Not too long ago, I read in the Careers section of this paper that The 2002 Jobs Rated Almanac had compiled the lists of 10 best and worst jobs.

Thanks to their probing analysis, I learned that the lumberjack trade tops the worst list, followed closely by the cowboy profession.

I couldn't resist pointing these findings out to Jean-Claude, my neighbour and lumberjack friend; then we took a moment to sit down and discuss his perspective on life from the bottom of the job heap.

Thirty-eight years ago, Jean-Claude followed his father into the woods with saws and a team of horses, and that was the beginning of his schooling in the art of making trees fall down.

He travelled to faraway Labelle-sur-Quevillon, working 15 years for Domtar until 1979, when he and 224 other men in his group were mise pied. Sent walking. They were predictably replaced by machines called chippers and skidders.

Returning to Quebec's Eastern Townships, he remembers working three consecutive winters in the company of 35 other men, to obliterate an orchard of 100,000 sugar maples.

More recently, he is popular locally for selective cuts on privately owned woodlots. He has the reputation of being a very methodical jack, starting at the far end of a line of trees and moving down to the end closest to the machinery, thus economizing his movements while taking the time to ensure that nobody is ever in danger of being squashed or sliced by trunks or branches. He takes pride in not wasting even the smallest cuts of wood from high up on the tree, something that often frustrates his bosses, and makes his co-jacks grin. The thinner four-foot sections are usually not accepted at local paper mills, but they are apparently good enough for mills in Maine.

Shindaiwa, Husqvarna, Stihl, Pioneer. Chainsaws in any language sound virile, purposeful, indefatigable. Jean-Claude could entertain a person for many minutes on the relative merits of various brands of saws (Stihl is a good one because the handle is self-heating, thus eliminating the problem of soggy gloves), the type of oil needed in winter or in summer to make them run, and the necessity of learning the details of their anatomy so that one is not perpetually in a fix. I suspected that the mechanical aspect of his work would be the most trying, somewhat like when your computer crashes. Pas du tout! When there is a real problem, he pulls out a spare to finish the day's work, then goes to the repair shop on his own time to explain what parts need changing.

These small machines run at about $900 each and withstand a little more than a year's worth of sawing. He needs three of them at a time. For someone who works seasonally, at around $12 per hour, mightn't that be a lot to invest? Sometimes an employer will provide one as a Christmas gift. But, in my opinion, that's on the same level as giving your wife a blender.

At the best of times, Jean-Claude is a free man in his own woodlots, selecting his trees strategically, sawing them at his own pace, and selling or using all parts of the tree: eight-, 12- or 16-foot sections for softwood lumber, four-footers for pulp and paper, leftovers for firewood, and sometimes even the branches for essence, at $50 per tonne.

In the winter, his pair of Belgian drafthorses, Tom and Kate, haul the logs from the woods in the winter, while their filly Nelligan is being groomed for future service. Mickey, a squat, hairy dog he acquired for a dollar at a local auction, barks enthusiastic but wholly inappropriate encouragement to the pair of working horses. However, these best of times are rather few and far between. At the worst, Jean-Claude deals with bosses whose eyes are firmly riveted to the bottom line. After all, they don't rake in the big bucks either, after paying federal and provincial taxes, pension contributions, workers compensation, medical insurance, the costs of machinery, gas and oil.

Was there ever any other occupation that could have interested him? There has been and there is: he's already onto it. Farming is only No. 8 on the worst-job list, and he owns what may be one of the smallest and most multiracial community of bovines in the province, along with a similarly diverse group of poultry, goats, sheep, and rabbits. They are the reason he spends all of his down time mending fences, buying feed, sowing grain, and finagling with automatic watering systems. On June 24, his birthday and a holiday, you will almost certainly find him in the fields, cutting or baling hay. Unless it's raining; then he will be mucking out the backstalls.

But these simple activities are a community service in disguise. At 54, Jean-Claude has contributed to the upbringing of several generations of boys. Without nagging or preaching, he teaches them the comradeship of physical labour so effectively that they will do things for him that wouldn't occur to them to try at home. The few dollars he slips to them from time to time probably cost him too much for the work that is actually done, but on the other hand, he has made friends for life.

His life is so replete, I'm not sure I understand why he buys lottery tickets.

If he ever wins the gros lot, he says, he would fulfill his one true dream of setting himself up on a ranch. Horses, cattle, the whole works.

Then you would rather be a cowboy? I asked.

You bet, he said, the corners of his mustache turning up with glee at the thought.

Debbie Tacium Ladry lives in Beaulac-Garthby, Que.