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September/October 2001 issue	In this issue Table of Contents Editor’s Notebook Feature: Backcountry beat The Inside Story Reverberations À la carte

Rash decisions
Your article on poison ivy ("An itch to remember," CG Jul/Aug 2001) took me back a few years to a wonderful late-fall afternoon with my partner, rambling over the sand dunes near Port Stanley, Ont., looking for dry flowers for what was to become our Christmas table centrepiece. And, you guessed it: with open, bare arms, we collected plants sporting beautiful white berries and then spent several days back in Guelph going from walk-in clinic to doctor’s office trying to find a cure for a terrible pervasive rash, a rash that due to other fall activities, had extended painfully to unmentionable parts of the body.
Diagnosis was slow and the cure even slower, but the rash did go away and we removed the offending flora from the dining room table before Christmas and the danger of infecting children and unsuspecting guests.

Cliff Bell-Smith, Guelph, Ont.

A few years ago, while on a sabbatical at the Geobotanical Institute of the University of Bern, Switzerland, I noticed the familiar "leaves of three" draping one corner of the institute’s buildings. A small plaque confirmed the plant’s identity. This impressed in me the great devotion of the gardeners to maintaining a diversity of plants in the institute garden. It also provided a measure of security — a formidable barrier for thieves hoping to enter the building via a window adorned by the ivy’s tentacles.

Ian R. Walker, Kelowna, B.C.

I had many episodes with poison ivy as a youngster. My worst encounter was in the middle of winter, when I went through a snow-covered patch on a small sled a number of times. I was in bed for more than a week. Poison ivy is dangerous at any time of the year!

Cliff Barnard, Scarborough, Ont.

One day a few years ago, I cut into a mango and ate the pulp right off the rind. Two days later, itchy red bumps appeared on my lips, which then developed into yellowish oozing blisters - a reaction that could only be described as a poison ivy-like rash. I was fascinated to learn about the relationship between mangoes and poison ivy. While I was aware that mangoes and cashews belonged to the same family, I had no idea that poison ivy and its cousins are also included. Walks through the woods have taught me that I am highly susceptible to the three-leafed plant. While I will continue to go out of my way to avoid both mangoes and poison ivy, I’m glad I now know the connection. Thanks for enlightening me!

Teisha Gaylard, Ottawa

What works to eradicate this plant, for those who prefer not to use chemicals in their yards, is white vinegar. I went out to the back garden a month ago, bedecked in garbage-bag double-wrap splendour, clipped a tiny bit of the stem off with some long-handled pruners and gave the plant a good dousing. Within hours, it was burned, and now there’s nothing left.
Apparently, the vinegar travels straight to the root system and burns it. If by chance the plant returns, another dousing should finish it off.

Chris Turnbull, Ottawa

Whale-watching
In your farewell to Bjossa ("Eavesdropping on orcas," CG Jul/Aug 2001), you mention her capture in 1980 and the fact that she lived her entire life since then in captivity, the last four years in solitary confinement. You neglected to mention that since being torn from her family pod at the age of three, she suffered more losses: the death of three calves and of her friend Finna.
The time has long passed when humans can justify on educational, scientific or any other grounds the imprisonment of whales in aquariums, since we can in no way duplicate their natural environment. Teaching them tricks sends the wrong message: that they are valued for entertainment, not for the amazing social creatures John Ford and Graeme Ellis’s studies in the wild have shown them to be.

Connie and Richard Mahoney, Kelowna, B.C.

On July 1, about 100 metres from our window, a pod of orcas passed Beddis Rock. A reasonable distance away were several commercial whale-watching vessels. Then along came a procession of "gin palace" yachts, whose bullheaded commanders declined to alter course and, instead, travelled right beside, or over, the whales. Perhaps the Coast Guard could provide basic visitor instruction on courteous behaviour around whales and other boaters. Warnings for marine abuse should at least be issued by the police in connection with the RCMP’s coastal watch program.

Clifford Pennock, Pender Island, B.C.

Blood lines I was disappointed by the unbalanced message communicated through the photographs and text in "People of the Blood" (CG Jul/Aug 2001).

It is surprising that a magazine which purports to "making Canada better known to Canadians and to the world" would choose to perpetuate old stereotypes of First Nations people.
It is true that in most communities, aboriginal people are suffering great social and economic hardships as a result of more than a century of oppression. My experience has taught me, however, that it would have been impossible to have taken a "decade-long photographic journey" into a First Nations community and have seen only "suffering, stoicism and spirituality." By choosing to exclude images of joy, laughter and love, you and the author have done a disservice to us all. Ross Hoffman, Smithers, B.C.

I really enjoyed George Webber’s photo essay. I keep returning to the pages to revisit the pictures and the text. They really resonate for me.
I would like to see more of Webber’s work. I find it evocative, personal and informative, yet distant enough from the subject to be respectful and compelling. The images were artistically arranged and void of the projections and overstatement that can often bog down articles and images.

Naomi Mitcham, Atlin, B.C.

A Saint-Maurice summer
Thank you for your article on the Saint-Maurice ("A river reborn," CG Jul/Aug 2001). My paternal grandfather was responsible for having the Anglican church, St. Andrews, built around 1914-15, and my father was born in La Tuque, so we just switched our vacation plans to revisit my native Quebec.

Judy Archer, Orillia, Ont.

Unearthing emotions
Iwas disappointed to read your article "Digging Up the Past" (Discovery, CG July/Aug 2001), which I found did not represent the true nature of The Rooms project. While your article suggests otherwise, the project enabled the first opportunity to properly excavate, record, preserve and ultimately interpret and present the ruins of Fort Townshend. It will incorporate approximately 20 percent of the fort’s actual ruins in a 1,600-square-metre archaeological museum. The other 80 percent of the ruins, which sit outside the footprint of the new building in the surrounding land, will be available for future excavation, development and presentation. The Rooms development is the most significant investment ever made by this government to secure the culture and heritage of the province.

Kevin Aylward, Minister of Tourism, Culture
and Recreation, Nfld. and Labrador, St. John’s

I take exception to the reference that the Newfoundland government facility The Rooms was named after "small seaside shacks … used to store … tools." The term "shack" implies poverty — that the buildings were slapped together. Buildings constructed to withstand the rigours of the North Atlantic seacoast would hardly be termed shacks. Traditionally, fishing "rooms" include the entire premises owned and used by a family or company. They would typically comprise wharves, stages, drying flakes and buildings. "Seaside shacks" just doesn’t cut it.

Roy Babstock, Eastport, Nfld.

Culture shock
I came upon the Jan/Feb 2001 Canadian Geographic and am grateful to you for the article "Visible majorities." It has helped to erase many of my uninformed perspectives on what is happening to my country. It may be my age, 73, which is responsible for my outworn attitudes on the changes that have been developing in Canada. I have been struggling for some time to genuinely see all the diverse faces on the buses in Montréal with the same cheerful and accepting disposition I had in the past for my fellow citizens. Your gift of a broader outlook has dispelled for me feelings of being abandoned in a country I no longer had a place in and filled my spirit with rejoicing.

Clare Braux, Montréal

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