THE EXPEDITION Chapter 14: Head in the Trees

In which Ann learns how they're trying to get the trees ahead of climate change 

Date: pm June 5 2019 Arrival at Indian Head

I found the bakery. As I was crossing the street to get to it, a young man with a well-packed bicycle shouted out, asking if I was me. That was surprising all by itself, but it turned out he’d just seen me on the news. On top of that, he had some kind of story about someone else on a scooter. I wasn’t following things at all, so he came back into the bakery and we talked while I had a ridiculously good and seriously healthy lunch (he’d just had his). They even happily made Mr Myrtle his own eggy meal, which he enjoyed quietly under the table. If you’re ever near, don’t not go here, that would just be silly. They make yummy and healthy from scratch all day long, an entire array of beautiful baked staples and fancies, with plenty of options for various dietary needs (and combination thereof), and such awfully good people. It’s really comfortable, too. If it’s full, either wait or get it to go and take yourself for a picnic.

We talked about the climate crisis, and then I got tangled up in things because he’s an engineer who wanted to have a deeply detailed conversation about the technical aspects of carbon drawdown and alternatives to oil and gas culture, which is definitely admirable but also definitely over my head. His enthusiasm (and patience) made me hope he found someone soon with the education to be able to talk about all that with him. He was also just a really nice guy.

On top of that, it turned out he’d been keeping an eye out for me even before catching me on the news. He was heading east to west across the country, and had caught up with and passed (after visiting) a man traveling the same route – on a scooter!

Rich Adams, popularly known in more than one country as Rich the Vegan, was also on a mssion. He was raising awareness for animal rights and veganism. Doing this journey, the first of it’s kind (I wasn’t crossing the entire country) and doing it in record time was also his public testament to the health benefits and possibilities of veganism.

https://www.richthevegan.com/

Rich had started scooting on the east coast and would finish on the west coast of Vancouver Island, but he lived just south of Calgary. He’d walked into the same bike shop I’d gotten Sam through, a week after I picked her up, and gotten his own scooter. It was a different model, but still, such an unusual sale and tale that the salesfolks hardly believed we didn’t know each other. He’d been hoping to run into me on the highway, and had been talking with this young man about me just a few days earlier.

The engineer got Rich and I in touch through messaging so we could arrange to stop and meet as we got closer.

I suppose we’d had a pretty enthusiastic conversation, because now more customers wanted to talk, too. An older gentleman whom I wish I could have visited with longer, a couple at the table beside us, and an entire family having a treat together.

After hearing me out and discussing things enough that it was clear this man and his wife deeply understood and deeply cared, the young father cleared his throat.

“I’ll be honest with you. I can’t sign your petition. I work in the oil and gas industry. I WILL lose my job if I sign this, and probably more.” He looked me in the eye as he handed me back he petition. “I’m sorry…” I believed him.

“…but I’ll tell everyone I know about this, and ask everyone who can to sign it.” That night there were over forty new signatures on the online petition.

That young man is also how I learned about Iron and Earth, and if you haven’t heard of them or don’t know much, by all means find out. It’ll be a whole ‘nother piece of restoring your faith in humanity and in what’s possible.

https://www.ironandearth.org/

Iron and Earth is a large, growing, and active group of oil and gas workers who are working to completely change the industry. They are educating people, politicians, and business about renewable resources and how to redirect our energy sector into more sustainable directions, and they’re making that happen. Their website is a lot more progressive than you might expect, and many of the people involved are even more so. They are flipping amazing and that fact that they exist gives me a whole ‘nother piece of hope.

The truth is, besides the obvious environmental hazards, the Canadian oil and gas industry was never a viable thing to base an economy on. It just isn’t. It’s not good oil, it costs far too much financially and ecologically , and nobody really wants it besides us so we we sell it to be processed and then buy it back, plus we buy more, better oil from the Middle East. The government has spent more money bailing out this backwards industry than it would have cost to have instead focused on properly developing alternate resource systems. The multi-billion dollar bailouts are not fixing any of the problems, just draining resources from other possibilities, and making a few people very wealthy.

But it happened and now we’re here. We have to change it, though.

Who better to take it apart and put it back together again, literally and figuratively, than those who’ve been working in it and know it like the backs of their hands? The workers who’ve been building and maintaining the systems are the ones who are eminently qualified to dismantle structures and repurpose equipment. They know how it does (and doesn’t) work and they know how to make it work better. They have the foundation for learning how to adapt the sector and continue with new technologies.

They’re the ones most personally enmeshed in the system and they’re the ones most qualified to fix that part of it.

Feeling encouraged and validated, Mr Myrtle and I wandered up the street with a few vague possibilities for the night, but first we passed a pizza place with the door wide open and the owner interrupting his own conversation with a buddy to wonder what the heck was coming up the street. It was Mr Myrtle and I, of course, and it’s always a good idea to be sociable, so we stopped.

Chris and Dave loved what we were doing… and Mr Myrtle, and the caravan, and talking. Chris is the owner, Dave’s his friend. They both highly recommended that Mr Myrtle and I sit down for a bit of water and try some Greek fries, which I’d never heard of, and talk more. We did, and I was glad of both, for multiple reasons.

Greek fries are an excellent invention. It’s like poutine, except instead of gravy, there’s lots of really good thick homemade Greek dressing, and instead of cheese curds, there’s lots of feta. Mmm… brilliant! I don’t know how I had room for them but they were so good. So was talking, They’re really nice guys, and were really very interested in both the why and how of this trip. We had a pretty great chat, which finished with them directing us up the road to the Eden House Bed and Breakfast, where they were quite sure their friend Bonnie would have space for us one way or another. I thanked them and said goodbye, but they were quite sure it was just “see you later.”

Bonnie is a lovely kind person, and her B&B is beautiful and comfy. Actually, it’s on the market, because she’d like to live out her days more simply, so if you’ve ever dreamed of such a thing, here’s the perfect place to do it. A huge brick home on a sprawling corner lot under the old, far-reaching branches of one of the most tree-filled towns I’ve even seen. It was all let out to long term people right then, but Bonnie said there was plenty of room in the yard. Before I actually got set up, though, she found out a little more about me, and decided that with my own bedding and her spares, the sunroom would be a perfectly cozy temporary bedroom. It really was, and it was so good of her to let us in. She wouldn’t charge a thing, and we had such a good visit, and I wish I hadn’t lost touch with Bonnie. I wish I had a time gadget like Hermione had in the Harry Potter book, so I could keep in touch with all the people I wish I could.

June 6 2019 Indian Head

We talked quite late that night, and more in the morning. Among other things, we talked about trees.

Indian Head has a long history with the trees. The first federal agricultural research station opened up here in the late 1800’s. Shortly thereafter, a huge federally funded tree nursery south of the town began distributing seedlings across the prairies, encouraging shelterbelt growth, but the program was shut down by budget cuts in 2013.

I’ve read that Carry The Kettle Nakoda Nation, to whom the land belongs, are re-opening the land. Part will again operate as a tree nursery, in conjunction with other environmentally conscious purposes beneficial to both land and people.

The area is still full of beautiful trees old and new, all wandering and gathering around the town. The agroforestry research station is still running. Bonnie suggested I see who I could talk with there, and stay another night to make time for that. Mr Myrtle would love the walk, and we could talk more later that day. She was right, it was a good idea, so off we went. We found the main office and invited ourselves in. I explained my walk, and asked if there was anyone in who’d have time to talk with me about the station, and the climate crisis.

One of the researchers spent her lunch break on a patio with me, patiently trying to explain more than my slightly sunburned brain was processing. Basically, they’re using what funding they have to try to figure out how to keep up with the climate crisis. The climate zones are shifting so much already that growth patterns are changing and the population of trees and other growing things is changing. The soils change. The insects change. The entire ecosystem is changing. Like ripples from a stone in a pond, but there are millions of stones being thrown all over and all overlapping.

They’re trying to find species of trees (mostly) to encourage, and ways of doing that, which will hopefully make the shifts and transitions less cataclysmic than they very well could be.

This is so important – learning to work with the changes. Unfortunately, the changes are so quick they already really can’t keep up. That means creating observational opportunities and sort of running fast-forward scenarios. That, it turns out, as I wandered the expansive property with my camera, means using a boatload of glyphosate on a regular and ongoing basis.

Without a doubt, the researchers care deeply, and what they do and learn is in many ways invaluable… but they’re limited by mandates and budgets and the usual political baloney.

It’s beyond me why places like this haven’t been getting funding and support left right and centre, as if our lives depended on it – because that’s exactly the case. It’s downright baffling why places which ought to such hives of active climate and environmental redress and mitigation planning are instead trying to keep funding. They do such crucial work and we desperately need to know the things they’re trying to learn. We have to completely change how we grow things and let things grow, and researchers need to be able to keep up with what the planet is doing and asking for, not just what funding allows and requires.

Worse, they’re actually now part of the problem, scrambling to keep up in ways that accelerate the slide, and doing some pretty crucial things in crucially backwards ways because that’s how it’s done. I understand they need to control the test environments but do it without the products causing the problems. Do it in the context we need to learn about.

But I’m not a qualified agroforestry researcher, and probably have my head in the clouds (or trees). But honestly – so what? I can’t explain nitty gritty scientific or political details, but others can and do. Their delving and explaining is important but doesn’t change the basic problem or solution: the planet’s toast and we have to have to learn how to do everything differently, right now. Everything. We don’t have time to play with scenarios and what-if’s. We just have to do it. I know I’m an idealist, and I see things like this in ways some might call simplistic, but it’s true that this is all it boils down to. Change everything now or die and kill everything along with us. If I’ve got my head in the clouds, then so do a heck of a lot of other good human beings out there making a difference, and we’d all better start stretching, or we’ll be writing the end of our story before this story makes it to paperback.

On the way back, I got a few small things to eat to carry on the road, at the supermarket, and probably another small bag of kibble. It’s a beautiful town, and people and very friendly and chatty. A passerby stopped to explain the now-closed combination barber and billiards room memorialized on the main street, and others pointed out all sorts of things. Some signed the petition, some promised to look it up, some just wondered what we were doing. It would have been nice to stay longer, but that wasn’t on the agenda.

Mr Myrtle and I went for ice cream with Bonnie as the late afternoon sun melted everyone. It’s not something I usually have, but they do have a particularly good ice cream place there, not to be missed if you’re going by. Dave, whom I’d met the day before over fries, came by and had an ice cream break with us, too – he’s such a nice guy, another person I’d’ve liked to stay in touch with. He’s happy, the kind of calm happy that kind of rubs off on other folks, and then he goes off being happy.

Bonnie and I ordered pizza for dinner, because Chris had gluten free crust, and talked more. In the morning, I passed by the bakery for some hard boiled cackleberries for Mr Myrtle to bring on the road, and they gave us some other provisions to take with us, too. Wolseley was 33 kilometers away.

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