Winnipeg Beach, Manitoba

So, yesterday evening Evelin and I were chatting, and we decided it would be a good time to go fishing (something neither of us has done for a few years). The local “Handi-Mart” sells fishing licenses and was still open, so within 20 minutes we were casting into the open waters of the harbor at Winnipeg Beach (strong winds had pushed lake-ice back against the western shores), so this was literally the only open water available. Well, the photos tell the rest of the story… Ev caught dinner, and we experienced a glorious spring evening in direct communion with our environment.

Photos: White Bass (yummy); happy Evelin-the-Angler; the iconic Winnipeg Beach water tower across the ice; and, a quartet of tuxedo’d Western Grebes that shared the patch of open water with us.

Conservation

Conservation is a state of harmony between men and land. By land is meant all of the things on, over, or in the earth. Harmony with land is like harmony with a friend; you cannot cherish his right hand and chop off his left. That is to say, you cannot love game and hate predators; you cannot conserve the waters and waste the ranges; you cannot build the forest and mine the farm. The land is one organism. Its parts, like our own parts, compete with each other and co-operate with each other. The competitions are as much a part of the inner workings as the co-operations. You can regulate them—cautiously—but not abolish them.

The outstanding scientific discovery of the twentieth century is not television, or radio, but rather the complexity of the land organism. Only those who know the most about it can appreciate how little we know about it. The last word in ignorance is the man who says of an animal or plant: “What good is it?” If the land mechanism as a whole is good, then every part is good, whether we understand it or not. If the biota, in the course of aeons, has built something we like but do not understand, then who but a fool would discard seemingly useless parts? To keep every cog and wheel is the first precaution of intelligent tinkering.

Leopold, Aldo: Round River, Oxford University Press, New York, 1993 (Thanks to Derek Kornelson for introducing me to the works of Aldo Leopold—find more of his writings here.)

(the lastest poster from my friend Chaz Maviyane-Davies)

—Utah Phillips (1935-2008)

(original image sources unknown)

Winnipeg, Canada

This will not come as a surprise to anyone who knows me — I am a keen supporter of the Idle No More movement that has recently sprung up in Western Canada, spread across North America, and is now being embraced by both Indigenous and Non-Indigenous peoples around the globe.

With her permission, I republish here writer Linda Goyette’s beautifully-written explanation (she writes much better than I do and she posted this on Facebook four days ago) —“I think this is a defining moment in Canadian history, a time when each citizen is asked to make a choice. Where do you stand? Where will your children and grandchildren want you to stand?”

Why I Support Idle No More

I am no longer a journalist, and I do not seek a bully pulpit on any topic, but tonight I want to explain to my family and friends why I give my unqualified support to the Idle No More movement as a Canadian citizen.

I am becoming more and more concerned about the harsh backlash among non-aboriginal Canadians against this peaceful protest movement. I’m not talking exclusively about virulent racial bigotry and hate speech, although it exists in dark places, but more about the willful denial of reality, the blindness to injustice, among many decent people.

These are the people I address tonight. I respect their right to a different opinion, but I hope they will hear me out.

Four Saskatchewan women—Nina Wilson, Sylvia McAdam, Sheelah McLean and Jessica Gordon—and Chief Theresa Spence of Attawapiskat First Nation in northern Ontario found the courage to say that a change is going to come. Thousands of indigenous people across Canada are demonstrating in peaceful ways to tell the country that they will wait no longer for that change. When I see round dances in shopping malls, peaceful road blockades, or a chief on a hunger strike, I see an opportunity to learn more about the deep frustration of my neighbours. I see no threat at all.

The protesters are asking for the country I want for myself, and for my family…

Read the rest here (86K PDF).

The Canadian Tar Sands (Northern Alberta)

There are currently many wealthy and powerful sources providing misleading information about the Alberta Tar Sands — these include The Harper Government (as our Canadian prime minister insists the media now refer to the elected Canadian Government), “Big Oil” along with those who profit from oil production, and the well-funded lobby in the USA promoting the construction of the Keystone XL Pipeline.

To learn important truths about the Tar Sands, please watch this objective two-hour documentary by David Suzuki that came out this week:

The Tipping Point: The Age of the Oil Sands

(image source unknown)

—R. Buckminster Fuller (1895-1983)