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May/June 2005 issue	In this issue Table of Contents Feature: Bioprospecting In-depth: Bioprospecting The Inside Story Editor’s Notebook Reverberations Explorer À la carte Mosaic

Heritage horses

For 20 years, I was president of the Canadian Wild Horse Society (CWHS). In those days, our main concern was the cruelty involved in the traffic of wild horses for the pet-food trade. Chilcotin wild horses ("Mustang valley," CG Mar/Apr 2005) were rounded up in makeshift corrals and taken out to Williams Lake, shipped by rail to Squamish, by barge to Vancouver, then by rail again to Portland, Oregon, where they were killed for pet food. The journey was a nightmare: the animals were exposed to continuous stress and suffering. Many were injured during the barge trip and had to be put down when they reached Vancouver. The CWHS campaigned vigorously against this gross cruelty and succeeded in bringing that traffic to an end.

Nothing much else has changed in the intervening years. Some suggest the horses are the direct descendants of Spanish stock, and others say they are the feral product of domestic horses turned out on the range and abandoned. The position of the CWHS is that it doesn’t matter. What matters is, we have hundreds of horses today that are capable of suffering from stress, injury and cruelty. The solution is to protect them as we protect the horses on Sable Island, N.S. One success that can be claimed at least partially by the CWHS was persuading the Diefenbaker government to declare Sable Island a sanctuary for wild horses. We hope Paul Martin will be as concerned and as compassionate.

T. I. Hughes
President, Canadian Horse and Pony Protection Association
Barrie, Ont.

I believe the mustangs of British Columbia’s Chilcotin country are an important cultural treasure and an important part of Canadian heritage that definitely should be protected.

Gerry MacDonald
Charlottetown, P.E.I.

Landy across Labrador

I was pleased to see the piece on Jerry Kobalenko’s recent trans-Labrador trek ("The iceman returns," CG Mar/Apr 2005). I’ve been planning to take my 1952 Land Rover across Labrador this August and was concerned about undertaking the long drive alone. Then you reminded me of what Kobalenko has done, and I felt guilty. At the very worst, I’ll be alone at the side of the road for a bit, but I’ll never have to drag the Landy any distance. What am I concerned about? A little boredom crossing some of the most beautiful ground on the planet?

George E. Sollish
Baldwinsville, New York

I have twice visited, in winter, Jerry Kobalenko’s "wild and lonely" Labrador. It is, whether coast, interior plateau or mountains, profoundly beautiful. Its people and their history demand our deepest respect. I know well why Jerry returns.

Keith Jones
Oshawa, Ont.

Townships history

I appreciated "Stone stash," Merilyn Simonds’ geocaching story and tales of travel in Brome-Missisquoi ("Exploration," CG Mar/Apr 2005) because I was born and raised on a farm near Bedford, Que. I especially enjoyed the picture of the covered bridge over Groat Creek. My mother travelled across this bridge many times in a horse-drawn buggy on her way to teach in Saskatchewan, Federated Co-operatives and their member cooperatives are among the most successful and respected organizations in Canada, and credit unions have long been the most trusted and reliable financial system throughout the Prairies for many years.

Dennis Deters
Guelph, Ont.

Alberta’s oily wealth

Herman Schwenk of Coronation, Alta., said in his letter (CG Mar/Apr 2005) that if only Saskatchewan’s people stopped electing socialist governments, Saskatchewan could be as wealthy as Alberta. May I remind him that our only experiment with a "right-wing, businessoriented government" in the past 30 years left us a massive legacy of debt and proved so unpopular that the Saskatchewan Progressive Conservative Party has been in virtual permanent hibernation ever since. Now even the federal Conservative Party does not want to be associated with our former premier Grant Devine.

Some Albertans like to think that their prosperity stems from their intelligence and good management, but Aritha van Herk was correct in her article ("Imagine one big province," CG Jan/Feb 2005) that it is the oil which has created Alberta’s prosperity. If Saskatchewan had the same amount of oil, it would be as prosperous as Alberta, regardless of the political stripe of the government.

Bryan Tudor
Lumsden, Sask.

I remember a sign from my years in Alberta: "Please Lord, just give us one more oil boom, and this time we won’t screw it up!" Perhaps the Alberta government, while doing everything right, didn’t do everything well.

Edward Cruddas
Toronto

Bilingual numbers

In "Best of the West" ("Discovery," CG Jan/Feb 2005), one learns that 0.001 percent of Saskatchewan’s population is bilingual. That is a total of 10 bilingual people out of a population of one million. If that information is reliable, then I have met all of them, and some more. The same applies concerning about 64 bilingual people in Alberta out of a population of 3.2 million.

Bernard Béland
Sherbrooke, Que.

Editor’s note: Mathematical gremlins added two extra zeros to our calculations. Bilingual people make up 0.1% of Saskatchewan’s population and 0.2% of Alberta’s.

Visual reportage

Thank you for the Global Citizen issue (CG Nov/Dec 2004). As a photographer, I was pleased to see the work of so many colleagues pursuing projects around the world. In addition, many of us cover issues in this country that are important to Canadians and are often under-reported compared with the images of far-flung parts of the globe. At some point, the passion for the craft of reportage is all that drives us and inspires our creative energies. Thank you again for promoting Canadian photographers.

Duane Prentice
Victoria

World map feedback

In the "Editor’s notebook" last issue, we invited readers to comment on the Canada and the World map that was included as a 75th anniversary gift with the Nov/Dec 2004 issue. Here is a selection of your comments:

After supper last night, I took a break from report cards to look at the latest issue of Canadian Geographic. I read it from cover to cover at home, then took it to school to use with my grade-six class. Thank you for such an outstanding publication.

Thank you, too, for the new world map in the previous issue. I’ve used it as part of our grade-six social studies of Canada and its world connections. I am also using it with the grade-four-to-six students in my after-school short-wave listening and amateur radio club.

With Canada and the World up on the blackboard with fridge magnets, we’re learning about our trading partners and how Canada is making a difference in the world. At club time, we use the map to learn about continents, countries and communities as we travel across time zones and continents, by shortwave and amateur radio, to hear the voices and music of the world.

Neil Carleton
Almonte, Ont.

I am a map junkie. I love everything from tourist maps to 1:50,000 scale topographic maps. Needless to say, I was thrilled to receive the latest map of the world. I am an assistant pastor at New Life Assembly in Petrolia, Ont. We are very concerned with reaching out to needy people in Canada and worldwide. Our mission is to provide physical and spiritual assistance, and we currently support orphanages, rehab centres and churches in Haiti, Ukraine and Uzbekistan. I have used the map to gain a better understanding of the nations surrounding our missions.

Rev. Stephen Barkley
Petrolia, Ont.

My husband and I love to travel, but we have only just started our journey together (we were married in October 2004). We put the map up in our home office and have used coloured pins on it to show where we have been. One colour is his, one is mine, and the third is ours. We are debating whether we should use a fourth colour for the places we hope to go, but they may overshadow the places we have been.

So thank you for this map. We love to sit back and dream about where the next adventure may take us.

Sandra Rickard
Thunder Bay, Ont.

We love the new map. The Canada and the World side is pinned to the wall in our kitchen and is used daily. We check locations of world events and news, trace travel routes of friends and often get up from a meal or discussion to refer to the map. Last year, members of our family travelled to places as far-flung as Grise Fiord, Nunavut, and Botswana, and our kids are living in Victoria, Montréal and Rankin Inlet, Nunavut. Having access to the geographical perspective of Canada and the world is great. We do regret that we can’t see both sides at once. The only picky note we have so far is that Israel doesn’t have a capital city indicated.

David and Sally Gray
Metcalfe, Ont.

My map is no longer in my possession, but I will explain why. As a geography major, I have many maps and atlases as well as a globe. In one room, I have three maps on a wall — world, Canada and Ontario. A co-worker is geographically challenged and is always asking me where places are. He is keen on improving his knowledge, however, and so I gave him your map.

Mario Payeur
Kapuskasing, Ont.

We have put your magazine at the top of our list of things to read, right next to Birds & Blooms. We enjoy nature and are expanding our interests as your magazines arrive. The map arrived at a good time. We sponsor two World Vision children — one in Africa and one in Indonesia. Your map helped us locate them, and when the tsunami hit both of those areas, we were relieved to see that they were away from that region.

Sherrie Stephenson
Forest, Ont.

Our new map is already dog-eared. Even though we are grandparents trying to keep up with the latest technology, we feel that having children "look it up" (in a book) is still the best way to enhance learning and reading skills and, hopefully, an interest in lifelong education. In one of our look-it-up sessions, it became apparent that our atlases (Canadian and world) were out of date. Needless to say, the arrival of your new world map saved the day.

Cameron White
Huntsville, Ont.

I do international consulting in developing countries and am planning a project for the great-lakes region of Africa. The information on your map has been extremely useful in setting the background for the project. Thank you for providing it.

Romeo Messier
Ottawa

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* Letters may be edited for length, accuracy and liability.