| |
|
Turning the tides
Many of our artists, from painters to writers to film makers, are documenting what is happening to our water and land. They are supplying us with the images and information we need to assess our current actions. Can we turn back the tide of the effects of large-scale development of rivers, lakes and streams? Roderick Haig-Brown found it difficult to be optimistic. In Measure of the Year, he wrote:
It is the history of civilizations that conservationists are always defeated, boomers always win, and the civilizations always die. 28
But Canadians are demanding protection of their natural heritage, and this may slow the rate at which our water resources are degraded. One result of public concern was the establishment in 1984 of The Canadian Heritage Rivers System, by the federal government and many of the provincial governments. This will help protect our water resources from further degradation. National parks and some provincial parks also protect lakes and streams from abuse by preserving certain areas in their natural state – free from direct contamination by various industries. To date, only a small fraction of our water resources are protected in this way. But these actions represent the beginning of a movement that will strive to rehabilitate damaged aquatic ecosystems and to prevent any further degradation.
As we pause to think about our water systems, we see a valuable resource, sustaining our industry, vegetation, and health. But upon careful reflection a deeper relationship can be revealed: water sustains our Canadian spirit. It forms a link between citizens from every region across the land.
To deepen our understanding of water and land and our relationship with them, we turn to our artists for expression of the things that most of us feel, but few are able to communicate. The art may be an Aboriginal legend, or a modern novel; it might be expressed in a petroglyph, a Group of Seven painting, or in a film; it may be a song of the voyageurs, or a modern composition dedicated to a northern lake, but through each of these art forms, an appreciation for the complexity of water in human life is expressed.
We should let our minds and imaginations follow the flow of water as it winds through our country, recognizing that people from every area are sustained in body and spirit by the same water that soothes us. Just as the smallest trickle of water eventually flows and expands into a lake, perhaps our minds will follow a similar path in our own progression toward tolerance and stewardship.
|
Water and Canadian Identity Menu
Previous
