Promises to Keep – the story

Posted on September 7, 2013 by Skid

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I did another little canoe solo this week and returned to my favourite campsite to keep a promise. My wife was busy at work, my youngest son was off to high school, and I was free to take the path of the paddle again. This week, the lake was quiet with only the occasional fisherman trolling by slowly. The week before I had to deal with the regular end-of-summer folk buzzing the lake with skiboats and wakeboarders and the insidious "personal water craft" that have allowed a motorcycle gang mentality to take over summer waterways. Add alcohol to the mix and you have stupid people on powerful machines just waiting for an accident to happen or a campsite to trash.

On the other hand that week, I met a wonderful family from Oakville – Ed and Sheila and their children and dog – who had motor boated in to the campsite opposite mine and were having a hearty week of family camping. I paddled over to their site to say hello and ask them about the condition of their campground. They were delighted that I was cleaning up the other site, they had tried to do the same with theirs, and we ended up talking about everything under the sun – responsible camping, values and ethics, climate change, school, and even dog training. We had established a camping community of like minds, they in their motorboat and me in my canoe. All good.

Then on the way out, I stopped at my favourite truck stop near Waubaushene, topped off my Prius, and sat down for a coffee. The woman serving me had noticed my canoe and was suitably impressed (Chester IS special). When I told her where I had been camping and cleaning up, she gave me a big smile and said, "I got married there. In February. We walked across the ice to the rock shelf above the second pool." Now that is truly a small world. My wife and I were also married in the great outdoors.

It turned out that Wendy had been born in Atlanta, moved to Missouri, and vacationed every summer on our northern Ontario lake, eventually moving up to live here permanently. Although the man she married had lived all his life on that lake, they didn't meet until she was in her thirties as fate would have it. We chatted on for several minutes, another like mind who loved canoes, cottages, and clean campsites. I promised Wendy I was coming back to finish the job and to post a notice to future campers. It was a promise I was keeping both to all those who lived in and loved our northern lakes and sacred spaces, and to my father.

From my youth until his passing, we went fishing and camping often during the summer. From Georgian Bay to Rice Lake to Temagami, we fished and camped our way to an unbreakable father and son bond. Whenever we left a campsite, he would make a final walkabout, ensuring that the fire was dead out and that a little pile of sheltered kindling was tucked away discreetly for the next camper. Then he would turn to me and say, "Son, always leave your campsite cleaner than you found it."

I put that saying up in a small sign on "my campsite" yesterday. Then I canoed down the channel and cleaned up three more. An endless quest along the path of the paddle. Thanks, Dad, for giving my retirement a purpose. I have promises to keep, and miles to go before I sleep.

*****

Skid Crease, Caledon

The Sacred and The Profane

Posted on August 31, 2013 by Skid

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I took a solo voyage of rediscovery this past week. No one else in the family was able to go canoeing, so I loaded my beloved "Chester" on the car, packed my gear, and was on the road. I bought my cedar-strip canoe in 1979 from Omer Stringer, legendary Algonquin Park guide, the same year that the Chestnut factory in Fredericton closed its doors. Omer found three of their canoes stored in a barn in Peterborough and called me: "I have found the perfect hull design for you – this is a beautiful canoe." And it was true. Omer is paddling cosmic rivers now, but Chester lives on, newly restored by Marc Russell, a former canoe student of mine running the Gull Lake Boat Works in Toronto.

I love canoe tripping, and I especially love canoe tripping solo. This little journey was going to be balm for my soul, and I had the perfect destination – a scenic campsite off the Gibson River canoe route. My students and I had camped there every year through their junior high to secondary school graduation. My trip across the lake was idyllic – brilliant sunshine, enough of a wind to make life interesting, and a loon who surfaced off my bow and gave me the wing flap salute in what I am sure was a welcome back gesture.

The campsite was as beautful as ever from a distance – still sacred in my memory. It was on pine swept point that opened up on to a channel of the lake on one side and a series of pools with water cascading down from the big chute far upstream. But as I inspected the site to set up camp I was horrified at the desecration that had taken place over the thirty years since I had last been there. The entire ground area, once walkable in bare feet, was covered in broken glass, plastic water bottle tops and bread bag closures, and bits and pieces of broken gear.

The campfire circle that we always kept small had expanded into a Viking funeral pyre and the entire area was littered with glass, can lids, partly burned food and half burned logs big enough to build a cabin. Someone had put an old rectangular metal stove beside the firepit alongside the remants of less durable stoves, BBQs and cooking grates – a kind of graveyard to bad wilderness cooking. The old stove itself was filled with empty beer and liquor bottles.

The most disturbing discovery was the amount of cigarette butts covering every inch of the campsites and trail systems, along with toilet paper clumps every few feet along the trails behind the tenting area. That, and the fact that every tree had been stripped of its branches as far as the arm could reach. Ironically, high in a tree partly covered by vegetation, was a sign posted by the Ministry of Natural Resources for the Government of Ontario proudly stating: "This Area is a Conservation Reserve – low impact, no-trace camping only". Not only could you barely see the sign, but the detailed print was so small it would have been missed by the most ethical of campers, let alone the ignorant humans who had nearly destroyed the site.

I spent the rest of that day and the next morning cleaning up – when I left in the afternoon, it was as clean as I could get it – I loaded three full, large heavy duty garbage bags into Chester and we paddled back home. I let the ranger at the Provincial Park entrance know about the situation and she promised a year-end sweep of the area. I'm going back in the fall to check it out and post a new sign, something from a teaching my father left me: "Son, always leave your campsite cleaner than you found it."

Amen.

*****

Skid Crease, Caledon

Harper Finds Humility

Posted on June 28, 2013 by Skid

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I have waited ten years to see Stephen Harper humbled. I thought it would take a full-blown caucus revolt or a leadership convention defeat, or a massive loss in the next federal election. It only took an act of nature. While his head was firmly stuck in the tar sands, all of Mr. Harper's climate change chickens came home to roost in the capital of his oil industry on June 20, 2013.

When he arrived in Calgary on June 21, the flood devastation was at its peak. There was no controlled media studio with seamlessly edited images of kittens and blue sweaters. This was all too real with a sombre Harper overlooking the Bow River flanked by some real leaders. The Mayor of Calgary was resolute, the Premier of Alberta was decisive, the Prime Minster of Canada was simply stunned. “I never imagined we could have a flood of this magnitude in this country. Until you really see it in person you don’t get a sense…this is an incredible event,” Harper said. No imagination. This is the same man who proclaimed that climate change was a socialist plot.

Aided by his "Friends of Science" climate change deniers like Tim Ball and Ross McKitrick and all the other signatories on the anti-Kyoto petition delivered to the newly installed PM in 2006, Harper has systematically destroyed Canada's credibility. He has denied accelerating climate change exists, has removed Canada from the Kyoto Protocol obligations, has snubbed existing environmental review policies, and has impeded the development of new ones. All the while, legitimate meteorologists and scientists have been warning about the increasing frequency of severe storms as one of the symptoms of accelerating climate change.

The insurance industry has also been vocal, serving notice that claims for severe storm damage have been steadily increasing in frequency and dollar amount. Unfortunately for Calgarians, Canada is the only G8 country that does not offer overland flood insurance. Critics of this lack of foresight have suggested that we adopt the UK model that links insurance policy coverage to the government's policies to mitigate severe climate change catastrophes. No government policy, no insurance coverage. And those policies would include severe storm disaster preparation.

Part of my heart and soul are in Alberta. I met my first grizzly in Waterton Lakes while horseback riding on the trails, and later rock climbing there marvelled at a golden eagle as it soared beneath me. I delivered my first major Global Perspectives keynote on Earth Day 1990 in Kananaskis Country to a lengthy standing ovation. I got married in 1999 in Canmore on the banks of Cougar Creek under the peaks of The Three Sisters and our wedding party walked through town along the Creek's new boardwalk. On June 20, 2013 that was all washed away. My entire wedding party lives and works in Calgary. I emailed them all as soon as we got news of the flood. Their homes were safe and the cabin in Canmore was on high ground and protected. They are also practitioners in wilderness crisis management, and their response didn't mince words: "We are fine, but the city is crippled. This is serious – there's a wide world of hurt ripping away so close to us."

Calgary and Alberta, my heart is with you. Stephen Harper, this is supposed to be your home – wake up!

*****

Skid Crease, Caledon

Skeptics versus Contrarians and Deniers

Posted on June 18, 2013 by Skid

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I accidently stumbled upon a website the other day that reminded me how dangerous the Internet can be for web surfers, especially students, searching for legitimate information. A simple search for a weather report landed me in the site of not just a climate change skeptic, but a climate change contrarian/denier.

A skeptic is one who doubts the validity of a scientific theory until proven otherwise – a necessary debate in science. But a contrarian/denier is one who dismisses the scientific validity of a theory despite overwhelming data, research, reports and scientific consensus. The term "denier" when applied to climate change was initially hotly debated by ethnic communities who claimed it was both usurping and denigrating the concept of World War II Jewish holocaust deniers. However, the terms holocaust and denier have legitimate and necessary meaning beyond the horrors of the last world war holocausts. Further, those terms are not owned by or copyrighted to Judaic history.

A holocaust is a sacrifice consumed by fire. It directly applies to fire and nuclear destruction involving extensive loss of life, but can also be extended to mean any massive slaughter of people. A holocaust denier is one who says the destruction/loss of life never happened. A climate change denier is one who says accelerating climate change due to anthropogenic causes is not happening. Both ways of thinking are equally condemnable.

When 95% of the practicing, published and peer-reviewed climate change scientists globally agree that a) climate change is a natural cyclical process, and b) we are living in a period of accelerating climate change due to anthropogenic causes, then anyone who disagrees with that consensus is not a skeptic, but a contrarian/denier. The accelerated change is a human caused economic decision, and the predicted collapse of species populations, including human, will result in a holocaust unparalleled in human history. The violence in the Middle East will pale in comparison with the global upheaval caused by the collapse of even one of Earth's ecological systems.

You don't have to be a rocket scientist to predict what will happen when 7 billion people start scrambling for food and shelter on the remaining habitable spaces. The Earth is clearly saying, "You can pay me now, or you can pay me later." Deny this and we all pay.

*****

Skid Crease, Caledon

Trudeau is the Real Thing

Posted on May 11, 2013 by Skid

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Reprint from April 16, 2013: response to Caledon Enterprise reporter Matthew Strader’s headline story on Justin Trudeau, Hype or Hope?

Yes, Matthew, there is a new leader of the Liberal Party of Canada. And, like your childhood dreams of Santa, he is very much the real thing. I had the pleasure and privilege of working with Justin aboard the MV Lindblad Explorer during a Students on Ice Arctic Expedition in 2005. We were the teachers working with a group of seventy-five international students and a host of scientists and explorers.

Our job was to prepare the students to give voice to a Youth Declaration on Environmental Citizenship. Our students presented that Declaration at the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (COP 11) in Montreal in December of that year. Their Declaration, thanks to the support of then Environment Minister Stephane Dion, was endorsed enthusiastically by the United Nations delegates from over 150 nations , and tossed into the shredder in 2006 by a newly elected Stephen Harper.

During those two weeks at sea, Justin and I shared many stories of our fathers, their profound influences on our characters, and our goals in life. I can assure you with complete conviction that Mr. Trudeau believes absolutely in the vision of leadership to which he espouses. He deeply feels that the education he received as a young man growing up at his father’s side, immersed in politics, traveling the world, listening to the conversations between his father and kings, presidents, and prime ministers was a gift given to him, one that he feels he must give back to his country.

Can he win the country? He will have to take Ontario and Quebec to accomplish that goal. And if my riding of Dufferin-Caledon is any bellwether, that will be a challenge. Historically in our riding, if the federal Liberal leader is riding a wave of popular support across the country, a top-notch, well-financed local candidate running a flawless campaign stands a chance of winning. When I was involved in politics here, I was told that you could run a dead cow as the Conservative federal candidate in our riding and it would win by a landslide. I predict that our current Conservative MP will retire to pasture before the federal election of 2015. That will open the slate to an interesting choice for Dufferin-Caledon voters.

Indeed, the next federal election will offer an interesting choice for all voters. I choose hope.

Skid Crease, Caledon