Cougar tracking, coyotes and canids.

Puma concolor. Small head, long tail, this one is in the winter coat.

Is the fabled Eastern Cougar moving back into its natural range?

That’s what wildlife lovers are asking. In June of 2007, police in London, Ontario hired a wildlife expert to check out thirty-two reports of cougars in the city and environs.

Proof of deer, wild turkeys, raccoons, coyotes, and “possibly a bobcat,” was found. In late October of that year, a horse was mauled in Parkhill, Ontario. \

“The attack was made by an animal with sharp claws, consistent with a cougar attack,” according to Ontario Provincial Police sources. The horse had to be destroyed by a veterinarian. On October 31 of that year, Parkhill resident Adrian Cornelissen was driving to Watford and spotted a big cat.

“It was huge, yellowish-orange, and it darted right out in front of my car,” in the vicinity of Confederation Line just east of First School Line. “It definitely wasn’t a dog. It looked to be at least a hundred pounds. It had big paws and head…this was no barn cat.”

“I was afraid people wouldn’t believe me and they would laugh at me,” he said, so he called it in to police later, after thinking it over.

That same week the OPP also received a report of a big cat near Confederation Line and Mandaumin Road. Police searched the area but saw nothing.

London area farmer Bill Sweeney insists, “The big cats are for real.”

His encounter with the feline predators came one spring morning as he tiptoed the back forty acres of his farm hoping to get a look at some deer or wild turkeys. He saw a pair of tan-coloured cats, which he had previously seen only in books or in a zoo.

Sweeney watched them, “For a good eight to ten minutes.”

“They were beyond the open woods, just past a high hay field,” he said. “They were about two hundred  metres away.”

One sauntered along a fence line towards him, while the other stayed still.

MickaTP, (Wiki.) Note distinctive shapes.

“There is absolutely no doubt in my mind,” he says.

As he observed them, they bounded into a chase, and a covey of wild turkeys burst out of the tree line.

“People need to know that these are dangerous animals. Be alert, and be informed, especially as regards to your children,” according to Mr. Sweeney.

And on November 15, 2007, a 27-year old Port Franks woman saw a large, black, cat-like animal perched on a branch about thirteen metres from her home. She watched as the animal extended itself down to lower branches then dropped to the ground. She estimated it to be, “at least four feet long.”

When police officers arrived, the animal had left the area. They found no tracks or scratch marks. Police are asking the public to lock their barns and homes, not to walk in the bush or at night, especially alone. Keep pets and children indoors or under direct supervision.

The past five years have seen numerous big cat reports in Ontario.

Cougars are tawny, with reddish-white muzzle, chin and chest. They’re lighter inside the legs and on the belly, and have a black spot over each eye. The tail is the same thickness all along its length, and is comparatively long, while the head is relatively small compared to a lion or a tiger. The young have spots, and rings on the tail which disappear with maturity. With mild winters, there are plenty of rabbits, possum, deer, raccoons, wild turkeys and other small game to support them. It’s only a matter of time before some lucky photographer confirms it.

Rich Beausoleil. (Wiki.)

If you’re hiking, look for tracks to photograph, as a big cat should leave no claw marks. Most cats have retractile claws. Somewhere the big cat will rub up against a tree, and scratch at something just like any other feline. Try and get a sample, just put it in an envelope and label it. You could try sending it to a university zoology department somewhere. Cougar fur will be distinctive under a microscope, although DNA tests are expensive. The husk of a broken claw might be dislodged. If you find tracks regularly, come back later. Mix up some dry-type plaster-repair putty, and make a cast. I would think a big cat would have a pretty distinctive den, if you find one. A mother cat will defend the cubs, incidentally, so you’d better be careful. I found a deer kill once in the woods.

There’s not much to look at, unless it’s winter and you see some tracks leading away.

Then snow conditions dictate how clear the tracks actually are. As for other kinds of spoor, lots of other animals eat rabbits and other small game, and I don’t know how an amateur could really tell the difference. The size of a raccoon, or badger, or coyote ‘spoor’ can be quite startling. A cougar, like any cat will make some attempt to cover its business, and that’s a dead giveaway. No other animal that I’m aware of does that.

The existence of the cougars is not exactly confirmed, but there appears little doubt.

The question as to whether the animals are indeed wild animals re-populating an old range, or merely escapees from zoos and private collectors would seem to be academic.

The animals are clearly here and there needs to be some education as to how to deal with animal encounters in what is usually perceived as a pretty benign environment.

All big cat sightings should be reported to police. It is probably unwise to go looking for a cougar, but if you do, take a friend, and carry a big stick. If you see it first you’re probably okay; but if it pounces from above, it’s really going to hurt, or worse. Cougars usually kill their prey by biting down hard on the neck or throat area. If you’re driving down the road and see one, check the rearview mirror before stopping.

Safety first. I’ve gone looking for cougars two or three times, but I didn’t have any luck. If you have an unlimited budget and good camera, it would be a kind of labour of love to try and get some pictures…give me a call. I know this county like the back of my hand, and I know a couple of really good places to look!

I definitely want to see the big cat before it sees me. The odds of being able to swing up the camera, check the exposure, focus, and get a shot are almost astronomically small.

But it kind of grabs the imagination. The best time to track cougars is in the winter, in daylight, with good weather and visibility. You have to figure out where they will be. You need to get there first, quietly, with the wind just right. Then all you have to do is to sit there and wait and try not to freeze to death…you want to be under cover, with a good field of view in all directions. Don’t forget to look behind you once in a while, and check every big tree on the way in.

They say I’m half cat myself, don’t you know.

###

Eastern coyote.

Canid tracks are quite distinctive as any dog, coyote or wolf will show claw marks. Based on size and length of toes, this is not a big possum! Note there are four toes and a large pad behind them which looks like two small ovals and one bigger, wider ovate shape in the middle. A raccoon has very long toes.; a possum will have much longer toes, a badger or any burrowing animal will have even longer claws. This animal weighed between thirty-five and forty-five pounds, and the tracks are about two inches wide, and three inches long.

Snow conditions, melting temperatures, and even simple air circulation at sub-zero temperatures will enlarge any tracks. It is a matter of knowing what local weather conditions have been like over the previous week. Generally speaking, any dog will have a human companion. If you find tracks like this without any corresponding boot prints, then some caution is advised.

Generally speaking, an Eastern  coyote is up to twenty-five percent larger than their western cousins, and they do travel in a small, nuclear family type of pack. Timber wolves are extremely rare in Ontario, although there are a number of confirmed packs in the region of Algonquin Park.

“Ki-ki-wah-pah min mino.” (Goodbye.)

###

Coyotes kill Toronto singer, Cape Breton Island. (CBC.)

Hiking in Mountain Lion Country. (About.com, Hiking.)



Ontario has natural and historical diversity.

My buddy and I descended that without ropes.
Rattlesnake Point.

Ontario presents us with a diversity of natural landscapes and a rich human history.

Much of the old-growth forest of southern Ontario is gone now, but small patches remain. Living and dead trees give an idea of what a fully mature forest might have once been like, with deeply-shaded glades and more open areas due to fires, tornadoes, and perhaps flooding. Other causes of natural death besides simple age would include periodic insect and fungal infestations, and natural climate fluctuations. The ages and the sizes of the trees are pretty impressive, and yet some of the oldest trees are dwarf trees (white cedars,) along the Niagara Escarpment. I’ve seen a few while traipsing around.

White cedar was a valuable commodity because of its resistance to rot and weather. Naturally, the most accessible ones were quickly cut down, and in Oakville for example, the mature trees, oaks for barrel staves and pine for masts for the Royal Navy, supported a local industry for decades before they ran out of trees. Much of the wood went into locally constructed schooners, used for fishing and freight.

Relic trees are scattered around all over southern Ontario.

The Oak Ridge Moraine runs north of Toronto and is the source of dozens of rivers and streams. It’s important to preserve it in the name of water quality and wildlife habitat, yet it is under pressure of urban and industrial development.

A fawn.

Bronte Creek is familiar to this writer as the Bruce Trail crosses it and he has hiked places such as Hilton Falls, the Nassageweya Canyon, Mount Nemo, Rattlesnake Point, and Twiss Canyon. This river runs on rock and stone for much of the time and is consequently clear and not silted up. It’s perfect for creek-walking. At the Highway 5 bridge, the gully must be 300 feet deep with steep sides. Salmon spawn in the lower reaches, and it is a home for brook trout and other fish. Because of the Bruce Trail system, there are a number of access points. One of my favourites is Limestone Creek, a tributary, where it runs down out of Nassageweya Canyon.

While the loss of natural habitat is sobering enough, the cultural loss is significant as well. The nations that once dwelt in the Great lakes basin are in some cases almost completely unknown. The Chat (Cat) nation, the Fire nation, otherwise known as the Eries were dispersed by the Iroquois before settlement. The Neutrals are a sad story because the Jesuits met them once. When next heard of they had been destroyed. Some surviving native groups went extinct or took off on treks that led as far as Tennessee and Oklahoma. They may have originated there, as did the Tuscarora, the sixth member of the Iroquois Confederacy. It would be a natural thing to do, for the survivors to go down the Ohio River and hence to the Mississippi. Some of them disappeared, as in the Petun, (often called Neutrals,) of southern Ontario.

Native habitation goes back to shortly after the last ice age. The landscape must have been a much different place back then and the impact of man small. We can only wonder, although dimly, from the perspective of today what it might have looked like.

Canoeing with the best and the worst in Algonquin Park.

Over the beaver dam, Jeffrey M. Dean.

My buddy Willy and I once launched at seven a.m. upon Cedar Lake in Algonquin Park. We were heading southeast towards the outlet of the Petawawa River. With the water like glass and windless, we paddled. Less than half an hour later, we had trouble.

Waves swept along from back to front, rising to within a couple of inches of the gunwales. They were lifting the back of the craft and accelerating us forward. Winds were blowing about 25-30 kilometres per hour, and we had a good three kilometres of open water ahead of us.

“Don’t look back!” I told Willy.

Luckily we made it to an island. Once behind it, the water was calm again. I hate ‘high following seas.’ I take responsibility for the mistake, as I was sitting in back and steering.

What if the wind had gotten stronger; or if we were ten pounds heavier? Yet Willy was a good guy to go camping with.

I have camped with the very worst. One time, a guy insisted on going into Stratton Lake. This guy had to bring a little 1.2 hp motor. He couldn’t live without it.

“There are no motors allowed on Stratton Lake,” I told him.

“Yeah, yeah,” he said. “I know. We don’t have to use it after all.”

Of course the best way to carry the motor is on the mount, right?

After five minutes of paddling, you guessed it. He had to fire up the motor. That lake is V-shaped. The bay at the point of the V has a few campsites. People ran down to the water’s edge. They jumped in their boats. It looked like the opening credits from, ‘Hawaii 5-0.’ They were putting up rooster tails. We were soon surrounded.

All I could do was to sit in the front of the boat, shrugging my shoulders, red-faced.

Listening to him say, “Sorry, I didn’t know.”

“It’s on the map, you friggin’ dummies,” one guy said.

Clench my jaws and shut up.

We found a campsite. Put up the tent. He was tired, after paddling all that way. He fell asleep at three o’clock in the afternoon and slept till dawn. He always had to bring a six-man tent, and a bag with forty pounds of tent poles. 

Motor…fuel…tools…cooler…ice…three bags of milk. A tent heater; a lantern. More fuel. That’s a lot of stuff to carry over a 30-metre portage. An axe, hatchet and saw, three different knives…

Bored, I went for a paddle. Going past a campsite, there were six big guys standing around a fire drinking. They were wearing paratrooper boots, camouflage pants, 17-inch Bowie knives, and yelling; “You wussy! You bleeping a-hole!” 

Make my friggin’ day, eh?

Yet I went camping again with the guy. He promised to play by the rules! He couldn’t live without screwing things up for everyone else. It was an interesting case study, in some ways, but painful to watch. I found myself sitting in the front of the boat, motor going full blast. He promised to stay close to shore…we were exactly in the middle of the lake. I had specifically warned him about, ‘high, following seas.’ You just couldn’t reason with the guy, or trust him, either. I don’t think he was deaf.

Looking back, the motor appeared to be slanting backwards about thirty degrees. The plywood motor mount was breaking up. Did he not see it? Then we ran out of fuel.

We sat there in the middle of Cedar Lake, broaching sideways, in the heavy waves, while he attempted to re-fuel. We had 350 pounds of gear in the boat, and about three-quarters of an inch of freeboard.

The wind was blowing at about 35 kilometres an hour, or exactly as I had told him. He had to camp on an island, because it had a nice sandy beach. Beaches are popular sites.

They’re very dirty, with a lot of sand fleas, blackflies, etc. There was another site thirty yards away. He insisted on putting our tent on one site, and then the boat out in front of the other. Half a dozen other canoe parties showed up…went swimming…looked at that other site…and moved on. I cannot list all the stupid stuff he did on one or two trips together. The killer was what happened on the way home.

“There’s a cop behind us…” he hissed as we drove down the highway.

“Big deal,” I said.

Then: “What’s the problem…?”

Turns out screw-brain hadn’t renewed his license sticker!

Why not? Because he needed a ‘vacation.’ And he was a little short of money. 

I’m going to tell you something funny about Algonquin Park. When you go there, you provide ID and they write your name down. People aren’t shy about complaining if some other yo-yo has ruined the experience for them.

And if you should go back the next year, in all, ‘innocence,’ (perhaps ignorance is a better word,) they may have reserved a site for you. They know who you are, after all; for we reveal ourselves in so many ways.

It’s a little place called, ‘Varmint Lake.’ It’s the only one available, because you were too smart to reserve a site.

“Sorry boys, take it or leave it.”

“What you do is launch, but instead of going right onto the lake, you go left, up the swamp…follow the non-maintained trail over the Death March Hills…follow the winding stream bed for six kilometers until you hit water…then wade and drag the boat through Mosquito Swamp…and then you get to Varmint Lake, named for its size, not for any local wildlife, and then you use your two-inch buck knife, or better yet the dull hatchet, to clear a site anywhere you want on the boulder-strewn, 45-degree hillside.”

“Have a nice vacation boys, and if you hear a motor up in the hills, it’s probably just nice Mr. Ranger, releasing problem bears back into the wild.”

Really, it was all just a misunderstanding. (Greg Hume.)

“It’s nice and quiet up there…only other people in there right now are six big guys in camo pants, but they seemed like nice chaps, at least before they got to drinking…”

“Oh yeah, here’s a free bottle of Honey-Butter Sun Tan Oil, compliments of the management. And the best thing to do with sardine tins, which are not technically allowed, but we’ll let it pass just this once, is to hang them up all around the tent. Rules are rules, but of course they are meant for everybody else…right? Have a nice day and come again some time.” 

Might go camping with Willy again. Might go alone someday.

May even go back to Algonquin someday. But I got one rule: be careful of the company you keep.

Because it rubs off.

End

An evolution of attitudes.



Temperate rain forest, northern Iran. Photo by Argooya, (Wiki Commons.)






     Like the debate between the right to life and the right to choose, the debate between evolutionists and creationists is always fascinating. Something about the cut, thrust and parry, between two mutually irreconcilable points of view, strikes a chord that resonates within this writer.

     When everything is boiled down into thirty-second sound bites, when everything is simplified to the level of the lowest common denominator, the objective spectator is not particularly well served. Does an adult threatening suicide have the right to choose? Does an unfertilized egg, or do a few million sperm, have the right to live? These are often seen as perverse lines of questioning, but it goes right to the heart of the matter.

     When school boards have to choose between teaching evolution, or creation, or teachers are asked to present two points of view to the kids, it seems to me to be just schizophrenia of the institutional type. Evolution is a theory and has always been presented as such. People have the right to choose if they believe it or not.

     All of the life forms we are familiar with have evolved over the last two to forty thousand years. I can prove that. Let’s go over to Siberia and you can show me the Asian bison. Because if you can’t, then bison must have evolved here in North America in the last 12,000 to 20,000 years, or since the last ice age. And every day, more species go extinct. Because they didn’t adapt quite fast enough to changing environmental conditions, the bulk of which are caused by our own activities. So; animals that don’t adapt fast enough go extinct. It happens quickly. One of the commonest misconceptions is that evolution, including human evolution, takes ‘millions and millions’ of years. Yet the average height in this area has gone up by four or five inches in the last one hundred years. It didn’t take a million years, neither did it take a thousand.

     Virtually all mutations or adaptations are environmental. We have changed our environment, and we are in the process of changing our environment even further, and at an accelerating rate.

     This is not ‘bad science.’ But it is possible that the rapidly climbing rates of respiratory disorders, diabetes, or even simple morbid obesity are biological responses to the immediate environment. Biological adaptations to an organism happen to that organism—then and only then, does that organism transmit them to the offspring. It’s not like something happens to you, and then after three generations; some changes begin to occur. Does any reader have doubts, that in a changed environment, one not quite so calorie-rich, that the average human body type would quickly revert, or, ‘evolve,’ back to a slightly-built, yet wiry form of much-reduced mass? No new babies have to be born for this to happen. Does the reader doubt that simple natural selection and mortality tables relating to age and nutrition would come into play in developing

this new body type ever the next few generations? If not, how did we get taller? And then suddenly fatter? Perhaps one can deny global warming. Can one deny pollution? Can one deny our chemistry-enhanced diet? Can one deny that the human race is undergoing some changes?

      I’m not asking if these changes are welcome. Neither is Mother Nature, to characterize reality. The forces of unending creation are not cruel, neither are they kind, they are merely indifferent as to our belief systems.

      Neanderthals, the familiar club-swinging, hairy, brutish types who dragged their wives home by the hair have died out. This happened in the last twenty-five to forty thousand years. They were displaced, supplanted, or driven to extinction by Cro-Magnon peoples, who were of a more modern type according to scientific thought. Interestingly enough, the Neanderthals had much bigger brains than the Cro-Magnons. It is possible that the Cro-Magnons developed a superior culture, and that affected the outcome? In a sense, ants have a social structure, and this evolved to help them survive as a species. Why should not social evolution in humans play a role in our survival as a species?

     Wouldn’t simple education play a big role in achieving such a goal, i.e. human social evolution, with cooperation as opposed to confrontation? Wouldn’t we evolve the biological ability to thrive in our new social structures, which have become increasingly complex and challenging? If we have the ability to change the physical environment so markedly, do we not have the potential ability to change our social environments relatively quickly? We do it when we want to, such as adapting ourselves to motor vehicles, or color TV’s.

     The common dairy cow has evolved, by selective breeding, over the last two or three hundred years. Corn, wheat, and other cereal crops are almost unrecognizable compared to a few hundred years ago. Aren’t we also unrecognizable?

     There are three major causes of evolution in an organism. The first is environmental. The second is random, genetic mutations, whether they are caused by cosmic rays, or simply arise from some flawed portion of the DNA chain. There is such a thing as ‘genetic drift,’ probably due to the fact that the one constant in all of creation is change, and change is necessary. 

     And the third is ‘unnatural’ selection. I use this term advisedly. Because we select our mates.

     We select them for height, weight, hair and eye color. We select them for personality, beauty, and cultural reasons. The odds of anyone reading this marrying an Andaman Islander or a San (Bushman), or a Pitcairn Islander, is quite small. For one thing, there aren’t very many of them, and they live quite far away from us. But also in the smaller, human scale of things, we select our mates from the local environment—where we are all created equal, in terms of air and water pollution, crime, the types of foods available in local supermarkets, the need for transportation of many miles or kilometres per day. Our pudgy, soft bodies have evolved within our own lifetimes, we’re not built so much for walking anymore. Now we’re built to ride, aren’t we?

     We select the cow that produces the most milk. We select the hardiest grains, and the biggest, sweetest apples. No one goes out and plants small, sour apples that are not resistant to drought, frost or pests. A news report recently suggested that we are still evolving. Apparently relatively thickset women have more babies than slender women! But is this truly cause and effect, or is it effect and cause? What I’m asking, do the skinnier women have fewer babies, and so therefore they stay skinnier? Having babies changes the body. Not all scientists or the conclusions drawn by them, are trustworthy, especially when dependent on research grants to stay in business.

Virtually every study has some kind of limitation if not outright flaw.

      So we continue to pollute our atmosphere, our water and our soil in the name of progress, and prosperity for the few, and in the name of order and rule of law. It seems all the common man can do is try to evolve a little faster. Because a changing environment means a changing human race, and it doesn’t take millions of years, in spite of unfortunate impressions promulgated by fuzzy teachings. In a recent documentary, a spokesperson for a major industry advocated ownership of the air, the oceans, the electromagnetic spectrum, in fact anything was wasn’t already nailed down, such as real property, or things like the airways, and the airwaves, otherwise owned by someone somewhere. In his view, “People don’t look after their water, which is held in common trust,” and, “They don’t look after the air, or even the soil in the case of some farmers refusing to adopt new practices in cultivation.”

     And he’s right, isn’t he? The very people who depended on the cod fishery in eastern Canada were the ones who were always complaining about diminishing quotas, red tape and regulations, governments interfering with their livelihood. They were always demanding that the government ‘do something about it,’ when they themselves were the only ones with the power to do anything at all about it. Were they seriously expecting the government to stock the oceans with fully-grown cod, putting them out right where the nets were going to be? Now the Fraser River salmon fishery collapsed, and all the interested parties are screaming for someone else to do something about it, perhaps have a big public inquiry. As yet, development of hydro on the Fraser has always taken second place to the salmon fishery. Now that the salmon are gone, perhaps the equation has changed. Now the river can be sold to a big corporation, and they will perhaps look after it better.

     Essentially he’s saying that some big corporation somewhere is going to own the atmosphere, and if they are supposed to provide you with certain services—i.e. ‘air,’ then you are obviously going to have to pay some kind of fee, and one would suppose not get too far behind on your bill.

     Then, and only then, someone, the corporation for example, will have a proper incentive to look after the said atmosphere or ocean. It is, after all, in their best interests to do so. As long as they have a proper and hard-working debt slave, it also kind of behooves them to look after you as well. Let’s hope so.

     Scary as this sounds, and I’m definitely not an advocate, but this might be the new face of social progress. One of the questions often asked about the United Nations is, “Why don’t they have any power?”

     And the reason is simple. Because no one single nation or group of people, or even certain individuals I know, are going to give up one iota of money, power, influence, control, or anything easily, and not without a lot of assurances that everyone else will too. And also a lot of reassurances that none of the delegated power would be misused. If the reader considers how people feel when some new political corruption scandal makes the headlines, just imagine the big countries of the world, or some of the more excitable ones, sitting around the committee room table. Any kind of a representative democracy, such as the UN, ultimately gets governed by patronage, the collection and redistribution of wealth in some form or another. Imagine all those countries sitting around the committee tables, trying to agree on who gets what project

first, and how much gets spent on it, and how much work local contractors will get, and who will

manage the project. This goes for each and every dollar spent on saving the planet. It’s no wonder the more responsible countries prefer to work alone.

     Ultimately, no one can forget who they really are, and nothing ever gets done. Simply put, few nations have the trust, or the courage, or even the simple maturity to go first. We cannot save this planet without making some personal sacrifices.

     Our mental attitudes are going to have to evolve.

#

The Corporate Ethic.

Globe & Mail writer Jeffrey Simpson once said, “Without productivity growth, there’s no real economic growth, no real wealth creation, no improvement in the country’s overall standard of living.”

With all the political and media hype about R & D and corporate tax cuts, why the rapid decline in the standard of living for so many Canadians?

According to a study by Toronto’s Impact Group, “Very few Canadian companies do R & D; over seven years, only 9 percent of Canadian firms did R & D every year. The rest did nothing or at best were occasional performers.”

Simpson also wrote; “The hidden issue of Canadian economic structure is foreign ownership. Canada remains a branch-plant economy, and branch plants don’t do much R & D unless bribed by government.” Our nation’s manufacturing industry is over 50 percent foreign-owned. Why would foreign firms, mostly U.S.-based, transfer R & D out of their own country, even with big incentives? Statistics Canada says, “It is investment spending by firms and households that is the prime mover in economic fluctuations.”

According to published OECD figures, Canada’s productivity ranked 5^th in 1970, 12^th in 1980, 16^th in 1990, 16^th in 2000, and between 2000 and 2005 we were 20^th out of 29 countries studied. By 2006 we had fallen to 22^nd place, and in 2007 we were 47^th out of 50 in terms of GDP per hours worked. Recent figures show the trend continuing.

Most of the barriers identified by business leaders in the 80’s and 90’s as impediments to economic growth are gone; yet the growth of productivity has never been worse.

Investment in machinery and equipment capital stock has fallen in recent years. This eduction in new technology acquisition also reduces growth in productivity, and this at a time when all other developed and developing nations are forging ahead.

According to David Crane of the Toronto Star, “Productivity is about innovation—skilled employees with advanced technologies generating high-value products and services that support good jobs and create the wealth for a successful society. Productivity is not about a race to the bottom.”

The Information Technology Association of Canada says in 2005, Canadian companies were investing only 43 percent per worker when compared to U.S. companies. In January 2006, the Globe & Mail blamed the “private sector’s pitiful investment in the adoption of new technologies,” then went on to advocate another round of tax breaks for big corporations.

In the International Productivity Monitor, TD Financial’s Don Drummond and co-author Rita Sapru stated, “Productivity growth has slowed dramatically over the last seven years, a development that threatens the well-being of Canadians.”

Yet corporate share of Canadian earnings as a percentage of GDP has been growing at record levels.

Based on past performance, big corporations do not deserve more tax breaks.

Algonquin Dream Expedition.

Photo by P199.

My Algonquin dream expedition might go something like this. From the boat launch at the Opeongo Lake store, I would paddle approximately 13.5 k’s north, and once in the north arm of the lake, steer a course of 355 degrees for the first portage to Proulx Lake. This is marked variously at three portages of 175; 310, and 965 metres or on another map at 1250 metres.

From the portage at Proulx lake steer 37.5 degrees for about 1.3 kilometres then turn to port and teer a course of 300 degrees. At the end of Proulx Lake, enter the Crow River after a paddle of approx 12.6 to 14.4 k. depending on wind and waves. At the end of Proulx Lake there is a waterfall on the Crow River, and the trail to the big white pines.

This trail is about 1.5 k. in length or 3 k. overall. At 35 metres, these are the tallest trees in the park, that’s about 113.4 feet tall.

On the Crow River there is a series of portages, of 240; 155 and 1220 metres; then a 3 k. paddle on the Crow River, (downstream) then 385; 170; 205 and 110 metre portages. Entering Lake Laveille, there is a 16 kilometre paddle, settling on a course of SE; go around the headland; now paddle due south, and then from Hardy Bay a 90 metre portage into Dickson Lake. A four kilometer paddle on Dickson Lake will bring the end of the trip at the 340 yr. old red spruce.

The return trip retraces the path in; mostly up current on the river, and mostly into the wind on the lakes.

Very tiring. Overall, the portages amount to about 4.025 k (X2!) and the trip is over 50 kilometres, (30 miles.) I reckon at least a week to do it. Portages are the killer. Gas to get there might be $300.00. That’s a long, hard trip for a guy without the very best in equipment, a bit out of shape now, all on his own. I’m 36 years old. I may not get many more summers to attempt that trip. Just a dream. My boys are a bit young to go and such a trip is not exactly a summer vacation where the focus would be on having fun and seeing the sights.

Range of fred spruce, Picaea Rubens in N. America.

As for going alone, that’s a whole different ball game. The risk of injury, bad weather, broken boat. I don’t know, buddy.

Still, we can dream, and hope to get out there in some limited fashion from time to time.

The Economy, Stupid.

A bullshit peddler.

     No economy can remain static. It’s either growing or shrinking.

     Our way of life is based upon constantly expanding markets. The notion that we can continue to improve standards of living while lowering production and consumption flies in the face of everything we believe about market capitalism. And in fact no one has had this notion. I think I’m the first!

     When you consider that I dropped out of school (upon request) about halfway through grade ten, then that’s really saying something about the intellectually sterile environment we’ve created in Canada.

     Every business person realizes that if revenues are capped at $100,000 then the only way to increase profits is to cut costs. But that is an assumption. You could sell fewer units, while still generating the same revenue—simply raise prices and lower production.

     But no one ever thinks of it that way—lower costs by creating efficiencies and driving up demand by reducing the number of available units.

     Yet this is all indicated by the currently-accepted theories of economics! And I’m not saying that all the theories are self-justifying bullshit. It’s just that one of the things a philosopher does is to invert things—and see what falls out of its pockets.

     And in this society at the present time, consumption drives production, which drives employment, which drives taxation. That is one reason why we now have half as many people living in homes that are twice as big as our parents lived in. In some ways we are a victim of our own efficiency. The housing industry is so competitive, that there is little profit in a 1,200 square-foot home, once the risk, liabilities, capitalization and time factors are put into the equation. Why would a builder waste six months to earn a profit of ten thousand dollars? He wouldn’t be able to live in the very houses which he builds for others. It is far better to build a 4,500 square-foot home, make fifty to a hundred thousand in profit, and at that rate, not only can you afford to do it again, it’s even worthwhile. It still takes six months of his precious time. The lot represents a fixed cost, so the bigger the building, the greater the profit.

    So the real problem is how to maintain standards of living without conspicuous consumption, without over-production and without stagnating wages and profits—because apparently the only path to prosperity for the greatest number of people is to constantly expand consumption and production.

     How is it possible, in a nation with a constitution and the rule of law, to compel the rich, the powerful, the corporations and institutions to make do with less? They don’t respect the law or any kind of morality—they never have.

     How can a CEO tell the shareholders, “We must lose money (or reduce our expectations of profit,) for the next five years in order to make these changes?”

     Stock prices will fall. The CEO has ‘damaged’ the company and the shareholders.

    According to shareholders, “Surely it is not our responsibility to save the world?”

     (I say it is, actually, but no one listens to my absolutely fantastic long-term investment strategies. But then they want ‘big profits right now.’)

     Only the poor can be compelled, for they don’t have the ability to resist. Price increases affect them first, and the most but they don’t have the resources to invest in newer, more efficient technologies.

     Hydrogen-powered cars have been announced as being just around the corner. Yet a different source says, ‘they’re just a myth.’

     In order to make hydrogen; ‘You have to burn methane,’ i.e. a fossil fuel. And electric vehicles are really only about 30 % more efficient than comparably-sized fossil fuel vehicles. In ten years your town will be spewing out just as much pollution as it ever did…we’re trying to sell more cars, after all, in order to employ more people to buy more cars, and homes, and electricity…we must expand to increase profits…it’s a vicious circle generated by conventional thinking and people and corporations who inevitably put their own interest first, ahead of all other considerations; including species-survival.

     (Not just our own species, but every species.)

     Battery-powered electric cars hold promise, but the required increase in generation capacity must almost inevitably come from nuclear technology, with all of its attendant problems.

     Ford and GM and Chrysler do not want to build small, efficient cars because there is no profit. It starts to look like a very expensive little car, in a very competitive market niche. To re-tool for hydrogen cars will take billions in new investment. And the car companies create unionized, middle-class factory jobs. This makes for a nice block of middle-class voters; all of them afraid as hell to rock the boat or upset the status-quo, which after all makes their own smug and comfy existence possible.

     It is a fact of human nature, “Those whose livelihood is involved, cannot see the problem.” And if you can’t see the problem then you can’t even conceive of a solution.

     They are simply unable to perceive the evil that they are doing, by their persistence and insistence on continued conspicuous consumption, for surely a Hummer or a Ford F-150 are nothing else. Most of those vehicles still have one occupant and never carry a serious load in the entire life-span of the product. It is so much about status and so little about utility that it is a kind of indictment of middle-class ethics and morality.

     Oh yeah, the middle class wants change, just don’t ask them to contribute, or don’t put it in their neighbourhood, or both. One lady objected to a solar farm due to ‘transformer noise,’ yet one wonders if that farmland wasn’t noisier with the trucks, tractors, mini-bikes, flocks of blackbirds…worms digging in the soil. She was simply an idiot. Her kitchen clock makes more noise! A middle-class Canadian idiot, and we have many of them.

     Where are you going to put the next nuclear reactor? I have a couple of concerns as well. These include the ‘not in my backyard’ syndrome, and the usual cost overruns associated with any project organized around government patronage. Here in Sarnia-Lambton, a petrochemical company was assembling a piece of land for a refinery. No one had any real environmental objections, and people were disappointed when it failed to go ahead. One wonders how they would have felt about nuclear power.

     We already have nuclear waste trucked down local highways, and ending up in provincial landfills. We try real hard not to think about it too much.

     Local food production would reduce the carbon footprint of our diet. For every ten units of food energy, a hundred units of carbon are released by the transportation and processing of food. Local food production might employ a lot of people, and that sounds good in the middle of a depression. The problem is that historically, we haven’t paid folks like that enough to afford $400,000 homes. And it begs the question of how can we compete with a sixty-five cent New Zealand apple, shipped and trucked twenty thousand

kilometres.                

     For some reason it’s called ‘global warming,’ but the problem is really about our selfish lifestyles. Talking about waste isn’t sexy. It’s pretty square. We have such great expectations for ourselves, but the changes our world is undergoing carry a strong risk of the mass migrations of peoples, war, revolution, famine and endemic disease. All of our standards of living are going to fall. That is the big secret that no politician has the courage to talk about, in fact they will tell you, “There’s nothing wrong with our lifestyles.”

     Middle class wages have been stagnant for about fifteen years, the working poor have seen incomes fall over the same period. Only the rich are doing well. So if our lifestyles are not going to fall, why are they in fact falling? How do you explain it?

     “Oh, I can assure you it’s not a conspiracy, Mr. Shalako,” you might say.

     I never asked about a conspiracy. You brought that up all on your own.

     If our lifestyles are killing the planet, then they are simply immoral. That’s pretty tough to accept. To call for a ‘carbon tax’ is politically unpopular, but no one thought to call it a ‘pollution tax.’ (I would call it an ‘ignorance tax.’) The biggest shortage in this country is leadership, with any kind of firm resolve, or clarity of vision. And the truth is that a lifestyle based on greed, consumption and conspicuous waste, has become kind of immoral, and some people are becoming quite alienated, like a kind of subculture.

     The government is in no position to provide moral guidance, and guys like me are in no position to run for election. I guess we’re pooched.

       Now, in the perfect economy of the future, an artificial and theoretical construct; all (or most) products and services will be intangibles, such as financial planning, wellness consultation, motivational speaking and literature, news-casting, e-publishing, etc.

     What this means is that Canadians will be able to enjoy a high standard of living without the need or benefit of unions, as everyone will be self-employed. They will make good livings, based on the provincial $10.25 an hour minimum wages, and they never have to cut a tree down, skin a beaver, dig up coal, put out a fishing net, or do any of the traditional resource-export-based things we did in the past.

    Once you get your head around this notion, then you will quickly see that the perfect economy of the future is perfectly designed for constant expansion of productivity—all products are useless and therefore luxuries and therefore desirable, like a thousand ‘apps’ for your text service provider’s ‘free phone.’

     I’ll be selling essays, or better yet, bartering them for aromatherapy or feng-shui classes, getting my colours done and using my cell-phone app’s to keep track of my pedicure appointments, or my reservations at ‘Grille 23.’ The pemmican is great, you should try it sometime.

    In a world where ignorance is popular and superstition sells, a bullshit-peddler like me or that nice Mister Kevin O’Leary on CBC should make out all right.

     Mr O’Leary and I agree on one thing for certain: people are basically pretty stupid.  

     I guess the only solution would be a long-term program of mass education by a disinterested and highly-honourable consortium of mass media.  

End