Tag: personal reflection

Remembering VE Day, 8 May 1945

This is my uncle Joey Jacobson’s grave in Lichtenvoorde General Cemetery in the Netherlands.  The photo was sent to me by a man I know only because he read my book, Joey Jacobson’s War, a few years ago, and who went out of his way last week to visit Joey’s grave.  I was deeply moved that he would honour my uncle that way.  Joey lies next to his fellow crew members, all of whom perished in a bombing raid on Germany on 28 January 1942.

A WWII grave, in white stone marked with a star of David and a Canadian military crestPhoto credit: Steve Clayman

Our family visited Joey’s grave and took part in Netherland’s Remembrance and Liberation Day observances on May 4thand 5th, 2008. These are important days in the Netherlands, not simply remembered but observed with gratitude and reverence.  Yesterday, as on that day that we were present, the ceremony of observance in Lichtenvoorde would have been followed by a walk to the cemetery where Joey and 22 other Commonwealth airmen are buried.  Children would have laid flowers by their headstones.

This week is the 80th anniversary of VE Day, when Nazi Germany was finally defeated.  I see too little sign that we in Canada plan to observe the day with the same depth and intensity as the Dutch people, but we should.  They do not forget, and neither should we.  Yes, the fighting was very far away from us, and we were neither occupied nor liberated, but Canadians were front and centre in the struggle, at the cost of many thousands of lives.  And we should remember what they fought and died for, and against.

This is what Joey’s father recorded in his diary that day in Montreal when victory was declared.

My own feelings were mixed. I was glad … that is putting it mildly for the millions of people who could again feel with relief that their own were safe. I knew that I had in my thoughts rather feared the day when the realization of our personal loss would be … well I will leave it at that … I just felt lost for a while. I sat in Murrays drinking coffee for an hour, then walked along St. Catherine Street watching the crowds celebrate. … We closed our offices at noon. I went home to lunch in the usual way. Arranged to send some V Day flowers, red and white, to May whom I knew was feeling very much the same as I felt. We spent the afternoon quietly together. … Sounds a very trite description of one of the greatest days in history but my spirits were flat and I am not going to embellish this account with stuff that I did not feel.

80 years later, it is still appropriate to observe VE Day as the occasion for celebration, reflection, loss, and remembrance.

 

Springtime in Huron County

Huron County is the land of corn, soy, and wheat. If city folk wonder where their food staples come from, this is the place. The land here is bountiful, productive, and readily cultivated.  It’s as good as it gets in Canada. Drop a nine-furrow plow in the dark soil and you could go for miles without turning up a stone. In this fourth week of May, the fields are awakening. Corn has just been planted and in some fields is already at the two-leaf stage. The fields with last year’s corn stubble are being disced, harrowed and rolled, likely to be planted with soybeans within days. A few have already been planted. Seed heads are emerging in the wheat fields planted last fall, and will be ready for harvest in a couple of months.

I took these photos while cycling along the Orchard Line, which runs a mile in from where our cottage overlooks Lake Huron. The orchards are gone now, including the one my wife’s uncle had at the south end. But the crop fields are still interspersed with woodlots dense with hardwoods, spruce, and cedar. The trees are tall here, too.  Those woodlots haven’t been high-graded, at least not lately, nor have they been clear cut, although sadly, they are visibly marked by the skeletal remains of ash trees that fell victim to the emerald ash borer. Pine plantations, elsewhere intended to regenerate forests from abandoned fields, were not needed here and so are rarely seen.

Hundred-year-old maples mark the edge of the Orchard Line. Farmers seem to treasure them: they are quick to replace those that die, and they don’t begrudge the moisture and sunlight that those huge maples take from the first two or three rows of corn adjacent. Yes, there is industrial-scale farming here, but there is also stewardship.

Should the food that comes from these fields be cheap? Not if those who produce it can’t get a reasonable return for their work and risk. Should the grocery chain magnates get less of a share and pay more taxes? Maybe, but that share divided up among all the farmers of the land wouldn’t amount to much. Would “axing” the carbon tax make a difference? Some, no doubt, to the individual farmer, but certainly less than by “axing” all the other costs for equipment and fertilizer and every other input (which nobody proposes to do), along with lower interest rates. But none of that would make food in the grocery store cheaper. Better to ensure that everyone gets a living wage so that we can all afford to buy the food we need.

 

Springtime in Huron County. All photos by Peter Usher.

On This Day — 21 March 1974

FIFTY YEARS AGO ON THIS DAY – 21 March 2024

Fifty years ago today the Government of Canada established the Mackenzie Valley Pipeline Inquiry.  Its purpose was to hold hearings and report on the social, environmental and economic impact of the proposed Mackenzie Valley Gas Pipeline, and to recommend terms and conditions that should govern its construction, operation, and abandonment. 

The Liberal government of the day didn’t do this just because it seemed like a nice idea.  The proposed pipeline was meeting with determined opposition by Indigenous people in the Northwest Territories, and substantial public concern across Canada about its environmental effects.  The New Democratic Party, which held the balance of power in Parliament, made the Inquiry happen, and that it would be chaired by Justice Thomas Berger, as the price of its continued support.

I was living in Inuvik, Northwest Territories, at that time, working for the Inuvialuit on a mapping project for their land claim.  They asked me to stay on and assist them in their participation in the Inquiry, which I did.  The next three years, during which I acted as advisor to and expert witness for the Committee for Original Peoples’ Entitlement, changed Canada very much for the better, and also set the course for the rest of my working life.

I already knew who Tom Berger was.  As a socialist I admired his politics, and we in the Western Arctic were well aware of his role in the seminal Calder case on Indigenous land rights.  Yet in the circumstances of Canada’s headlong rush at that time to develop the energy and mineral resources of the North, from Churchill Falls in Labrador to the oil and gas resources of the Mackenzie Delta, I was not optimistic that much would come of Berger’s Inquiry.  

As it turned out, my limited expectations were much surpassed.  Not only did Justice Berger recommend against construction of the pipeline unless several key conditions were met, not least the resolution of Indigenous land claims.  The very title of his historic report, Northern Frontier Northern Homeland, changed Canadians’ perceptions of the North profoundly and for the better.  Canada’s ruling elite, and indeed many ordinary Canadians, thought that the concept of Indigenous title was laughable, that the North was a vast treasure house of riches ripe for exploitation, that its unrestrained development would be unambiguously beneficial, and that there was no need for public consultation and participation on matters of such fundamental national interest.  In short, much of what we now believe to be normal and right with respect to Indigenous rights, careful consideration of the environmental consequences of resource development, and public consultation, simply did not exist fifty years ago.  

We owe that change in very large measure to Tom Berger’s wisdom and action, and to his courage, his empathy, his capabilities, and his quiet determination.  And he didn’t stop there, he continued to act and to advocate for the rest of his life.  Individuals do matter in history, and Tom Berger was one of them.  To the extent that we live in a better country now than we did then, we owe him a debt of gratitude and honour.  He stands in the select company of truly great Canadians.

Tom Berger did not do this alone.  His Inquiry succeeded mainly because so many Indigenous residents of the affected communities in the North turned out to express their views and concerns at the community hearings, aided by the key intervenors at the Inquiry, with the Dene and Inuvialuit organizations at the forefront.

Yet nothing is forever.  If we do not defend and advance the achievements initiated fifty years ago that made Canada better, they will wither away and we will go backwards.  

On Snowshoeing

One of the consequences of Covid has been rediscovering the joys of snowshoeing.  While isolated on a hundred acres of bush in eastern Ontario, with three kilometers of trails, there was never a boring day in winter, whatever the weather.  And so it continues.

While snowshoeing I read the news: what animals are moving about the place, and what they are up to.  Deer trails and feeding craters, coyote tracks and their occasional kills, signs of porcupines and racoons, rabbit tracks, squirrel burrows in the snow, mouse tunnels, and on rare occasions the telltale pattern of wing tips on either side of a suddenly terminated mouse trail – prey surprised by an owl.

I monitor the snow condition of my trails, whether hard-packed and firm, crusty after freezing rain, or mushy from a recent thaw.  I watch for the freezing and thawing of spring-fed outflows and wet spots, and when it is safe to venture across the beaver pond as revealed by deer tracks in the snow.   I marvel at the variety and beauty of the light and the snow whether it’s mild or cold, windy or calm.  Sunny days bring the diamond sparkle of fresh light snow, cold winds create hard sastrugi ridges on the open fields.  A prolonged thaw brings snow-fleas to the surface.

A heavy snowfall brings the drudgery of trudging through deep snow to break trail anew.  I call this slow hard work “trudgery”, but it is rewarding nonetheless.  Hard-packed trails in the cold make for fast going, not only for me but also for deer that use them to avoid deep snow.  Sometimes I see fresh deer tracks on my own track, on a second circuit around less than an hour later.

A moderate snowfall accompanied by strong wind brings the challenge of finding the old trail across open fields.  This is especially so when the flat grey light of a cloudy day obscures all highlights, including the tell-tale contours of an existing trail.  Even then, knowing how far ahead to look – perhaps ten or twenty metres rather than one or two – may reveal a hint.  When all visible signs are absent, the existing trail can be found by feeling for compacted snow underfoot as one goes along.

Falling snow muffles all sound.  Then there is only silence.  Otherwise I listen for woodpeckers and owls, for suddenly flushed grouse or bolting deer. I am far enough away from highways that there is no background hum of traffic.  Headphones are the last thing I would take with me outdoors, so I am entirely away from the ceaseless din of commerce and even the distraction of background radio or music.

As the season progresses I watch for the signs of trees melting snow.  A depressed ring appears around every tree trunk, deciduous or coniferous, alive or dead, because the trunk conducts heat upwards from the unfrozen ground at root level.

I can do all this just by going out the back door whenever the conditions look right, and strap on my snowshoes.  I miss the days of speedskating on the Rideau Canal, and of cross-country skiing in the Gatineaus, but I don’t have to get in the car to snowshoe at home.

I miss the aesthetics of my old wood-framed gut snowshoes and my simple moosehide mukluks, now both worn out.  And I miss the aesthetics of the track those old snowshoes made in fresh snow.  Yet my newer tubular framed snowshoes and my hardy Canadian-made Sorels – rubber-bottomed, canvas-topped snow boots with heavy felt inners (now no longer available, unfortunately) – are perfectly serviceable.

In the silence and in solitude I can contemplate and think.  Perhaps about the work that needs to be done in the bush once the snow goes, perhaps about the book I am currently writing.  Come mid to late March, the season draws to an end and it’s time to move on.  Walking and cycling will replace snowshoeing, and it will be time for bush work and later for gardening.  And come the fall, time again for trail maintenance and preparation for the coming winter.  I am blessed with sufficient health and fitness to carry on, and all is good.

Photos

My old snowshoes.  Woodframe and gut, made in Loretteville, Que., bought at auction near home, ca 1978, with lamp wick binders added.

My old mukluks.  Moosehide and canvas with Western Arctic trim, felt inners, made at Sachs Harbour NWT, ca 1967.