Posted on 07/01/2002 3:58:45 AM PDT by Clive
This is the day we celebrate Canada and there is much to celebrate.
The time since Confederation has been pretty good for Canada, give or take four wars and a few depressions along the road. Measured against the world, Canada has done damn well.
We live in a largely free country, economically and politically. The overwhelming majority of our citizens live in prosperity compared with most of the world.
This year, in drought-stricken Edmonton, we will have to celebrate our good fortune without the usual river valley get-together for fireworks.
I always think of this display as, primarily, an experience to remember for little children.
For the rest of us, it's an affirmation of community - and, hey, we must be doing OK if we can gather for something as frivolous as fireworks.
The cancellation, announced by a dour Mayor Bill Smith last week, is based on the apparent fire risk that fireworks would present.
Interestingly, in Jasper, where they are surrounded by forest instead of fire halls, the Canada Day fireworks will be on tonight. Of course, in Jasper, they have a sensible fire prevention policy, unlike Edmonton.
In Jasper, they have been clearing out the undergrowth, selectively harvesting trees in a-mile-and-a-half band around the townsite.
This makes any fire that does get started much easier to handle.
They have also cleared a few meadows in these woods so the elk have alternative grazing areas to the roadsides.
In Edmonton, our eco-fanatics in the parks department don't clear the underbrush.
They don't thin out the stands or take away the deadwood.
They don't let anyone touch their precious little bits of wilderness all up and down the valley.
So, yes, there is a fire hazard.
This policy of deliberate neglect by city hall also means that along miles and miles of Edmonton roadways beside the river valley, you cannot even see the river valley.
It is hidden by a huge and virtually continuous wall of scrub bush, dead trees, undergrowth, tall grass and weeds.
Thousands of homes look out not at the river valley but at the dense bush hiding it.
This sad fact came home to me as I was showing some visitors from Ottawa around our fair city last week.
Even though I live just a block from the valley, I am not sure they ever really saw it.
It's so hard to find a good vantage point.
In one spot in the Highlands, the city put up a park bench that looks out not at the great vista that should be there but directly at a leafy wall of fast-growing weed trees.
Down in the community of Riverdale, I know of a few spots where residents, under cover of darkness, cleared out scrub brush, bit by bit, so that they could catch a glimpse of the river rolling past.
The don't-touch-the-sacred-forest attitude, common with the eco types who think humans are Mother Nature's worst invention, is also at root of the huge fires now devastating hundreds of homes in Colorado and Arizona. Refusing to allow selective harvesting has created forests where once fire gets going it has too much fuel.
The other element in Edmonton's traditional community celebration that was almost missing this year was the High Level Bridge's waterfall.
I remember how city hall was ticked off by this innovative idea by artist Peter Lewis and at the community support he got to have it built.
That was, what, almost 20 years ago? Good thing the bureaucrats at city hall don't still hold a grudge.
Of course, it's very chic to conserve water these days. Alas, for true believers, the North Saskatchewan River just keeps delivering water regardless.
The High Level Bridge waterfall can be a convenient symbol of phoney conservation - think of any talk of cutting it off as a sacrifice to the enviro gods.
This Canada Day as we watch fireworks on TV just remember, much of this country was cleared with an axe. Maybe we should get back to work.
They are part of its natural life cycle.
When we must have homes in proximity to forests and when we must make economic use of forests, we must also manage forests.
And we must build the homes and make the economic use unless we are all prepared to live in teepees and drastically reduce our populations.
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