I’m not complaining, just explaining. The sheltered waters of our Gulf Islands are filling up with ships at anchor, waiting for cargoes they can’t load. It’s a powerful sight seeing large deep sea vessels anchored from nearby in our harbour to points miles away. Then there are those in bays behind islands which I cannot see. There are now dozens of them. As a man who loves the shape of all vessels, even these behemoths of function before form have an appeal to me that is hard to explain. Perhaps it is because they come from all around the planet to congregate in our local waters. It is exotic to be able to exchange waves with someone from Mungypongi or wherever home is on the other side of the planet.
This fleet sitting on their hooks is amassing all because a handful of people in Canada have blocked transportation routes across the country in alleged support of the Wet’suwet’en hereditary chiefs who have decided against the democratic vote of their own people in favour of a pipeline upgrade across their hereditary lands. “Shut Canada Down” is a popular protest slogan. How, by pissing everyone off, do these folks expect to win any popular consideration? I have opinions both ways, but most of my information is not first-hand, only as gleaned between the perspectives offered by the media, so it is not reliable and…I am not a first nations person. I cannot grasp the true agenda behind this massive stupidity.
A handful of folks, some not even Canadian, most not first-nations people, have decided to empower themselves at the expense of the rest of the country. It is not their fight, yet they have decided to constipate the entire nation for their own personal ego. Some may be well-intentioned but they are not committed enough to have done even basic research into their cause. And if they so dearly love their cause, why aren’t they up in the deep sub-zero snow banks of the region they say they are trying to protect? We are allowing them to continue their selfishness unchecked. There are token arrests and obscure politicians offering meaningless rhetoric but the beat goes on. A clear lack of decisive will and action of our political leaders is frustrating and embarrassing. Eh?
Meanwhile our third-world-style national economy (Sell raw resources wholesale / buy finished products back retail) continues to plummet horrifically. Thousands of people are laid-off indefinitely at the mercy of the protest goons. A friend points out that export petroleum products are transported along major rail arteries. They are built, logically, for very many miles along the banks of our sacred salmon rivers and their tributaries which are also traditional first nation homelands. When, not if, there is a major wreck and those waters are poisoned with black goo, I cannot imagine the anguishing about what the colonial capitalist bastards have done to our prime salmon rivers. Railway OK, pipe line bad. I’m confused.
There’s a n ancient anecdote about various body parts having an argument about which was the most important. Although all the organs and other parts laughed, at first, ultimately the rectum proved to be supreme. Simply by seizing up the works until the rest of the body began to fail, this lowly member proved its overwhelming power. So here we sit. And sit. Still more ships are anchoring in anticipation of a very long wait to clear up the back log of loading orders after there is finally a resolve. That may take months. I guess in Canada, where being politically correct in all ways is what we try to do constantly, some folks use our lethargy to get away with an awful lot. Despite my growing mistrust of the media I’ve just read an article from the National Post which is written succinctly and expresses an apparently researched, informed opinion. It is worth your while to read it. https://nationalpost.com/opinion/diane-francis-the-beginning-of-the-end-of-canadas-high-living-standards
Meanwhile here at home a half-year-long labour dispute has been resolved and the local timber industry is back at work. Now we can again hear the busy howl of Detroit diesel engines in the boom boats at work sorting logs. Hopefully the Teredo worms don’t go on strike now and quit holding hands. They’ve had a good long time to munch on the billions of dollars of timber floating far too long in the booms all along the harbour. Soon there will be the squeal of chains in the mill and the all-night-long clunk and bang of fresh sawn lumber on the drop-sorting lines. I never thought that the din of one of our few remaining coastal sawmills might provide a sense of comfort. There was an editorial cartoon in The Vancouver Sun many years ago which is indelible for me. I wished I’d saved it. A man stands in front of a mirror shaving. He exclaims to himself “ Wow. I’m a white male heterosexual trying to make a living in the BC forest industry!” An endangered species perhaps? Indeed!
Well, just for a grim smirk, here’s an example of how popular opinion can be so easily influenced. This Twitter headline just in: “Corona Beer does not cause Coronavirus” but global “purchase intent” of the world’s most popular beer may be down by as much as 38%. Now then everyone, say baa. What if there was something named “Shlitzvirus?”
And so it goes. It’s March first today, and we’re in like a lamb and out with the dog into the sunrise. For this moment there is not a cloud in the sky.
“A ship in harbor is safe, but that is not what ships are for.”
— John A. Shedd