Vancouver Province
for January 21, 2000

In recent years I underwent an experience that dramatically changed my outlook on life – the fight to save what’s left of the Nechako River from utter degradation by the growth at all costs enthusiasts of our society.

During this great battle I got to know several wonderful men whom Alcan, the developer of the Kemano II project, dubbed as “dissident scientists” because as Department of Fisheries And Oceans they dared oppose Alcan and their captive friends in the Conservative government of Brian Mulroney. I say “got to know” but in fact I had only met one, Gordon Hartmann – the others gave their encouragement in the way that public servants have traditionally done so when their masters have gone mad. One of these men, Dr Harold Mundie, wrote me a letter last November and since it was a private letter I’ll not quote from it but just say that it contained enormous wisdom. He spoke with his usual patient eloquence talked about how step by step we were losing our province to growth and it wasn’t just the Alcans of the world who were the enemy.

All this came to a head in my mind a couple of weeks ago when two stories were reported; one of a cougar on Vancouver Island killing a house pet and having to be destroyed and the other a blockage of a road by residents of Saltspring Island in an attempt to stop a subdivision.

Then I thought of my boyhood in Vancouver and the many streams we used to fish as kids, streams that are now merely culverted ditches.

I have no answers to the questions I’m going to pose but simply state that it’s past time we started to think of just how big we want to be and what sacrifices we are prepared to make.

We cannot limit our growth, it is said, because you can’t stop progress. Who says? Where is that written? Other cities and countries around the world have limited growth why can’t we?

It’s said that growth brings jobs and prosperity and we must have it. But what sort of prosperity are we talking about? Are we prepared to trade better cars, more commodious digs and perhaps a computer in every room for the blessings around us that God gave us to enjoy?

  I look in my own back yard at three North Shore rivers I used to hike on with my pals when I was a boy – The Capilano, the Lynn and the Seymour. There were no houses anywhere near these rivers. The experience we had was the same as those experienced by Squamish kids generations ago. Did that have to change? Was it necessary that the few hundred people whose houses now desecrate the land around much of the river shores build there? Would it have stopped “progress” if a half mile green belt existed adjacent to these beauties?

We accept the rape of our outdoors with a shrug. “That’s progress, I guess” is our resigned attitude.

Well, I have another thought. Instead of “progress” why not make “preservation” our goal and byword. If a developer can’t develop fully or at all a piece of property, because a small stream runs through it, too bad. His short term gain must be set off against the long term good of society.

You see, my never yet met, but very good friend Dr Mundie is right. We are able to fight the large battles fairly well – though God knows I would never want to go through the Kemano II agony again – but we scarcely bother with the little ones which, in sum, become macro disasters.

An example. Coho, the beloved fish of sportsmen around the world spawn in tiny creeks and even ditches. I remember as a child fishing Tin Can Creek on the Musqueam Reserve with a worm for tiny cutthroat and seeing an Indian lad, to my utter amazement, gaff two very large Coho from under the bank of a stream that couldn’t have been 15 feet wide.

It’s long past time we started asking ourselves what we want of our British Columbia. If we want economic advancement then why fool around – let’s forget the outdoor values we had as our birthright and start damming the Fraser. We might just as well do that and soon, rather than see our beloved land die the death of a thousand cuts – because that’s what’s happening.