Tree Climbing

One part of my job in the Yukon that I enjoyed a lot more than I thought I would was climbing trees. In the area we were in, there were only two types of trees: aspen (which are deciduous) and spruce (which are coniferous). We needed to climb the trees to find squirrel pups, and squirrel nests are almost always in spruce trees.

If you're lucky, climbing a spruce tree is almost like climbing a ladder: there are plenty of decently thick branches and maybe even enough space and material to sit down on once you get to the level of the squirrel nest. Of course, squirrels don't always take ease of human climbing into account when choosing nest locations. In a lot of cases, there would be thin branches or no branches in between you and the nest, and in those situations you might have to pull yourself up the trunk (not something I am good at) or climb a nearby tree and lean over to get at the nest (spruce trees are pretty flexible).

The most thrilling moment I had while climbing a tree happened when I was about twenty-five feet up in a relatively lonely tree. I reached the target squirrel nest and was happy to find pups in it. I was putting them in a bag to weigh (this is all safe for the pups) and had just gotten them all set when a strong breeze began to blow. I had a helmet on, but didn't really want to see if it worked, so I held the bag of squirrel pups in my mouth and wrapped my arms and legs around the tree as tightly as I could-- the trunk was about eight inches wide at this height. With characteristic flexibility, the tree started to sway back and forth in the breeze, enough to feel like the kind of amusement park ride I don't usually go on. Thankfully, my time with the squirrels gave me a heightened ability to cling to trees and I survived to climb again.