Will History Repeat In Similkameen Valley?

February 25, 2018 Art Martens 3 Comments

There are no “for sale” signs on our street anymore. In fact, in all of Hedley, they’ve become almost as rare as an extinct species. Over the past year people, mostly from larger centres, have eagerly purchased local homes and moved here. Many had become distressed with the crime, pollution and noise of the city. In Hedley they like the clean air, feel safe, and enjoy the quiet evenings. The idyllic Similkameen setting and unhurried lifestyle offer a lot, but can they survive?

Recently I heard popular, long serving Abbotsford Councilor Patricia Ross on CBC radio, deploring the cutting down of trees in that city. Patricia has been sounding the alarm about degradation of the physical and social environment for at least a quarter of a century, but she is certainly not the first.

Possibly the most compelling account of environmental desecration I’ve come across is Richard Llewellyn’s classic, How Green was my Valley. At the outset we meet a young boy growing up in a mountain village in Wales. For him and his chums, life is simple, structured and pleasant, with few serious complications. Their fathers are mostly employed by the coal mine higher up the mountain. They need the work and remain largely oblivious to the black mass of slag and sludge the mine is creating on the mountainside above the village.

As the boy is growing up the heap is growing too, creeping relentlessly toward the village. The mine owners are single minded in their pursuit of profit. They make no changes to protect the homes or the people and their way of life. When the sinister black mass descends to the edge of the community, the people are forced to acknowledge the danger, but it is too late. One after another the houses buckle under the onslaught of the remorseless mass. Eventually, the entire village lies crushed, and with it the social ties and structures that had evolved over centuries.

I realize I might be considered a doomsayer if I express a concern that the largely pristine Similkameen Valley might one day be similarly defiled. However, personal experience suggests to me it is essential that we not be complacent. When our family moved to the Fraser Valley in 1947, my young friends and I held no fear of our physical or social environment.

We drank freely of the clear brooks and never thought about the air as hazardous. Mount Baker was never shrouded in pollution. Nor were we ever concerned about being sexually molested. I don’t recall anyone ever being shot. Like the boy in Llewellyn’s book, we were young innocents in an unsullied world.

In time, as adults living in Abbotsford, Linda and I became aware of our city’s mad, headlong rush to cover its land surface with pavement and concrete, malls and tall buildings. One day I watched from our third story condo as 3 healthy, towering evergreens were taken down to make room for more homes. The trees were at the rear of the lots and could have been saved. The city’s anemic tree by-law did not apply to them. Whatever regulations existed gave them about the same protection as dandelions. The beautiful city we had once known was being denuded and covered with pavement and concrete, the modern equivalents of slag and sludge.

For us, walking in the evening had long been a source of enjoyment. But, while we and most in our community were preoccupied with personal issues, aggressive developers and their political allies were forging determinedly ahead. With the encroachment of “progress,” our respiratory systems began to protest. On our walks, almost invariably one of us would say, “the air is really bad tonight.” It was this polluted air that played a key role in our decision to return to Hedley some 5 years ago.

Reflecting on the comments of Patricia Ross, Richard Llewellyn’s story, and Linda and my experiences in Abbotsford, I’m reminded of the observation that “the reason history repeats itself is that no one was listening the first time.”

I’m concerned that with elevated property prices in large centres, some developers may already be thinking about projects in the Similkameen Valley. This will likely be the case in other rural communities as well. Importing big city amenities could destroy what many of us came here for. I’m not against needed changes in our communities, but why would we invite the conditions from which many of us are emigres?

Inspiration, People

Valentine’s Day, More Than A Box Of Chocolates?

February 11, 2018 Art Martens 1 Comment

Last week, while thinking about the coming of Valentine’s Day, my mind drifted back to the evening I met Linda on a hayride sponsored by the Mennonite church she attended. We had both been raised in the church, but my commitment had lapsed, as had that of my closest friends. I felt drawn to Linda’s fun loving nature and her capacity to laugh easily. Two weeks later I walked half a mile to the nearest pay phone and asked her to go to an Abbotsford Panthers basketball game. I didn’t want my family to be aware if she turned me down.

Looking now at the early years of our relationship, I realize I really didn’t have the understanding or maturity to make it work. Fortunately Linda was more settled and she was thinking beyond a few dates. Even that might not have been sufficient though and Linda’s mom apparently considered me an ill-conceived choice by her daughter. Shortly before we were married, she said to Linda, “I’m concerned about you two.” Understandably, she was probably troubled by the fact that I owned nothing except a recently purchased 1950 flathead Ford.

In today’s pretty complacent thinking about marriage, I wonder if ours would have survived. Like many of our friends, financially we started with almost nothing. Also, I always tended to over commit to work and Linda was at home with our children many evenings. What held us together?

We had grown up in the still quite cohesive Mennonite culture existing at that time. Our parents, and virtually their entire social circle, provided an example of a stable family life. They clung tenaciously to Mennonite roots, culture, and beliefs. Also to the German language. They wanted their children to embrace the simple, unadorned faith that had been passed on to them by previous generations. It was a faith intertwined with a good deal of culture, and had been practised by Mennonites in Ukraine and Russia, and in Holland before that. Although pyrogies, farmers sausage, cabbage rolls and home made white buns weren’t essential to the faith, in practise, a relationship did exist.

In our preschool days, our families spoke Low German at home. It was a dialect that came out of Holland and was the mother tongue of many Mennonites. The written version never really caught on, so in most churches the regular German predominated. Since neither Linda or I had a grasp of the language spoken by ministers, we didn’t understand the sermons until an English language Mennonite church was later started in our community. In spite of this, we understood the teaching that marriage was “for better or for worse, till death do us part.”

Without realizing it, this historical heritage of culture, language and faith seeped into our psyches. And into the psyches of the Mennonite friends we grew up with and who are still important to us. None of the approximately dozen couples we still consider intimate friends from the past have gone through a separation or divorce.

It was a different, more stable time in Canada and certainly Mennonites were not alone in wanting marriages to survive. Our grandchildren, now in their late teens, are immersed in a culture in which there isn’t a high regard for fidelity in marital relationships. It doesn’t even encourage marriage.

Linda was 20 (plus 4 days, as she sometimes reminds me), and I was 23 when we got married. Very young by today’s standards. We tested the bond between us early, tent camping for 3 months on the then undeveloped far side of Sheridan Lake in the Cariboo. The mosquitoes were ravenous and Linda particularly deplored the rain. Those 3 months set the stage for me attending university and for many of the adventures we have shared. In spite of our share of setbacks and failures, staying in the game for the long run has given us a sense of fulfillment and satisfaction.

By their example, our parents and their friends showed us the importance of overlooking slights, forgiving, never giving up and providing a stable home for their children. If we pass on to the next generation this deep commitment to sound values, Valentine’s Day could mean more than a card, a box of chocolates and a glass of wine.

Community, Inspiration, People

Lee McFadyen, Environmental and Organic Advocate

February 5, 2018 Art Martens 3 Comments

When Lee McFadyen arrived in Canada from Australia in 1967 at age 25, she planned to stay only 2 years. “I wanted to see the country, particularly the Canadian Rockies,” she said. “I had a nursing degree and it was my intention to return to Melbourne and work there. Everything changed when I turned in to a farm in Cawston and asked for a drink of water. The owner of the farm was Mr. McFadyen.”

Lee had been made aware at an early age that water is important for much more than drinking. “The only time my Dad ever swatted my back side,” she recalled with evident amusement, “ was when I threw out half a glass of water. He told me I should have poured it into the bucket we used to water the garden. We were in the midst of a serious drought.”

She had grown up on the family farm in Australia. “We didn’t have television or electricity. My early years instilled in me a deep respect for land and water and all nature. The aboriginal people taught us to look after the land. That became embedded in me.”

Upon arriving in Toronto she initially worked in a hospital. “I didn’t live comfortably in the city,” she said. “I didn’t like the smells and the noise.” Requesting the glass of water led to marriage with Bob and a lifetime of organic farming and advocating for the Similkameen environment.

At that time their farm consisted of 250 acres. “I loved the sounds of birds, lightning and thunder, the river rising, a snake slithering in the grass.”

Lee McFadyen in her backyard, with Mt. Chopaka in the background.

Reading Sir Albert Howard’s An Agricultural Testament provided the sound understanding she would need to become a force in organic farming. Sir Albert was one of the key founders of organic agriculture. Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring significantly impacted her work in protecting the environment. The Rodale Institute also played a role in her education.

“My father understood the need to protect the land. He didn’t use chemical fertilizers. At the end of his life he told me he had only one serious regret. He had agreed to let the government use a portion of his land for experimentation. They sprayed DDT on it. Years later this still saddened him.”

Lee’s environmental advocacy began some 40 years ago. She was asked by pioneer rancher, Mrs. C.C. McCurdy, for help in responding to the proposal to construct a Keremeos sewage treatment plant. “We weren’t opposed to the plant, but the location was a serious issue for us. It required a lot of research. Fortunately I had learned to do research as a nurse. We didn’t get everything we wanted, but in time we did get a better location and a plant more suited to future needs.”

Her understanding was enlarged when she began noticing there were fewer birds. “It became clear to me that without cleaner agriculture, we can’t have a cleaner environment. Everything we touch comes from the land. Land is life giving. ”

Lee McFadyen received COABC (Certified Organic Associations of BC) Founder’s Award

There wasn’t much information available concerning organic growing so she developed a course and taught it at the Keremeos and Penticton campuses of Okanagan college. She also developed a course that is now used by Canadian Organic Growers.

For some time Lee and others have been pressing hard for policies and practices to save our water shed. “Everyone can do something,” she said. “We should all be very aware of the amount of water we use. Also, don’t litter. Plastics are especially destructive. Bits of plastic migrate through the soil and end up in the watertable. The way we dispose of medications and cosmetics is also a problem for water.”

Lee practises what she teaches. “I’ve never owned a clothes dryer,” she said. “They use too much energy. Also, clothes last longer when they’re dried on a line.” She is concerned about the excessive amount of packaging, especially plastics. “When I come home with a new product, I sometimes write to the manufacturer about the excess. Letters have more power than emails. They take up space.”

Consumerism troubles her. “Advertising programs children to want things. Consumerism causes enormous damage to the planet.”

Lee still grows and markets basil and parsley, and seems surprisingly content. “I enjoy my grandchildren, the cycle of the seasons, seeing 5 nuthatches at my birdfeeder. I’m happy when a sick friend gets better.” It started with a glass of water.

Quotes, Uncategorized