block’. You re-
introduce to it your fir, spruce, and
pines with a dibble or modified
shovel. You carry 300 trees at a
time in bags strapped to your back.
The season is during the summer
months: May, June, and some-
Top 10 Iron Ring Rumors
10
Gossip Geek's identity will
be revealed at this year's
ceremony.
9 6
Iron ring holders wear robes
covering their faces and chant.
8
Food Science students get iron
rings.
7
Due to budget cuts, this
year's lunch will either be a
hamburger and hot dog BBQ, a
Chinese buffet, or an assortment
times July. Perfect employment
for a university student! Generally
you get 10-12 cents per tree plant-
ed in British Columbia. However,
I’ve heard reports of receiving no
more than 7 cents a tree in Ontario.
Planting 1500 trees a day is gener-
ally a good baseline. Higher-end
treeplanters might shoot for 3000-
4000 a day.
To put things into perspective,
if you are an efficient treeplanter,
60 percent of the trees you have
planted will live to see another
summer. If you are a slow, care-
ful, thoughtful planter who relates
with narcissistic organizations like
‘Friends of Earth’, 65 percent of
the trees you have planted will
live to see another summer. But to
point out some ‘Simple Math’, the
efficient treeplanter would have
planted a substantially higher vol-
ume of trees, meaning her 60 per-
cents went further.
The stories you will walk away
with treeplanting will be lucra-
of Aramark sandwiches (wait,
isn't this more expensive than a sit
down lunch at the Westin?).
Students will be required to
use a calculator, while blind-
folded, to solve a math problem
given to them on a stone tablet.
5
This year's iron ring event is
a discipline challenge. Make
sure to buy a dress or suit in your
discipline's color.
tive and plentiful. That time you
pooped on the block and sprinkled
some soil on top, only to find that
at the end of the day someone had
planted a tree in it. That time you
thought you were part of project
MKULTRA (Mackenzie Division)
observing your Toronto buddy’s
rebirth from an egg to a 6 foot
5 firmly build Irish-Canadian;
only to remember that you your-
self took a hit of something. The
time, 30 days into a desolate and
extremely isolated logging camp,
to be specific, that all the themes
introduced in Joseph Conrad’s
‘Heart of Darkness’ were appar-
ent. The numerous times you see
bears and moose on the block. The
helicopter drop-ins to blocks in-
accessible by road. The trips you
take with fellow planters on days
off to Whitehorse and beyond…
Of course illicit recreation drug
consumption is an insignificant,
if not non-existent, aspect of tree-
planting. Treeplanting can be lik-
ened to running one or two mara-
thons a day. Under a physically
4
The dean of engineering sits
on a throne the entire time,
and if you look him in the eye you
burn alive.
3
A lamb is sacrificed.
2
You have the opportunity to
join a polygamist cult during
the ceremony.
1
Everyone is branded on their
left butt cheek.
February 16th 2011
Page 1
exhaustive working regime getting
drunk or stoned on a regular basis CO-OP CORNER
is simply not an option. Save it Things to Remember:
for your days off, I suppose. Ulti- • The Co-op website offers
mately, the best drug is the utopian many tips and is very infor-
mindset reached on the final push mation. The website is
of a long run or bicycle ride. engandcompscicoop.dal.ca
So what character traits are inher- • Round II is from February 15
ent in a good treeplanter? – April 8
A trip to the local art gallery is Word of the Week
necessary to find the means Threadjacking (v): when someone
of truly describing the tree- adds a message to a twitter thread
planter breed. Exhibit when they weren't part of the
initial discussion. Sometimes awe-
placards always have the some, sometimes frustrating.
most peculiar adjectives.
But due to time constraints Editors’ note: Word of the Week is a humour column
and pending assignments,
based on popular expressions around Sexton Campus.
If you have any complaints or suggestions, please email
haggard, spastic, amor- sextant@dal.ca. Obviously we prefer suggestions!
phous and colourful will
have to do.
The most important as-
pect of the job is music.
For those of you who are
going out for your first sea-
son, make sure to bring a
comprehensive collection
of Canadian music. Your Write.
Cowboys Fringants, Tragi- Get Paid.
cally Hip, Timber Timbre, Send articles to sextant@dal.ca
Gerry Boulet, Caledonia,
Neil Young, Pépé et Sa
Guitare, The Band etc.
Bumping along a barely
navigable skid trail in your
F-150, 40 grade slope on both
Halifax's Best Trivia!
sides, dazed after a 12 hour, 3000
tree day listening to those boys Sexton Campus
from Southeastern Ontario is it…
Events
The most satisfying point in your
Looking for something to do?
life.
Not spending enough time
The end of the day; time to crack
mingling with other faculties/
open a Pacific Pilsner and get at
some good literature. Cook some
disciplines? Then check out
pasta or chili for the week, maybe some of these events.
read your Advanced Engineering Thursday February 17th
Mathematics book.
Civil/Mining Society Night, T
In short, go for it! Treeplanting
Room
will be the experience of your
lifetime; an indefinite character Friday February 18th
builder. Trivia - Med Vs. Engineers
Have fun firing trees into the
Monday Feb 21 - Friday Feb 25
ground this summer!
STUDY BREAK
Thursday March 3rd
The Sextant is published by the
IE Society Night, T Room
Dalhousie Sextant Publishing
Society and aims to represent Saturday, March 5th
all of the students studying and IRON RING
living on Sexton Campus.
Editor: Shani Blankrot Does your society have an
Assistant Editor: Dilan Watson event on Sexton Campus? Send
Treasurer: Riccardo Ciccarelli an email to sextant@dal.ca and
we’ll post it here!
If you have any concerns about
the paper, please email sex- Don't forget - it's free to adver-
tant@dal.ca tise a society on The Sextant.
daleng.ca

Dal Eng dominates at the AEC
Laura Weeden
(4th year Civil)
On Munroe day while you were
all relaxing and enjoying a day
off doing homework, the DalEng
team was working hard at the
Atlantic Engineering Competi-
tion (AEC). The competition was
hosted by Université de Moncton
this year. After one long weekend
and a snow storm, Dal holds 1st,
2nd and 3rd places in many dif-
ferent events!
In Debate, Evan MacAdam and
Donald MacIsaac showed Saint
Mary’s who’s boss, taking first
place with topics such as "Should
Canada become nuclear power
dependant?"
In Junior Design, both Dal teams
worked very hard. Shelby Pottle,
Philip Iatridis, Mitchell McInnis,
and Grace Dobek took first place
for their design to get the "doc-
tor" (an egg) across the "river"
(comparable to the size of a kid-
die pool) to the "sick people" on
the other side, intact. Most were
trebuchet, sling shot, and catapult
What you should know about FAIR TRADE
Emily Stewart
(4th year Enviro)
D oes Fair Trade have the
potential to make a long-
term significant difference in
the global trade system?
Fair Trade brings the inequi-
ties of trade to the conscious-
ness of consumers, and from
a system change perspective,
addresses one specific aspect of
trade – commodity markets – by
making prices more predictable
and bringing other benefits to
farmers. Fair Trade itself doesn’t
address all the inequities of trade,
which include tariffs, subsi-
dies, etc. Bringing trade to the
consciousness of people, though,
does have the potential to put
the issue higher up on the public
agenda, which provides much
greater opportunities for change.
Fair Trade can also be seen as a
stepping stone on a path to better
trade systems, in a similar way
that hybrid cars can be seen as a
stepping stone to better environ-
mental systems.
Fair Trade will most likely evolve
and change over time to better
meet changing needs. At some
point, we may actually have bet-
type designs, so there were lots of
flying doctors!
Laura Weeden won third place
for her presentation on Bioenergy
in the Communications competi-
tion, and the two Dal teams in
Consulting Engineering did a
great job putting up a tough fight
for the other teams!
Finally, Senior Design, the most
anticipated event of the weekend:
we had two teams who both had
very creative designs. The task
was to design any form of device
that would help an old man
get coconuts down from a tree
because he can no longer climb
up and get them himself. It was
a tough task, but in the end Mike
Marchand’s team of Nick Greeno,
John Skonnard, and Chris Carter
took second place with their
grappling hook design.
Great job team!! Good luck to
the Debate, Junior and Senior
teams, as they advance to the Ca-
nadian Engineering Competition
hosted by McGill in Montreal, the
weekend of March 12th. Knock
em’ dead.
ter systems that will make Fair
Trade irrelevant. The changes that
occur, in trade and Fair Trade spe-
cifically, over the coming decades
are impossible to fully predict,
and social change is - by nature -
messy. But, Fair Trade is making a
positive contribution now and is
likely to create positive effects for
the future.
Does Fair Trade sufficiently en-
able producers to participate in
manufacturing and other value-
added processing?
The Fair Trade supply chain
removes many of the middlemen,
which enables the producers in
developing countries to earn a
bigger share of the product value.
Nevertheless, the largest value-
add still occurs in the final stages
of processing, which takes place
in North America or Europe. The
global trading system is imper-
fect, and developing countries are
working on becoming more than
just net exporters of raw materi-
als.
Does Fair Trade Certification
include sufficient environmental
standards?
Fair Trade encourages environ-
mental sustainability by promot-
ing the use of organic production
Comic by Jeremy Lai in Electrical Engineering
Do you have a comic/picture/drawing/abstract art? Email that baby over! You get PAID.
methods. Additionally, farmers
are prevented from using banned
pesticides. The sufficiency of that
is up for debate, but environmen-
tal standards are an important,
but secondary, goal of the Fair
Trade movement.
Responsible environmental
management is directly tied to
social well-being and health (i.e.
exposure to pesticides, source wa-
ter protection etc.), however, there
are tradeoffs that need to be made
between economic and social
well-being and the environment.
The use of chemical fertilizers and
pesticides (herbicides, insecti-
cides, fungicides) has conclusively
shown to improve yields and
incomes. Coffee, in particular, is
prone to agricultural pests that are
very difficult to control without
chemicals. The appropriate bal-
ance between environmental,
economic, and social objectives is
an important question for the Fair
Trade movement. The appropri-
ate balance of which is up for
debate.
How can Fair Trade influence
corporate policy?
Companies and retailers react to
consumer, market, and societal
trends. For example, greater pub-
Apparel - Belt Buckles (Bronze, Silver and Gold
toned), Keychains and T-Shirts!
EngiBEERing every Friday afternoon in the Design
Commons! Wear a sweater vest for a free beer!
lic environmental consciousness
has led to grocery stores adopting
alternatives to the plastic bag.
The anti-sweatshop movement
was all about using this consumer
pressure: "Stop Sweatshops" was
a very simple version of a more
complex demand for better labour
and environmental standards.
The number of consumers asking
companies to “Stop Sweatshops”
has led to many companies adjust-
ing their practices in a positive
direction.
Retailers will respond to consum-
ers caring more about where their
coffee comes from. Fair Trade is a
simple way to send this message.
Second Cup complained about
the loads of people asking for Fair
Trade coffee, and mentioned this
was something they were work-
ing on getting into place, as well
as more transparent (and better)
purchasing and environmen-
tal policies. National advocacy
amongst Canadians was likely one
contributing factor to Second Cup
introducing the Fair Trade blend
“Cuzco” one and a half years later.
There is still a fair amount to learn
about how these mechanisms
work, and on what scale they are
effective. Also, companies don’t
generally like third-party certifica-
tion (because it requires substan-
February 16th 2011
Page 2
tial transparency and a bit of extra
work), which is essential for any
ethical sourcing or “Fair Trade”.
Fair Trade seems like a simplis-
tic answer to a complex issue of
trade that fails to meet the needs
of developing countries.
There are many very large com-
plex problems with trade. Fair
Trade Certified offers a great alter-
native to the problems within the
trade of commodities specifically.
Get PAID
100-200 words -- $15
200-400 words -- $25
400 - 600 words -- $30
600+ -- $35
Picture(s) with article -- +$5, to a
maximum of $5
Picture of the Week, Comic,
abstract -- $20
Note: your content must be
printed on either the print or web
Sextant to qualify for payment
Sextant Positions
Fall 2011
Needed: Editor in Chief and
Assistant Editor. No experi-
ence required. Well compen-
sated. Email sextant@dal.ca