So, this must be the year that the bottom end of Saskatchewan tries to emulate the top end of Australia: half a year dry (we call it winter) and half a year of seemingly endless rain, washed out roads, flooded creeks and rivers, and quiet streams replaced by raging torrents.
At the Top End of the Land Down Under, they get used to it; in fact, the ecosystem there demands The Wet, as it is called, for its very survival. In southern Saskatchewan it’s a different story. We have been caught totally off-guard by what nature has wrought upon us, and are left puzzled – and often angry – as more water than this generation has ever witnessed inundates our fields, homes and businesses. It is not very surprising that we are puzzled, and being puzzled is a good thing because it may trigger our desire to learn about why this is happening to us, understand why we were so ill-prepared to cope, and maybe even adopt new patterns of survival for the future.
We could start with remembering that some 10,000 years ago there were no rivers or lakes or creeks or farmlands. There was just ice, hundreds of feet thick. If you think it’s wet this year, imagine how wet it was when all that ice melted and eventually carved out the prairies, lakes and rivers which we now consider ageless, and the fertile farmland from which our farmers wrest a living today.
As a wiser person than I once wrote, “the only constant is change”. Unfortunately, despite being the one species on this planet which is intellectually equipped to grapple with change, like most living creatures we do not handle change well. In fact, as a society we are quick to deny change, perhaps because embracing that reality requires us to invest our energy and our money on things which do not gratify our immediate needs. Our social (and therefore political) reality is that research into the health of our environment and the sustainability of our infrastructure is trumped by research into markets and growth – every time.
With heartfelt compassion for people whose lives have been shattered by this year’s events, perhaps as prairie people we have just received a wake-up call, a chance to examine our future in light of what we already know, and all the things we must learn. When it comes to floods, for example, what we have considered a “one-in-fifty-year event” is beginning to look more like, say, a “one-in-twenty-year event”. That consideration alone moves the planning horizon from our grandchildren’s future to our own very real present!
With that in mind, will we continue to discourage our leaders from developing forward-thinking, research-based policies? Is it logical to blame governments and agencies for our troubles today, when we have steadfastly refused them sufficient funding to do the necessary research to plan and build properly for the future? Can we really still afford to cheap out on our taxes and build roads and culverts which only match our 100-year-old paradigm?
Let’s hope that – while we may yet be somewhat ignorant – we are not totally stupid!
Saturday, July 9, 2011
Sunday, February 6, 2011
It really should be… a dog’s life !
The media (across Canada and – unfortunately – in lots of other countries) is a-buzz these days about the killing of some one hundred sled dogs at a tourism operation in Whistler, BC. These animals were apparently deemed as an over-supply of inventory by the operators of a dogsled adventure company whose business reality did not match expectations following the over-hyped 2010 Winter Games.
In our mixed-up world of skewed priorities, there has been far more media attention paid this unfortunate situation than to the wholesale execution of dissidents in countries like Iran, or the daily slaughter of women and children in some struggling third-world countries. This having been said, however, there is certainly something discomfiting about the judgements that led to the killing of these dogs, let alone the apparently questionable methods by which the slaughter was carried out.
It was noteworthy, therefore, when CTV followed up on the Whistler story by interviewing one of Canada’s premier dogsled adventure operators, Brad Muir of Sundogs Excursions at Waskesiu, north of Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. Brad runs a small, high-quality business which focuses on demonstrating to his guests the close relationships between the dogs, the forests and frozen lakes, and the people who use dog teams and sleds for trade, transport and enjoyment in their traditional habitat. An email from one of Sundogs’ recent guests (in early February 2011), speaks to this better than I can:
Hello Brad and Marcia,
Both L… and I would like to say a huge thank you for your warm hospitality. This was truly a day to remember for the rest of our lives. The passion you show for this sport is channelled through to the enthusiasm of your huskies. Since we returned home, we have not stopped talking about the experience, and have been updating all our friends on this remarkable excursion. We really do intend to do this again sometime, so you might see us some time soon.
Take care
F… and L…
Brad spoke on-camera to the CTV television reporter of the occasional necessity for euthanizing a sick or injured animal. When he is faced with this necessity, he talks of it as a sad time, a time of thanks for a life well-lived, and – perhaps above all – a time to use a professional to undertake the killing in a painless and peaceful manner. It is, indeed, all about respect.
And perhaps respect is at the core of this whole affair. Dogsleds were, in fact, never a feature of life on the west slope of the coast mountains. While there is nothing evil about establishing a dogsledding business there, it smacks of building a ride at a theme park, far removed from any cultural or even geographic context. It should therefore not surprise us that, while cash flow governs the business decisions at a theme park ride, love and respect govern the business ethics of an experience offered in a place where these magnificent animals have been a beloved part of day-to-day life for centuries.
Captain Peter Kingsmill
http://www.canadanatureescapes.ca
In our mixed-up world of skewed priorities, there has been far more media attention paid this unfortunate situation than to the wholesale execution of dissidents in countries like Iran, or the daily slaughter of women and children in some struggling third-world countries. This having been said, however, there is certainly something discomfiting about the judgements that led to the killing of these dogs, let alone the apparently questionable methods by which the slaughter was carried out.
It was noteworthy, therefore, when CTV followed up on the Whistler story by interviewing one of Canada’s premier dogsled adventure operators, Brad Muir of Sundogs Excursions at Waskesiu, north of Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. Brad runs a small, high-quality business which focuses on demonstrating to his guests the close relationships between the dogs, the forests and frozen lakes, and the people who use dog teams and sleds for trade, transport and enjoyment in their traditional habitat. An email from one of Sundogs’ recent guests (in early February 2011), speaks to this better than I can:
Hello Brad and Marcia,
Both L… and I would like to say a huge thank you for your warm hospitality. This was truly a day to remember for the rest of our lives. The passion you show for this sport is channelled through to the enthusiasm of your huskies. Since we returned home, we have not stopped talking about the experience, and have been updating all our friends on this remarkable excursion. We really do intend to do this again sometime, so you might see us some time soon.
Take care
F… and L…
Brad spoke on-camera to the CTV television reporter of the occasional necessity for euthanizing a sick or injured animal. When he is faced with this necessity, he talks of it as a sad time, a time of thanks for a life well-lived, and – perhaps above all – a time to use a professional to undertake the killing in a painless and peaceful manner. It is, indeed, all about respect.
And perhaps respect is at the core of this whole affair. Dogsleds were, in fact, never a feature of life on the west slope of the coast mountains. While there is nothing evil about establishing a dogsledding business there, it smacks of building a ride at a theme park, far removed from any cultural or even geographic context. It should therefore not surprise us that, while cash flow governs the business decisions at a theme park ride, love and respect govern the business ethics of an experience offered in a place where these magnificent animals have been a beloved part of day-to-day life for centuries.
Captain Peter Kingsmill
http://www.canadanatureescapes.ca
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
