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November/December 2001 issue	In this issue Table of Contents Editor’s Notebook Inside Story Feature: Intruding on wild lives À la carte Reverberations

Lost on the North Boundary

HOW HUMBLING it is to know that park wardens, with their seemingly outdated methods (a simple horse and rider) in this technological age, are still the stalwart barometers of the parks that they patrol ("Backcountry beat," CG Sept/Oct 2001).

Your article brought back memories of a week I spent in Jasper in 1988. "Unbelievable" seems like a deficient word to describe the park. My hat goes off to Gordon Antoniuk for living my dream. When I die, I don't want to go to heaven, I want to go Jasper and be a park warden.

Craig Perry, Sydney, N.S.

IN JULY 1979, when warden Gordon Antoniuk was about seven years into his National Park Service career, a warden named Neil Colgan died on a backcountry horse patrol in Banff National Park. His body was found a few days later. One of his kidneys had been ruptured, probably either by a kick or fall from his horse, and he had bled to death internally. Neil's death is chronicled in Sid Marty's book, Switchbacks, and an Alpine Club of Canada hut above the Valley of the Ten Peaks is named after him. Neil was a friend of mine, and it is important to me that he not be forgotten.

David Stokes, Calgary
Missed mountains

WHILE I ENJOYED your article on mountains, I was disappointed that you included only one shot of Whistler to represent the Coast Mountains — the longest and highest group of mountain ranges in Canada. I have been mountain climbing and hiking in those ranges for the past 40 years and have found many opportunities to appreciate the multitude of outstanding vistas from Yukon's St. Elias Mountains south to Grouse Mountain near Vancouver.

M. Kafer, Vancouver

I WAS DISAPPOINTED that your poster did not include any Ontario mountains, even though the highest peak measures 693 metres ("Endless summits," CG Sept/Oct 2001).

Killarney Provincial Park has the rugged La Cloche Mountains, and there are the Algoma Highlands along the shoreline of Lake Superior. The Blue Mountains sit at the south end of Georgian Bay, and the Opeongo Mountains grace the Ottawa Valley's Madawaska Highlands.

Andrew R. Craig, Ottawa

Tropical invaders
I WAS APPALLED by the article in Discovery extolling the work of the Pacific Northwest Palm and Exotic Plant Society ("Palm Beach, B.C.," CG Sept/Oct 2001). Have neither that group nor the editors of Canadian Geographic learned the lessons of the past concerning importing exotic plants? Have people not learned from the problems of starlings and purple loosestrife, not to mention the many greater problems in other countries, and on other continents, created by importation of exotic species?

Greg Hodges, Mississauga, Ont.

False advertising?
IS THERE NO PROHIBITION against false and misleading advertising in Canada? I think the Forest Products Association of Canada advertisements fall into that category ("Pulp fiction," À la carte, CG Sept/Oct 2001). There is no way the United Nations could use satellite remote sensing to establish any reliable change in timber volume in North America. Changes in forest area can be measured, probably with an error of plus-or-minus five percent if very careful work is done, but not volume. At least not yet.

Frank Ahern, TerreVista
Earth Imaging, Cormac, Ont.

Drug test
AS A PHARMACIST, I must com- ment on the article "Healing Waters?" (Discovery, CG Sept/Oct 2001). I find it quite strange that Carbamazepine is one of the 14 drugs being monitored in the 14 Canadian cities. It is certainly not one of the top 14 drugs consumed in Canada. I presume the other 13 are more commonly used drugs, such as contraceptive pills, whose levels in water supplies have been postulated to affect fertility in some animal species, including humans.

I'm in favour of testing water for prescription drugs but it is important to pick the drugs of greatest concern. Personally, I am far less worried about by-products of prescription drugs in my drinking water than I am about bacteria such as Escherichia coli, which has a far greater potential to impact upon public health.

Lori Bonertz, Fort St. John, B.C.

Fatal errors?
IN HIS OTHERWISE enthusiastic review of my book Fatal Passage ("An unsung hero of Arctic exploration," CG Sept/Oct 2001), David F. Pelly claims I made four minor mistakes. One I acknowledge: I did write "woods" when I meant "moss," and this I will change in future editions.

Two of the other alleged errors, however, were judgment calls I made (and stand by) in seeking a broad, international audience for the John Rae story. I originally used Inuk as the singular form of Inuit but after consulting numerous dictionaries, I found that Inuk was virtually unknown to British and American dictionaries, each one using Inuit for both singular and plural. Similarly, the Gage Canadian Dictionary defines caribou as "any of several subspecies of reindeer found in northern North America," while the New Shorter Oxford goes with "a North American reindeer." To be clearer for the layman, I used both terms.

Finally, I paraphrased John Rae's criticism of government-backed explorers, who acknowledged the superiority of snow huts over tents yet "never learned to build these comfortable dwellings for themselves, offering the most frivolous excuses and reasons for not doing so, the chief one being, bizarrely, that it was difficult to get snow for the purpose." I am not rendering my own judgment but accurately characterizing Rae's derision, which has nothing to do with the skill of identifying the best snow for igloo-building, as Pelly indicates, but rather concerns the abundance of snow in the wintertime Arctic.

Ken McGoogan, Calgary

Armed and ready
Editor's note: In the Sept/Oct 2001 issue, we invited readers to comment on our website about the issue of park wardens carrying side arms on patrol. The following are among the many thoughtful responses we received.

IT IS REALITY in today's society that law-enforcement officers require a wide range of tools to carry out their jobs safely and effectively. However, from first-hand experience, I know people attracted to natural-resource law enforcement are people whose primary interest is protecting our environment and our natural resources — those who want to be police officers join police forces.

There is a big difference between "policing" our wilderness and policing our cities. While most police forces have ready backup if things go wrong, conservation officers and park wardens are often hours away from assistance.

Mark Hayden, Chief
Conservation Officer,
British Columbia, Victoria

MY INITIAL THOUGHT to the question of park wardens "packin' heat" was, "yeah why not?" But Parks Canada CEO Tom Lee's comments and concerns swayed my opinion. Leave law enforcement to the police forces. Park wardens' interests and mandate should be about the well-being of the plants and critters, not challenging lawbreakers. They should report wrongdoers to the appropriate police force.

Michael Peters, Calgary

EARLY IN HER CAREER , my sister was a park warden. Early in my career, I was a member of the RCMP. I know what it's like to carry a gun, and I know how I felt about my sister encountering characters on boundary patrol in the middle of hunting season with little more than her common sense to avoid dangerous situations.

Yes, park wardens should be trained in the use of handguns and be allowed to wear them. A nasty fact of life is that there are "bad guys" out there, and wardens are exposed to them on an increasingly frequent basis. Whether it's on a boundary patrol, responding to a campground complaint or stopping vehicles on the highway, wardens need to take adequate precautions to protect themselves.

Parks Canada — and we as taxpayers — must be prepared to cough up the funds needed to adequately train and equip our park wardens — and to screen out those who would abuse the use of deadly force.

Bonny Beswick, Calgary

I THINK TOM LEE'S vision of our parks is a beautiful one — but can a stern look work against well-armed poachers? How about asking them to wait while the Mounties are called?

Stephen Morris, East York, Ont.

WARDENS SHOULD BE armed when engaged in hazardous situations, such as hunting patrols and criminal investigations. Passing park enforcement work on to the RCMP draws precious resources from its main responsibilities and renders the wardens impotent to do their jobs. Wardens should not wear side arms when engaged in non-hazardous duties, such as staffing visitor centres, leading nature hikes or conducting scientific research. It seems to me that this approach would satisfy both the wardens and Parks Canada administration.

Richard B. Smith
Former U.S. National Park
Service Ranger,
Placitas, New Mexico

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