The “fire” on my mother-in-law’s television place burned almost continuously, day and night, during the recent Christmas season. When Linda and I stayed in her home I experienced a real dose of insomnia. Sometime during the night I sleepily wandered into the den where she has the tv. The fire seemed so genuine, I was moved to touch the screen. In my sleep deprived state I actually thought it might be warm. It wasn’t, of course, but the image of the fire burning so lustily conjured up camp fire memories from expeditions on the Bowron Lakes circuit near Barkerville.

I was working at that time with young offenders at the One Way Adventure Foundation, situated on the periphery of Hedley. The five youths in my group had experienced mostly failure and were considered unwelcome in their own communities. By taking them into the wilderness we wanted to give them a success experience, and also hoped to develop relationships of trust with them.

One expedition provided particularly vivid memories. There were two groups. Toby, our no nonsense Expedition guide was paddling with the other crew because their worker had little outdoors experience. On our second night, setting up camp at Wolverine Creek on Isaac Lake, we saw several bears observing us with great interest. They had learned that campers carried food.

I was becoming aware of a feud simmering between two boys in my group. Clem, a kid with a street fighter reputation, had taken a strong dislike to Jerry. With his long unkempt black hair, a faint, scrawny moustache and several front teeth missing, Clem’s appearance tended to intimidate. He seemed to need an adversary and had selected Jerry. Jerry was Clem’s equal in height, but lacked even a hint of ferocity. He was clever though, and let it slip he had a brown belt in karate. Clem understood instinctively he might be at a disadvantage against a trained practitioner of martial arts. No one was certain Jerry actually had a brown belt.

As we were about to depart from Wolverine Creek on Wednesday, the third morning, another camper offered me a trout he had just caught. I tied it behind my canoe and my paddling partner and I towed it all day. That evening our two groups camped at the end of Isaac Lake. Toby built a large, hot fire as usual. Clem furiously chopped wood, consuming some of his pent up inner frustration. Carl, Jim, Jerry and Howie joined me in setting up tents and hanging a tarp over the fire in case of rain. A couple and their son had stayed near our party on the lake and we invited them to our camp after dinner.

Sitting on blocks of wood around Toby’s roaring fire, we basked in the warmth. Everyone, including our 3 visitors, received a piece of perfectly done fish. I prepared cups of hot chocolate and handed out chunks of semi-sweet chocolate. Then Toby read a chapter from Jack London’s Call of the Wild. By 9 o’clock the sun had slipped to the other side of the mountain and we retired to our tents.

Thursday we broke camp early and paddled and portaged to McLeary Lake, where we had a rest day on Friday. The only excitement came when Carl caught a fish on his line. When he pulled it close, the fish darted under the canoe. Exasperated, Carl jumped into the water and followed the fish. He emerged spluttering, empty handed.

Saturday morning we encountered a stiff headwind on Lanezi Lake and drew close to the rocky shore. When the wind eased, the black flies descended on us. That spurred us on and we entered Sandy Lake. Here Toby surprised us by singing “Bobby McGee.”

We camped on the lake’s sandy shore and were again joined by the couple, their young son, and a family of 5. Toby was asked for an encore performance. We sat around the fire until late, telling stories and singing. For the boys it was a novel social experience and even Clem laughed occasionally.

After two more days of paddling, we reached the far shore of Bowron Lake. When we had dragged our canoes onto land, the boys spontaneously formed a circle, locked arms and did a victory dance. Then Clem approached Jerry and I heard him say, “You’re ok man.” Jerry reached out a hand and said, “You too Clem.” Maybe it was the magic of the campfires.

I have come to regard the flagrant squandering of credibility as foolishness at its best. When it is gone, it’s virtually impossible to regain. We were provided with a very public example of this recently when the Iranian government adamantly denied having shot down the Ukrainian airliner carrying 176 passengers, many of them Canadians of Iranian origin. Any observer of the international scene is aware that the Islamic Republic controls the media and routinely shapes news to suit its own purposes. The people are often uncertain as to where the truth lies. When the government reversed its version of the downing of the plane and admitted its role, Iranian citizens were enraged by the attempted deception. Many lost faith in government statements.

The numerous instances of prominent individuals and government leaders engaging in deception to gain unfair advantage have fostered within me a fascination with credibility. One of the most extreme examples, exposed in 2008, is the Ponzi scheme of former NASDAQ Chairman Bernard Madoff. He kept his hedge fund losses hidden by paying early investors with funds from those who bought in later. He admitted to his sons, and subsequently to investigators, “it’s one big lie.” The scheme has been cited as the largest fraud in U.S. history. His untrustworthiness cost many investors their life savings.

It’s disappointing when those living and working at lofty levels choose to flaunt their disregard for integrity. They seem not to understand that their example confuses and distresses people struggling to feed a family, buy shoes for their children, pay the mortgage or rent, and hope the bank will loan them the funds to replace an ailing vehicle. They seem unconcerned that their example undermines the values that hold our society in place.

Most of us have witnessed attempts at deception on a personal level. A few years ago a friend, Virginia, wanted to borrow twenty dollars from me. “I need to buy groceries,” she said. “I’m getting some money tomorrow and I’ll pay you then.” About age 30, she still retained an attractive figure and pretty face, but her reputation was somewhat shaky. I knew she was deeply addicted to tobacco and realized the money was likely intended for cigarettes. Wanting to show trust, I gave it to her anyway. The next evening I attended the Hedley Street Dance and noticed her across the street. Seeing me look in her direction, she quickly disappeared into the crowd and has avoided me since then. I still regret that for a mere twenty dollars, she sacrificed the trust I had placed in her.

True credibility comes when there is a sound foundation of integrity. When parents give their children an example of speaking the truth and being honest, their offspring are more likely to pass this on with their own lives. Virginia didn’t live this way and her 3 children struggled socially and academically. Unable to cope with an unstable home scene, they turned to pharmaceutical and illicit drugs to calm their anxieties. They had no dependable scaffolding for the building of their lives. Seeing this, Virginia became distraught, but floundering herself, she could not help them.

For the most part, my generation grew up in homes where there was at least a measure of integrity. I never caught my parents lying or cheating. I was surrounded by strong, authentic role models. When my Uncle Cornie’s chicken flock was decimated by disease, he didn’t have insurance and could have declared bankruptcy to avoid paying the feed company and bank. It would have been the easy option. Instead he went on the road with his tractor and rototilled gardens until he had paid his debts.

I’ m deeply grateful I had role models I could trust. The example of upright individuals built into me and many of my generation, a solid foundation of values. Even if we didn’t listen to the words of parents, uncles and aunts, teachers, and others, their trustworthiness was indelibly imprinted on our hearts and minds.

Unlike my generation when distractions weren’t as plentiful, the thinking, attitudes and character of many children, adolescents and also adults today are being shaped by social media. This is not likely to change. If we want young people to develop a constructive direction for their lives, we will need to show them an example of unimpeachable credibility.

Only those timid souls who have buried their heads deep in the sands of time can be unaware of the unsettling political, economic and environmental developments around the globe. Having just crossed the threshold from 2019 to 2020, many of us are wondering what we might encounter in this new year and new decade. Political leaders everywhere are more focused on retaining or gaining power than on dealing effectively with issues that threaten to disturb the present world order. In 1968 when Mary Hopkin sang the words “those were the days my friend, we thought they’d never end,” she aptly described the time in which we now live.

Hoping for a glimpse into the obscure future looming before us, I turned to University of Toronto professor, Thomas Homer-Dixon’s observations in “The Upside of Down”. He contends there are a number of stresses simultaneously converging on an increasingly maligned earth. Among these are global warming, population imbalance, energy scarcity and the growing gulf between rich and poor. Because they are coming at us simultaneously, he says, we no longer have the luxury of responding to them one at a time. “Surprise, instability and extraordinary change will be regular features of our lives,” he suggests, then adds, “the reliable landmarks of life will become strange and distorted.”

Writing in the early years of this century he asks, “Thirty years ago, who would have anticipated the implosion of Soviet Communism, the widespread adoption of personal computers, emergence of AIDS, opening of a gaping hole in the stratospheric ozone layer over the Arctic, or airplanes flying into the World Trade Centre?”

To this list we could now add the increasing indiscriminate violence of terrorists, the rampaging wild fires currently ravaging vast tracts of Australia, and the continuing loss of forests. There is also concern about instability of the North American electrical grid, impact of global warming on polar bears, and dangerous levels of air pollution, especially in India and China. Having lived in Abbotsford many years, I know how polluted air impacts health and enjoyment of life. Even though we may be anxious about the desecration of the planet, we seem unwilling to alter our destructive ways.

I became acutely aware of this human resistance to change when I worked with prison inmates. Corky was a prime example. Stocky, barrel chested with a shiny bald pate, he faced life with arms crossed. He resisted all attempts to divert him from his heroin dependent, small time law flaunting criminal persona. He would not, or possibly could not, change his thinking. Corky viewed life through a cynical soul destroying prism. Out on parole, he stopped at a bar in Princeton one evening, then drove his car off the highway into a deep ravine. He was confined to a wheelchair until he suffered a massive, life ending stroke a dozen years later. His inability to adopt a more optimistic outlook invited disaster into his personal life.

Unless many of us become willing to view our circumstances through a less selfish, less self-centered lens, we too could face calamity. Increasingly, observers of world wide trends are warning us we’re drawing ever nearer to an abyss of calamitous events. We are already faulting our government for the various ailments festering in our country. We need to recognize, though, that politicians alone cannot derail our society’s progression toward a chaotic future.

Although on a global scale there is much that we in the Similkameen Valley cannot remedy, we can do things in our back yards and our communities. Denial of reality or responsibility is not an adequate or acceptable response. In the realms of environment, pollution and climate change we can take measures to decrease our personal footprint on Mother Earth.

Where do we begin? Homer-Dixon says that to rescue our planet from further degradation, men and women with courage and good sense will need to take action. In a world of relentless change and surprise, he suggests we must constantly re-invent ourselves, our society and our future. We must be willing to grapple with complacency and our inclination to shrug off tinges of guilt.

Corky resisted self-change, at great cost to himself. To this time we’ve been blessed with many good years. Let’s not assume they will never end. It’s essential that as individuals we challenge our thinking and look for ways to protect our little corner of the planet.