A Fine Line

Take a long hard look at this face. Is this the face of a killer? Bandana, my favourite person, has obviously been leading a double life. Tonight he came back to camp with a bloody leg, and I was running around trying to find Danielle (thanks, Bandana, for making me look like an idiot), and when I did she looked down her nose at me forlornly and said in a foreboding tone, “Its not his blood.” She didn’t know who the poor victim was (looked like a marmot), but Bandana is most certainly not getting any dinner, because he’s been a very bad boy. You wouldn’t know it from the look on his face though – he looks like a big happy goofy fool.

Spring has come to Logtung! I can finally make my way across the snow without slipping into oblivion or getting snow blindness. That meant I could go for a lovely evening hike up the south ridge to (ahem) get a sample. The hike happened; the sample didn’t, and my excuse is crap rock – really weathered, bad news rock. So instead I took pictures. This is the view to the southeast, at about 9:30pm.

I find that in the city, we are bombarded (for good reason) with warnings about our imploding environmental situation. It always feels like we’ve already past the point of no return, that there is no hope. How do you stop the western industrialist society (cliché – but true), especially when the most populous countries are only just now beginning to live as we do (horrendously unsustainably)? But when I come up here, and I look at a vista like this, with negligible development aside from our little “road” and there is no trace of brown smog on the horizon, and there is nothing but huge spaces, untouched, there IS hope.

Many people view what we do as ‘anti-environmental’ as though we are raping the earth so-to-speak. But the literal footprint of a mine is so very small compared to the benefits, such as the positive impact on the economy of Northern communities who are really, really suffering. If you are someone with no way out, with no chance of ever getting out, what could it mean to have work -good work- on your doorstep? It could mean survival. The ecological footprint of forestry practices or even a single major highway is far greater. Reclamation practices render it almost impossible to tell a mine existed. Some people would say we make excuses, but I challenge any of them to live as we do, out here in the wild, where life and death are truly co-mingling everyday before our eyes, as Bandana so eloquently reminded me tonight. Where we must turn on the oil stove when we want heat and actually know how much oil we are using on a daily basis. We must fill our own water tanks, and fuel tanks, and bring in all the supplies we need for weeks at a time. We must dig our own latrines. We see firsthand exactly the kind of impact we have, in everything we do. For the critics in the city, their comfortable lives are very, very expensive, and they have no idea. They have no idea how much water they use, how much food they consume, how much waste they produce, or how much gas it takes to heat their homes. The only place they feel it is in their wallets, at the gas pump. In truth, we are the real environmentalists, because if it has to be done, we'll see to it ourselves that it's done right. We got into this because we love nature.

That’s my rant for now – sorry to get serious. I’m just sick of these people driving around in their hybrids criticizing anyone associated with the resource and energy industry. Where the hell do you think the steel came from for your fancy side impact beams?

To finish on a light note, I’ll let the picture below speak for itself. Now that is wise consumption right there. Mum, Meg – how d’ya like them apples? Happy Father’s Day Dad!

miss ya!