A dark day in BC

And no, I'm not talking about the weather, though the gloomy skies this afternoon appear to be in agreement. It's a dark day because today is the day BC Hydro has begun filling the reservoir created by the Site C Dam on the Peace River. 

The water will flood 6,649 hectares of farmland. To put that into the more familiar terminology most of us still use, that's just about 16,000 acres. But even that number doesn't really compute as to just how massive this reservoir will be when it's full--and how much arable land we're losing. 

About the closest familiar bit of land that's pretty much equivalent to an acre is a football field. So, if you think about how much food could be grown on one football field, and we're talking 16,000 of them--well, I think you get my drift over how hideous this loss is. 

It gets even worse if you stop to consider how much farmland we keep losing in the Lower Mainland, particularly in Richmond and Surrey where condos, mega-houses, and warehouses keep being built, covering our farmland. 

As our climate keeps getting warmer, the tragedy only grows, as there's little doubt the region would soon be capable of growing foods that long had to be grown further south. 

I know, I've been ranting about the folly of this project for a long time, but somehow I tricked myself into thinking it still might not happen. Sadly, it turns out, I was very wrong. 

Now I guess we'll need to find a name for this dreadful new 'lake' that will cover so much. Lake Disappointment? Lake Horrible? How about Lake Despair. 

Countdown...

...to decision time for the future of the Hazelmere Valley, an area the City of Surrey has casually renamed South Campbell Heights. 

Here I'd thought renaming was exclusively the domain of settlers who determined that English names were better than the names given to places by the Indigenous peoples who'd lived here for centuries. 

The current renaming practice is more a matter of hiding what's actually at stake -- in this case, a small forest, some farmland, a river, and an aquifer. 

If you haven't already seen it, here's a video that offers a few reasons for protecting the area, reasons that are only becoming more critical by the day as we move inexorably toward climate disaster.

Cheery thoughts for a Monday, eh. Friday morning will be the time of reckoning, when Metro Vancouver Regional Board determines whether they will move the Urban Containment Boundary, a protective element that is part of their Metro 2040 vision for the region. 

Here's hoping that sanity (and thoughts for the future) prevail. 

Row on row

The other day, because I had a small somewhat out-of-town errand to run, I had the good fortune to drive past a place I call my 'favourite' field. The farmer was on his tractor and in the process of cutting the hay.

A lot of people would likely sneeze at the thought of witnessing such an event -- and probably if I'd hung around for any length of time, I would have too -- but I found it so beautiful I had to stop and take a quick photo. The shot doesn't begin to match how gorgeous (at least to me) it actually was, still, it might give you a bit of glimpse of the freshness and the greenness of the tidy rows.

And then, because I always like to find some kind of theme for a post, I started fiddling around and looking for something along the line of rows.

Of course, "In Flanders Field" came up, but I knew that wasn't what I wanted, so on with the search I went -- until I found this very old poem, "Row On", credited to being found in the logbook of a whaling ship. The chorus especially, with its line, "There's dawn beyond the night" seemed apt for the difficult days we're in, a reminder that hope lies over the horizon, but that it's there, waiting.