“Terrace Review — Wednesday, January’ 15; 1992 7 :

Our towns: are copied fragments from Our —
~ breast;

And all men Ss Babylons strive but to impart
7 The. grandeur he his. ' Babylonian heart.

_ William Butler Yeats

ew ¥ of us, if any, y, will, ever raft down
the white water of the: ‘Tatsenshini_
/ River or commune with ‘the salmon
that travel up the. -brutal ‘highway’ of the
Stikine. Yet these wild, unpopulated and
hostile places and their kindred landscapes i in
the north have the power to ‘move us and
others. who ‘have never. seen them in some
way we would ‘perhaps prefer not to identify.
Without. having seen them, and having little
prospect of ever doing so, we revere them as
something requiring a special attitude of
protectiveness. and - stewardship. But

whom?

he publication of Stikine: The Great River
Douglas. &. ‘MacIntyre Seems. uncannily
timed. It is not so much a photographic essay
on: one river as-it-is an. examination of
ourselves ‘and our untenable attitudes toward: -

8: colour i images in a presentation as stark as
the river valley itself, earth, water and ‘air in
raw . and . inhospitable purity. It took

“photographer, Gary. Leighen five years of
‘hiking, canoeing . and horseback journeys to.

protection from what, under the stewardship : :

| ‘the uninhabited 1 reaches of the world. In it are

i

delicate. vulnerability.

_. Another series of pictures °- — the maps.
| ‘issued by government agencies . and securities -

‘brokers — show the invisible ‘template laid
over the region, an arbitrary but purposeful

grid of staking units, “mineral ‘claims, |
overlapping administrative areas,- the whole: .
patchwork: ‘signature of human ‘intent. The.
. Stikine Arch, as it is known to the ‘industry,
is a caché of: ‘material- and Spiritual. wealth.
- that challenges the imagination and the heart.

As the book with its freight of disturbing

photographs sits on shelves waiting to be sold

“at $50: a copy, the mountain goats captured

momentarily in those photographs are having.
their first encounters with human beings, and
those - human beings are geologists and

diamond drillers.

mountain, a massive deposit of copper in the
, Stikine Arch. People can still be. moved in
these. money-cynical times by a figure that
large, and -Geddes certainly got everyone’s

attention. The message, backed by the mining. -
industry, clearly said that corporations want
the right to work mineral deposits if they. are

to be expected to take the trouble to explore

for them. If the government, in the name of

Rhone neh wre eRE OREN Fed Ar SYA MANE BY Peel PPPS ED REIS RN Ne SPAY FOOT LA ENE PUTO AEN EVA 09 29H

~ gather a series of pictures that simultaneously the. people, is going to. be indecisive, it twill

- inspire a sense of unassailable - power and —

_ As the book was going to print, Geddes
Resources . announced . that- $1 billion | ‘in
: compensation would persuade it to forego the.
-. mineral wealth it had found in Windy Craggy

‘for that talisman to > be imade of Soper. 7

AAR ug ROTOR ue ATCT nC Lug HEN FORE OE FeRePHY CHNRPOTRA eee conroemeer ect eNtee ”

be expected to pay for that indecision. ©
We view ourselves. in ‘Terrace as a sort of

_civilized ‘outpost on the rim of. a: vast

preserve of Canadian consciousness, | ‘the open =
wilderness. If it’ -weren’t. for. ‘resource

- extraction few of us ‘would: be living here. |

We tend to resent calls. for wilderness ©
preservation, seeing those who have chosen |

to live in the urban artifice of ‘Vancouver and»

Other ‘places of self-exile clamouring - for .
strictures against. the mining of copper while.
going about daily lives that- would be.
impossible without the use of. metals, sending’.
out their ill-conceived screeds on paper made .

‘from the old growth forests they seck to

preserve. |
Yet the book i is troubling because it depicis

the stark beauty and elemental purity that is.
-@ mecessary counterpoint to the world of
human affairs, a world. that is becoming ©

increasingly subtle. and crude, clever and -

stupid. Our attitude about, our. place inthe

natural scheme of things is‘as confused as the

crazed wanderings of the river itself. If the -.

Stikine, the Tatsenshini, the Spatzizi are left
to themselves, their existence is. somehow
comforting to even the most Babylonian of
hearts. The rivers act-as ‘a talisman to hold up. -

against the fearful imaginings prompted by:
each day’s, news of ourselves...

_ We now ‘have to decide whether we wish He

“lod.

on

vrniero
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