by D. Grant DeMan Remember the old entrepreneurial motivation slogan: “Build a dream and the
dream will build you?” The visionaries of Vancouver Island, assigned to dream
up a marvelous Millennium plan, slumbered on the job it seems. There wasn’t
sufficient pillow time allowed to get anything substantial from under the
blanket and into a real rainforest four-poster. Alas, we ran out of dreaming
room.
Where is the largest clam, oyster or mighty octopus we might have bred to
display before a curious and cheering universe as the midnight clock ticked
over? Even a super-whale or salmon might have been worthy of effort. But no,
not one biological wonder did our scientists invent - not one two
thousand-foot
tree or flesh-eating two thousand liter slime mould. Nothing.
For that matter where in the world is our magnificent Millennial Arena,
Football Stadium or even Memorial Croquet Putting Green? Nowhere, that’s
where.
Nobody had time.
For the first seven hundred years of the second millenium our Islanders
were
pretty much enjoying the usual comforts of life in the primeval woods. Of
course they faced some fundamental problems of keeping body and soul together,
building the longest longhouses on the continent, while carving ancestral
totem
poles. As now, folks could not ignore the problem of tourists, or those big
city interlopers bound to ruin a pristine environment. Continually harassed by
northern slavers, southeast and western raiders, it became difficult to launch
long-range projections. Never even assembled an assembly line.
Then came the real movers and shakers who built even longer houses, snapped
up all the beachfront property and generally made this asphalt mess they
promise to clean up someday. Oh yeah! Let’s all clap hands, breathe easy and
watch the action in that direction.
So we don’t run short of time next time, let’s plot the next millenium
projects immediately. And have I got some doozies! Of course we’re counting on
younger citizens for actual implementation because I plan to be elsewhere by
3000. But them’s the breaks! Somebody else must always fulfil the artistry of
great genius. After all it wasn’t Da Vinci who built the first airplane, was
it? But I’ve laid the groundwork, seen the possibilities as it were. The trick
is to solve our major conundrums while developing some earth-shaking,
conscious-raising, brain-rattling awesome accomplishments.
The first three factors – make that six - problematical to Vancouver Island
are: a) A surplus of mountains – I’ve heard told, and it’s true I’m sure, that
this island produces only .0000098 of it’s total food supply. Reason? A big
shortage of flat land - tractors and other farm stuff like cows tend to slip
off 90-degree cliffs. b) Too tall trees. Most often we have to lie on our
backs
at high noon for just a glimpse of sun on that one summer day it isn’t raining
or foggy. 3) Vancouver Island is windier than a preacher’s pulpit. One year up
at Cape Scott the wind averaged 467 kilometers per hour the first two months,
and they couldn’t measure the rest because the instrument blew away, landing
near Churchill. Shoot me if those figures are wrong. d) Rain, known in other
parts of the nation as “waterfalls.” I recall the Tahsis winter of ’64 – or
was
it ’66? – we got 3,218 inches (we were so remote metrics hadn’t reached us) in
a long weekend. Anyone sufficiently foolish to walk outdoors without scuba
gear
was instantly drowned, as were the moose herd. You say Moose are not
indigenous
to our island? No, not now they aren’t! And e) Transportation – we haven’t
been
able to build and run a ferryboat for less than a billion dollars per knot.
That's nearly half a billion per kilometer. I think. Then there are those
burglars skulking in the dark – Oooooooo!
Those are the major issues to be addressed. Here then are my remedial
resolutions, designed to make our Island a gallery of intellect. California
Cousin Charles told me the gardener is laying imported thousand-buck
flagstones
through his back fifty-acres, each weighing over a ton. Voila! I thought, a
ready market for surplus mountains. Cart them to California, and rock gobbling
Saskatchewan in scows converted from ferries. Those remaining could be
bulldozed up in a great pile and we’d have the world’s tallest mountain -
Mount
Big Pointy Rock - soon to be littered with frozen tourists as is Everest now.
Some granite must be retained for a mainland causeway, leaving a channel for
the world’s longest bridge. Then place a lock on that canal and charge ships
appropriate passage, as does Panama today: Alaska anyone? That’ll be a million
dollars, please. Taking advantage of tidal drifts, we’d then rejoice on the
beaches and tourist hotel dollars generated by the two resultant lagoons. With
most mountains now gone we’d grow the crops we need upon the Great Vancouver
Island Plains, plus a surplus for African export. Restore the Van-Isle gopher,
ostrich, and impala to their natural habitat. Great idea? You betcha - I
have a
plethora of ‘em!
Ah! But “NO!” you say. “What about the rain? The wind?” Relax Old Beaver
Breath. I have the very solution right here. Our scientists tell us all that
stuff comes mainly from the West, as if we left-leaning natives didn't
comprehend; if the wind ceased we’d fall splat in the water, drown and break a
collarbone to boot. So I propose we build a series of really super large
west-facing funnels, each concealing enormous turbine-fans and generators. Now
you see where we’re going, don’t you Rascals? We funnel off the water, send
that to thirsty Arizona and Arabia by pipeline, and generate a gazillion
mega-gigaga-bigga watts of power en route for anyone who can pay the fare. Why
not light up the island, scaring away the burglars, while luring slotting and
crapping tourists (that’s a game – “craps” – folks) from Vegas and Atlantic
City? Alcan would thus cross our new causeway, build a mighty power-sucking
barbecue foil-wrap factory, and to honor the arts, tastefully erect the
world’s
first interiorly lit three-thousand foot aluminum totem pole, dedicated to
Chief Maquinna or some other equally deserving Island Hero. Just imagine. And
we have a thousand years to do it.
That’s the good part.
Oh sure, we’d leave most timber standing. But frankly our trees are far too
tall – secretly those of us with sky-watching issues grow damn tired of
hearing
the crack of neckbones while ogling a treetop eagle, and there is the
farm-lighting-shadow consideration also afoot. Soggy pale tomatoes just won’t
do! To gratify farmers, loggers and environmentalists may I make an obvious
suggestion we limit logging to merely lopping off the upper two hundred
feet of
those majestic firs and cedars? That leaves a hundred or more still alive,
bushy and very pleasant to the eye, a cozy home to squirrels, gypsy moths,
woodpeckers, and slime molds. Brilliant? Say it again with birdsong!
So now we’ve come up with an idea worthy of this Great Canadian Island,
let’s get crackling.
After all, a thousand years only seems long from this end of the journey. A
millennium from now we shall look back and say, “Hey! Where’d the time fly?
Two
thousand seems like yesterday!”
Let’s build that dream pronto, folks.
'Vox Populi', get started! Send in your comments and critique on The Donald Grant DeMan Main Page - - - Email Donald Grant DeMan - - - Possibility Arts - Don & Diane's Website
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