magazine / so07
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September/October 2007 issue |
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REVERBERATIONS
Thompson's legacy
Your story about David Thompson
and his wife, Charlotte Small
("Travels with
Charlotte," July/Aug
2007), gave me great pleasure and will
always remain with me. Novelist Aritha
van Herk lovingly portrays the quiet
compassion of a brilliant Canadian geographer.
I have long appreciated and
admired what Thompson accomplished.
Still, he remains unknown to many. The
"Editor's notebook" added much to my
knowledge of Thompson's descendants
scattered across North America and elsewhere.
The history of our magnificent
country is rich and exciting and worthy
of our pride. I applaud your part in
sharing it with your readers.
Mary Young
Pointe-Claire, Que.
Grape appeal
The photo essay on British Columbia's
grasslands ("Whispers
in the grasslands,"
July/Aug 2007) is spellbinding.
From far-off vistas to up-close shots,
Chris Harris captures the look and the
feel and the spirit of the grasslands with
deep affection and majesty. The photo
of the almost unending field of grapes
makes one wish that wine did not have
such appeal.
Tom Atkinson
Toronto
Reading your article on the grasslands,
I was reminded of the beauty I see
every time I travel to the B.C. Interior,
usually on business. Over the last 25 years,
I have become increasingly disturbed by
the rampant, thoughtless development that is taking place in
the Thompson Valley,
the Okanagan and
particularly around
Kamloops, where several
different microenvironments
provide
breathtaking beauty, and developers seem
to see it all as just a hindrance to making
money. Kamloops could have been a
gorgeous grasslands city, but planners,
designers and developers don't appear to
have the will to save the natural environment
or to make new developments work
in harmony with it.
Of course, the root cause of grassland
destruction is overpopulation. The greatest
threat to our landscape, our resources
and our way of life is uncontrolled population
growth. While our planners spend
their energies coping with ever-accelerating
expansion, no attention is being paid to
controlling the root problem.
Malcolm McSporran
Vancouver
Grain dribblers
The grain-on-the-tracks problem
that is causing wildlife deaths in
Banff National Park ("Discovery,"
July/Aug 2007) could be fixed with
nothing more than a sharp screwdriver
and a hammer. I'm a farmer and have
loaded many grain cars over the years.
Farmers are responsible for the condition
of the car when it leaves the designated
loading area. In many cases, I have had
to apply a screwdriver or hammer to
knock crud out of the door slide.
Foreign matter catches in the slide,
preventing the door from closing completely.
When the slide is working
properly, the leading edge slots into a
groove that is deep enough to prevent
grain from spilling, no matter how
rough the road.
If railway cars are dribbling grain
through national parks, then they are
dribbling grain all the way to the terminals
on the West Coast. In the past,
local grain agents took the time and care to ensure that everything was in
good working order before loading the
grain. Farmers in general are very careful
about their produce and expect the railway
companies to exercise equal care.
John Green
Nanton, Alta.
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Memories of
a missing scientist
I devoured the article on Torngat
Mountains National Park by Jerry
Kobalenko ("Between
nanuk and the cold grey sea," May/June 2007). In the
1970s, I was a helicopter pilot and spent
two tours of duty based in Goose Bay
working for Universal Helicopters on
various customer charters. This was such
a great posting, because I got to see the
fabulous northern Labrador landscape
and meet many interesting residents.
I still long to go back.
On one trip in late July 1976, I travelled
north in my Bell 206 JetRanger
through Nain to the abandoned DEW
Line site on Cape Uivak at Saglek Bay.
We stayed in an unused trailer on the
site. Down the hill at the airstrip, a
Sikorsky S-61 helicopter was based to
service an offshore oil rig.
We were told that a Smithsonian
archaeologist had gone missing. We used
the two helicopters to search the Ramah
Bay area, to no avail. The wind was so
strong, I wouldn't have been flying if
there hadn't been a life at risk. At one
place I landed, my airspeed indicator was
still showing gusts to 60 miles per hour.
This trip pushed my flying skill to the
limit. Until your article, I never knew the
name of the missing archaeologist. I have
always regretted that we could not find
Anne Abraham.
On this and other trips to the area, I
did not see any polar bears from the air. I
give more credence to the theory that she
may have slipped and fallen. One morning,
we woke to find about a centimetre
of ice coating the entire helicopter. This
was the middle of summer. As Kobalenko
says, northern Labrador is not an area
without hazards for the traveller.
Mike Ash
Grand Bend, Ont.
I do not accommodate double standards
where the protection of human life is
concerned. For example, I have always
thought it strange that wardens in
national parks have rifles, when they are
less likely to need firearms than the average
park visitor, such as myself, who does
not know a brown bear from a black bear
and is forbidden from carrying a gun.
Well, the next time I'm crossing into
Jasper, I'll be notifying my attorney to
start the clock ticking on a considerable
lawsuit in the event that I'm attacked by a
bear. My life is not secondary to anyone's.
Douglas L. Martin
Hamilton, Ont.
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Exaggerating the death toll
Charles Montgomery's excellent piece
of reporting on the serious mountain
hazards that appear to be more frequent
as a result of the current climatic trends
("When
mountains crumble," May/June
2007) errs when it transfers from its
primary focus on Yukon and Alaska to
the United Nations Environment
Programme's (UNEP) overdramatization
of the situation in the Himalayas. The
facts given concerning the collapse of the
moraine-dammed lake Dig Tsho in 1985
in Nepal are not correct. In particular, a
detailed survey of the site a few weeks
after the event, which I coordinated for
the United Nations University, determined
that the death toll was four or
five, not "dozens."
Jack D. Ives
Ottawa
Squeezed by the future
The photo essay by Peter Sibbald
("Stages of
sprawl," May/June 2007)
was a double tug at my heartstrings, or
perhaps punch to the gut would be a
more apt turn of phrase.
I live on the so-called Pickering
Airport Lands on a farm that was once
one of hundreds occupying 18,600 acres
of Class A farmland expropriated
35 years ago for an airport that was
never needed, never built. Today, this
land remains a colossal reminder of a
political mistake of epic proportion
and, even more important, as a possibility
born of error.
These lands are adjacent to Cornell,
one of the subdivisions depicted in
the essay. Most of the people in those
homes, which pop up like so many
mushrooms on once fertile fields and
forests, have no idea that bureaucrats are
still pushing to build that airport on this
land on the doorstep of Toronto or that
the Greater Toronto Airports Authority
has an office in the loveliest heritage
home on these lands, while bureaucrats
continue to evict and demolish.
As I raged at the sprawling subdivisions
in the photo essay and the mindboggling
short-sightedness that paves
over agricultural land, I turned the page
and saw my great-great-grandfather's
name. There it was on a monument
standing proudly in a farmer's field -
John Walker, son of United Empire
Loyalists, grandfather of my grandmother,
settlers in Northumberland
County. And so here am I, sandwiched
between the madness that is urban
sprawl and the gentle reminder of those
who came centuries ago to clear and till
these rich lands and verdant pastures.
Please, God, let there be sanity before
it's too late.
Mary Delaney
Brougham, Ont.
Peter Sibbald’s photography revealed what we want to ignore
about our need for developed land. But I object to John Lorinc’s
accusing portrayal of the “sheer brutality of suburban developers” and
the wistful reference to the disappearing fragrance of farmers’ fields.
The brutality didn’t start with the bulldozer. It started
back in the council chambers of our elected representatives who
saw the opportunity for profit by subdividing those farm fields
into postage stamp lots. And don’t think the farmers complained,
either. When a hundred bushels of carrots won’t cover the
taxes and interest rates, and shoppers can easily get the vegetables
somewhere else, farmers get the message. Lorinc’s essay is
nostalgic and a reprimand, but it missed the mark: we are greedy
for housing more than we need, or care, for farm-fresh food.
Phil Brown
Libertyville, Illinois
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One of the main reasons that sprawl has been allowed to overrun
southern Ontario is because of the close connection between political
funding and the development industry. Up to 90 percent of the campaign
funding of some politicians in the 905 region is supplied by developers.
This is a huge conflict of interest. Whose needs are getting met?
It is an unfair advantage to those fighting to protect the same
lands — volunteers and non-governmental organizations
that do not have deep pockets or equal funding. Will we let people
with surplus money control the fate of our environmental commons?
I’m also concerned about the trend to exposing groundwater
by creating scenic ponds across the edges of the Oak Ridges Moraine,
where sprawl is taking over. These ponds, which remain scenic for
about a year and then become fetid and eutrophied puddles, are built
to channel water nicely through the suburbs in heavy rain events.
This is a classic example where humans, yet again, trump important
environmental process.
Bernadette Zubrisky
Agincourt, Ont.
Off that bench
While I applaud the wonderful idea of the residents of Winnipeg’s
Wolseley neighbourhood to replace simple grass with wildflowers, benches
and other green initiatives,("Mosaic," May/June
2007), it is not a good idea to use old railway ties for benches.
As far as I know, all old railway ties were soaked with creosote,
a decidedly unfriendly product to plants, humans and other live creatures.
Benches, trellises and garden walls can be constructed from a huge
variety of materials. Please have all railroad ties removed from
your property at once. They were never designed to be used in gardens
and around people.
Lynn Simpson
Port Hope, Ont.
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* Letters may be edited for length, accuracy and liability.
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