The Fine Line
by Ricky Daytona
West Kelowna
June 14, 2023
“What we learned from this Covid crisis, we will be applying to the climate crisis.”
– Justin Trudeau
Terrifying words, no? For those of us who value our freedom and sovereignty over becoming slaves to fear and government oppression, this just sounds like much more of the same. More oppression, more tyranny, more government power grabs, more loss of freedoms.
There are plenty of stories coming in and various detailed information available relating to arson being the cause of many if not most of the forest fires in western Canada. My own personal experience of living in forest interface areas indicates that the majority of fires are human caused, through abandoned campfires or started by arsonists. The latter type have had many fires put out in their early stages in BC’s interior over the past few years. However, it seems that the mass mental illness and derangement among the public has ramped arson up to a whole new level this year. They seem unstoppable, such is the magnitude.
Much of the campfire abandonment can be put down to mental retardation, low IQ, and the type of people being let into the bush when they have no bush skills or personal responsibility. They are the type of people who mindlessly commit reckless acts that affect others, such as throwing cigarettes out of a moving car window, discarding their garbage, acting generally irresponsibly, and many other things that hurt society. They burn down their own houses, leave pets in hot cars, forget they have babies on their car rear seats, and such. The most degenerate and irresponsible of people. This is your society right now.
I’ve had to pack my bags ready to evac and actually had to evac more times than I want to remember. Having animals, the stress and hassle each time is substantial. The rage and anger at these incidents are significant.
Alberta Premier Danielle Smith has been temporarily banned by the grotesque free speech suppression agent that is Facebook. Surely, she is one of the most important voices right now and any dissatisfaction or concern she may have needs to be heard. Incidentally Kevin Chan – Meta’s senior global director and head of public policy for Canada – used to be Policy Director for the Liberal Party of Canada under Michael Ignatieff. Another coincidence.
There is a more common-sense discussion required about access to public crown land and the bush in general. For many decades Canadians have explored the backcountry. They have built fishing cabins and hiked vast mountain networks. They spent summers working on shelter cabins on mountain peaks. They camped al fresco. They built fires for warmth and protection during their pursuits.
The significant difference is that they were responsible, intelligent people who lived in harmony with nature around them. They embraced the substantial challenges and learned to adapt. As Canada industrialized, they became the loggers, forestry planners, and farmers. They helped build townships, and later helped build entire interface subdivisions and suburbs. They saw their country change and they saw the generally negative effect on nature.
https://frontiersmenhistorian.info/the-legion-of-frontiersmen-and-the-great-war/
If you have the chance to speak to old timers these days they will regale you for hours with stories of old. At some point they will discuss the present, shake their head, and enlighten you of the mistakes made in development, town planning, forestry management and such. It doesn’t take much research to independently learn about why we have so many forest fires these days.
The element that is often missing is the modern human need to defy the majesty and sheer unstoppable power of nature. Modern civilization wants to pretend that it can prevent outbreaks of “viruses”. People delude themselves into thinking that if they wash their hands religiously 28 times an hour, or avoid dirt and microbes, they can avoid sickness. Self-isolation will keep the body pure and they can exist in some kind of protective bubble. They have no idea about immunity or the function of the human body in self managing and regulating itself.
Humanity is living in self-denial. Other than the arson factor, forest fires increase because of poor forest management and the psychotic deranged policy of trying to stop forest fires. Prevention is a tiny element of the overall picture. Our natural system requires regular wildfires to regulate itself and self-manage its ecosystem. We are simply a problem, an interference.
The utter state of our society reflects our attitude to the vast cathedrals of nature. It is no longer 1910. People cannot be trusted to explore the backcountry responsibly. They are too stupid, too irresponsible, too mobile, too uneducated to be let loose.
For those of us with responsibility, with backwoods knowledge and the ability to conduct ourselves in a decent manner, the conduct of people is appalling. I liken this to something like the ability level required to obtain a driving license. It is functional stupidity to allow cretins loose on the public roads with only a modicum of ability, training, experience, and even lacking in basic English or French literacy to read road signs and directions. We all see the result by the way people drive. Ignorant, dismissive of others, negligent, and causing utter chaos everywhere they go. “I’m a safe driver” they proclaim, as they leave a trail of disaster and destruction in their wake.
The debate with public backcountry access is similar. How do we control it and police it? Wildfire education is a start. Basic backcountry skills training is better. How many times do EMS and search and rescue save half crippled, infirm, unfit and unprepared people from life threatening situations? The wildfire issue is part of a wider issue. Do we insist on an IQ test before the public are allowed to be loose on mountain tails? Check points at the base of forest service roads manned by eager volunteers?
The thoughts I’m having about this remind me of a very bad winter when the RCMP were stopping people from entering a high elevation mountain pass highway in BC. They were actually inspecting vehicles and tires for suitability. I saw elderly ladies in small cars being advised to go back to town. Cars full of youth were turned back for having summer tires. One guy was having a real earful due to his bald winter tires and a cop was slowly losing patience as the situation escalated. I heard the mention of “my rights”. In my opinion his “rights” ended when he posed a potential risk to rear ending me, out of control and skidding wildly. When driving my rear-view worldview is more of a concern than what is in front of me. In front, I can control my situation. Behind, and especially in winter, I am a sitting duck for morons and cretins. The type of people that cannot afford good winter tires risk my very life. Yet they think they have the “right” to put my life in danger. It really is a public safety issue, and perhaps they should be judged by those most affected. Rural residents and hardened, knowledgeable backcountry users. It’s a fine line but personal freedom and public safety have a balance to work through. As with driving and road safety, we are losing the battle because everything is dumbed down to lowest common denominator standards.
To the point about backcountry access. There needs to be a real-world user-based discussion about this issue. It’s sad it has come to this, but in western Canada we need this level of control over the solutions rather than from some cubicle-based Ottawa apparatchik who has no real-world front-line experience. Their answer is very predictable. Ban everyone, including you and I, and leave the backcountry to become a human free zone. Simply because society degenerates so rapidly there is no rational answer. In general people are beyond educating. After a few decades people still drive around without wearing their seatbelt. I personally know of someone who would still be alive today if they had clicked that little safety apparatus every time.
On issues like this we must take control. People like Danielle Smith must have a voice, and I urge you to educate yourself about the underlying root causes and consider the social dynamics that are causing this problem.
I wish it was 1910. I wish we didn’t have these idiots and this mass psychosis to contend with. I wish we could have a calm, rational debate about forestry management practices. I wish there were no horrendous low quality suburbs of McMansions spread up into the interface zones, like a virus infecting nature. City folk have relocated from their urban hellscapes to bring disaster to the bush. I wish they had stayed in an environment that was safer for them, and us.
I suspect more deranged dogma and propaganda will fill the margins of the discussion. Fire bans and shutdown of backcountry access will be the only totalitarian solution the government can offer. Useful idiots will consume the narrative, expressing their rage at “global warming” and “climate change”. They will demand that “something be done”. Politicians will react accordingly, in line with the masterplan. We must wrestle this back from their control.
No doubt we will see a nudge further towards 15-minute cities, urban prisons, and “dehumanized zones”.
For your health…
(Ricky Daytona has hiked, biked, photographed, explored, skied, guided, snowshoed, and helped maintain and tidy up the backcountry of B.C. Canada for almost 20 years. He has friends whose houses were burned down due to forest interface fires. He has contributed to community forest fire evacuation plans, maintained lightning watch, and has helped others with their own residential evacuation planning. Over the years he has reported dozens of newly lit forest fires.)
