Martitime Tales

Word yesterday in my e mail box is that "Maritime Tales of Lake Ontario" from the History Press should be in print and on sale by July.

 

So, what is your new book about? This is a common question for authors to deal with, and the History Press marketing department suggests authors come up with a list of easy to understand catchy 'talking points' as you attempt to answer. They also suggest coming up with a tag line. I'm leaning towards waters of wealth and treachery to sum up the duality of nature in general and the lake in particular.

Emily Dickinson put it so well and so succinctly- 'sweet is the swamp until we meet a snake.' Nature is beautiful and alluring but also dangerous and dark. And so it is with the lake. It has been and still is a source of wealth, spiritual energy, and great pleasure. But its indifferent power takes lives every summer. Not long ago two people died in the waves while swimming at the West Barrier Bar. Every year anglers, duck hunters , and yes, sailors too, are claimed by its uncaring waters, leaving families bereaved. Never take the lake for granted an old timer told me once.

Lately I see this yin and yang contrasting aspect everywhere. An environmental writer in a farewell letter just before his death said that we must learn to live in an age of contrasts and paradoxes. These are the best of times and the worst of times. Fossil fuel comes to mind. Fossil fuel gives us unparalleled freedom of mobility and makes it simple and easy to heat houses and produce electricity. The petrochemical industry has given us fiberglass boats too! But it's also led to horrendous environmental and social costs, like climate change and ocean acidification.

And so it is with the lake. It gives and it takes away. We don't realize how much it does do for us. Ask the folks who live near the Aral Sea, a body of water in central Asia with a surface area nearly that of Lake Superior that was almost sucked dry by irrigation. Their very climate changed after it disappeared. Their growing season was reduced by ten days. Toxic pesticide laced salts from its basin have been blown by the wind up to six hundred miles away. When some Soviet central planner decided irrigated cotton was more valuable than the various products and ecological services provided by the Aral Sea and so decided it should be sacrificed deliberately for agriculture, he blundered badly. Over 40,000 people from fishing villages alone were displaced and one best guess is that the lost economic activity alone runs 2 billion rubles a year. (This estimate excludes of the value of ecological services such as climate moderation and ground water enhancement).

Like the song says, you don't know what you got til it's gone- will we pave paradise and put up a parking lot here too? Or might we pay attention to the lessons of history? There have been instances of societies that learned from past mistakes. It has happened and it could happen again. Though one does seriously wonder... (art work by Peter Rindlisbacher and shows the Hamilton, a 1812 War era schooner whose brief career due to a mistake in engineering is part of Maritime Tales).