Screefing: A Tree Planter's Reflection

'Screefing' tells the story of a group of tree-planters living and working on the clear-cuts of the northern forest, tracing the psychological development of the main characters as they become increasingly removed from the urban society in which they have lived most of their lives. The book is a collection of short prose pieces and a few poems, with the prose consisting of short narratives, journal entries, and the occasional letter. Prominent in the book—not only in terms of description but also in terms of its relationships with the characters—is the land of the Precambrian Shield, which serves problematically as a source of employment on the one hand and spiritual contemplation and insight on the other. While most of the narrative is based on real events, several of the prose pieces and some of the poems tell of Stone Man, a trickster earth-spirit who personifies some of the wilder and seemingly whimsical elements of the northern landscape. The book is divided into three sections, each set in one of the bush camps in which the characters live. These sections—“Chapleau,” “Terrace Bay,” and “Elliot Lake”—follow the characters as they undergo a simultaneous breakdown and awakening, internalizing some of the amorality embodied by the land itself and by its avatar Stone Man, and learning to see beyond the limits of their own biases and expectations. The book, which is difficult to fit into a traditional generic category, might best be called creative non-fiction,