Leaving the crazy fun at Waterton Lakes and Da Crypt, Tara and I bolted north, headlong into Canada's plains of wavy grain. We drove Hwy 2 northbound and gazed out at the hulking giants of the Rocky Mountains far to the west. There are basically three industries in Alberta: oil, logging and farming. Except for the province's fringe, which sports a natural picture frame of peaks, the land is totally flat and stretches out in a seemingly endless plain of vibrant fields. The "Wild Rose Country" should really be called "A Whole Lotta Hay" or "We Once Had Wild Roses Country".
Normally when you enter into a foreign land, the differences are obvious. In Canada, however, it's a bit harder to pinpoint exactly where America fades out and the Canucks take over. Sometimes things seem like an extension of the U.S., but then suddenly you notice that something wack is going on. The biggest news story on the radio was a biker gang
that the Mounties had stopped and ticketed outside of Calgary. That's right, a speeding infraction was the top news story.
Like I said, some things are just odd: I did a huge cartoon-like double-take when I looked over at the southbound lanes and saw a pick-up doing about 40 M.P.H. in reverse on the median. Try this in California on a major thoroughfare and you're liable to get shot. Road Rage + Firearms = Caps Busted in Ass
Unbeknownst to us, on the day we arrived, Calgary became host to the Neck Olympics. No, it wasn't the NASCAR championship. It was the world-famous Calgary Stampede, the globe's largest rodeo. To me it seemed more like a state fair than a rodeo. Tara and I visited it on our last evening together. I had to bring along serious fat stacks. Even a celebration of all things country don't come for
free, eh. We grubbed down some corn dogs, smooched in the haunted house and took a gander at the city's skyline from the top of the ferris wheel. And my heaven is a nice house in the sky. (Dave Matthews reference for Tara)
In the morning I had to put my little darlin' on a big old jet airliner. With a heavy heart, I slid my way west out of town and into the bumpy foothills of the Rockies. I made the mistake of turning on the radio with the hope of finding some inspiring road tunes. Memo to self: never listen to country music when you're missing your girl.
As usual, the rigors of nature forced a distraction that was welcomed and embraced. Thirty miles from Calgary, I bedded down in the thick bear and cougar infested woods of the Elbow River Valley in the Kananaskis Country. With a can of pepper spray in hand, I was like DeNiro in Taxi Driver. Get that piece out and ready to blast in zero point eight seconds, beyatch. Supposedly, the highest density of cougars studied in North America is found in the foothills of Kananaskis.
It was nice to get away from Calgary, which has become a MASSIVE sprawl of dense suburban homes. The movement to preserve Calgary's rural heritage for the recreational enjoyment of the population is not as evident as in other places I've visited. Before leaving Calgary, I spent a few hours researching newspaper articles and environmental organizations but could find not one news item regarding land preservation. The city does have a large provincial park called Fish Creek which is a totally natural area (not just a city park with urban grooming). Ideal for hiking, biking and wildlife viewing close to town, it contains at least 50 km of trails and is home to deer, beaver, hawks, woodpeckers, falcons, ducks, geese, herons, squirrels, gophers, coyotes, foxes, rabbits and mink. Even the occasional black bear or cougar muscles up. It is an exceptional example of good urban/rural planning. Hopefully as Calgary expands (it's doing so rapidly), the people of this pleasant hood continue to set aside other places of splendour that are as magnificent as Fish Creek Provincial Park.
The Kananaskis Country is a quite different story. The Kananaskis is a huge amount of land that begins about 50 miles
west of the city's edge and extends southwest into the Rocky Mountains and up to Banff National Park. A multiple-use area, it contains over 4,000 km² of mountain and foothill terrain, some of which is protected from development and industry but most of which is used heavily for timber and oil extraction. A lot of the eastern portion of the park which I visited, camped and mountain biked for three days is nice, but obviously over-harvested in many portions. I must admit that the recreation is excellent and varied. From hikers to off-road vehicle drivers, there is something for everyone. I don't disagree with the multiple-use aspect, I just have a problem with playing in areas which are void of trees and have signs warning of the potential for hydrogen sulfide gas leaks (a poisonous petroleum by-product).
I'm certainly not a strict preservationist. I realize that industry can and must co-exist with our environmental resources to maintain a prosperous human population. The problem is that when we let industry get the upper hand and take too much, it tips the scales of sustainability. Selective logging is OK, clear-cutting is not. A regulated extraction of minerals and oil from the ground is OK, poisoning the animals and the visitors in the process is not. A company that harvests a wildland unfortunately only sees dollar signs and is skilled in inventing rhetoric which belies the true impacts of their development. After visiting K-Country, it was obvious to me that this industrial hand-waving in the name of multiple-use in Alberta has been an effective enough distraction for most people. Some pieces of land there are badly scarred. One area called McLean Creek looked like a war zone.
There is an organization that I discovered which is fighting for Kananaskis' continued environmental protection. The Kananaskis Coalition is a grouping of preservation advocates led by the Alberta Wilderness Association. They present their information on a website under the Kananaskis Country Campaign. They support an "ecologically based management planning process for Kananaskis Country that looks at recreational and industrial uses of K-Country in tandem." The Coalition also believes that "no further commercial development should take place in K-Country, and that areas currently not protected by law should be protected at once, based not only on scientific values, but cultural values, such as the value of wilderness for its own sake."
Personally I support their activities but I think that their goals of obtaining both recreational & industrial areas AND keeping wilderness intact are contradictory. One cannot have pristine, untouched wilderness and reasonable development. Personally I think that development and industry should be allowed on the land but only if it takes a back seat to environmental sustainability. Mainly I support the Coalition because they are trying to return a balance to years of poorly managed and damaging industry in K-Country which has already tainted much of the area. As long as they maintain the stance of compromise, they will succeed. Keeping "wilderness for its own sake" is a noble idea but one that will ultimately fail to gain widespread support and successful implementation. There is simply too much money at stake. On the Issues page I have posted an article relating one of the successes in environmental protection that has been obtained in Kananaskis this year, largely based on the Coalition's influence.
Normally when you enter into a foreign land, the differences are obvious. In Canada, however, it's a bit harder to pinpoint exactly where America fades out and the Canucks take over. Sometimes things seem like an extension of the U.S., but then suddenly you notice that something wack is going on. The biggest news story on the radio was a biker gang
that the Mounties had stopped and ticketed outside of Calgary. That's right, a speeding infraction was the top news story.Like I said, some things are just odd: I did a huge cartoon-like double-take when I looked over at the southbound lanes and saw a pick-up doing about 40 M.P.H. in reverse on the median. Try this in California on a major thoroughfare and you're liable to get shot. Road Rage + Firearms = Caps Busted in Ass
Unbeknownst to us, on the day we arrived, Calgary became host to the Neck Olympics. No, it wasn't the NASCAR championship. It was the world-famous Calgary Stampede, the globe's largest rodeo. To me it seemed more like a state fair than a rodeo. Tara and I visited it on our last evening together. I had to bring along serious fat stacks. Even a celebration of all things country don't come for
free, eh. We grubbed down some corn dogs, smooched in the haunted house and took a gander at the city's skyline from the top of the ferris wheel. And my heaven is a nice house in the sky. (Dave Matthews reference for Tara)In the morning I had to put my little darlin' on a big old jet airliner. With a heavy heart, I slid my way west out of town and into the bumpy foothills of the Rockies. I made the mistake of turning on the radio with the hope of finding some inspiring road tunes. Memo to self: never listen to country music when you're missing your girl.
As usual, the rigors of nature forced a distraction that was welcomed and embraced. Thirty miles from Calgary, I bedded down in the thick bear and cougar infested woods of the Elbow River Valley in the Kananaskis Country. With a can of pepper spray in hand, I was like DeNiro in Taxi Driver. Get that piece out and ready to blast in zero point eight seconds, beyatch. Supposedly, the highest density of cougars studied in North America is found in the foothills of Kananaskis.
It was nice to get away from Calgary, which has become a MASSIVE sprawl of dense suburban homes. The movement to preserve Calgary's rural heritage for the recreational enjoyment of the population is not as evident as in other places I've visited. Before leaving Calgary, I spent a few hours researching newspaper articles and environmental organizations but could find not one news item regarding land preservation. The city does have a large provincial park called Fish Creek which is a totally natural area (not just a city park with urban grooming). Ideal for hiking, biking and wildlife viewing close to town, it contains at least 50 km of trails and is home to deer, beaver, hawks, woodpeckers, falcons, ducks, geese, herons, squirrels, gophers, coyotes, foxes, rabbits and mink. Even the occasional black bear or cougar muscles up. It is an exceptional example of good urban/rural planning. Hopefully as Calgary expands (it's doing so rapidly), the people of this pleasant hood continue to set aside other places of splendour that are as magnificent as Fish Creek Provincial Park.
The Kananaskis Country is a quite different story. The Kananaskis is a huge amount of land that begins about 50 miles
west of the city's edge and extends southwest into the Rocky Mountains and up to Banff National Park. A multiple-use area, it contains over 4,000 km² of mountain and foothill terrain, some of which is protected from development and industry but most of which is used heavily for timber and oil extraction. A lot of the eastern portion of the park which I visited, camped and mountain biked for three days is nice, but obviously over-harvested in many portions. I must admit that the recreation is excellent and varied. From hikers to off-road vehicle drivers, there is something for everyone. I don't disagree with the multiple-use aspect, I just have a problem with playing in areas which are void of trees and have signs warning of the potential for hydrogen sulfide gas leaks (a poisonous petroleum by-product).I'm certainly not a strict preservationist. I realize that industry can and must co-exist with our environmental resources to maintain a prosperous human population. The problem is that when we let industry get the upper hand and take too much, it tips the scales of sustainability. Selective logging is OK, clear-cutting is not. A regulated extraction of minerals and oil from the ground is OK, poisoning the animals and the visitors in the process is not. A company that harvests a wildland unfortunately only sees dollar signs and is skilled in inventing rhetoric which belies the true impacts of their development. After visiting K-Country, it was obvious to me that this industrial hand-waving in the name of multiple-use in Alberta has been an effective enough distraction for most people. Some pieces of land there are badly scarred. One area called McLean Creek looked like a war zone.
There is an organization that I discovered which is fighting for Kananaskis' continued environmental protection. The Kananaskis Coalition is a grouping of preservation advocates led by the Alberta Wilderness Association. They present their information on a website under the Kananaskis Country Campaign. They support an "ecologically based management planning process for Kananaskis Country that looks at recreational and industrial uses of K-Country in tandem." The Coalition also believes that "no further commercial development should take place in K-Country, and that areas currently not protected by law should be protected at once, based not only on scientific values, but cultural values, such as the value of wilderness for its own sake."
Personally I support their activities but I think that their goals of obtaining both recreational & industrial areas AND keeping wilderness intact are contradictory. One cannot have pristine, untouched wilderness and reasonable development. Personally I think that development and industry should be allowed on the land but only if it takes a back seat to environmental sustainability. Mainly I support the Coalition because they are trying to return a balance to years of poorly managed and damaging industry in K-Country which has already tainted much of the area. As long as they maintain the stance of compromise, they will succeed. Keeping "wilderness for its own sake" is a noble idea but one that will ultimately fail to gain widespread support and successful implementation. There is simply too much money at stake. On the Issues page I have posted an article relating one of the successes in environmental protection that has been obtained in Kananaskis this year, largely based on the Coalition's influence.
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