Forestry seasons

Spring: planting season

Tree-planting season runs roughly February-April on the BC coast and May-July in the Interior and further east (2025 estimate, unconfirmed), and is the single biggest seasonal hiring wave in the industry -- most contracts run 2-3 months. It's a punishing, physically demanding introduction for rookies, with pay climbing sharply with experience over the course of a season (see /pay/).

Summer: peak logging and fire season

Summer is typically peak harvesting activity across most regions, but it overlaps with fire season -- roughly July through September, depending on the year's drought conditions -- when provincial fire bans or industry shutdown orders can pause harvesting for 2-6 weeks at a time. Some crews shift to wildfire suppression work for the duration instead (see /pay/ for typical rates), and some workers qualify for EI after a sufficient gap.

Fall: final push and layoffs

Fall brings a final harvesting push before weather closes operations down for the winter, along with layoff planning for seasonal crews. Mill work, by contrast, typically continues year-round regardless of the harvesting season.

Winter: mill work and cold-weather logging

Some Interior and Northern operations shift to winter logging, when frozen ground makes certain terrain easier to access than in summer. Mill work continues year-round and is the most stable income option for anyone who wants to avoid the seasonal gap that harvesting and planting crews budget around.

Camp rotations within the season

On top of the seasonal calendar, longer-running logging operations often run camp rotations similar to other remote industries -- commonly 14 days on/7 off or 20 days on/10 off, depending on the employer and how far the camp is from town.