Bright Lights, Big City

Hurrah for the municipal leadership of LaPeche who has once again trumped its own idiocy with the installation and activation of 20 some streetlamps in the village centre and lit them up in a flourescent blaze that would blind an already blind driver right off the road.  Piercing beams of halogen hit me right at eye level as I turned onto the main drag one evening last week in a bright lights big city assault on our little paradise lost.  What I assume was an attempt at quaint, old England style lamp posts to add a warm glow to our dark winter nights in the village square has failed miserably.  Now gone, not only the night sky, the moonlit view of the water, and twinkle, twinkle, little star, but with it any driver`s ability to spot a pedestian, dog, or other moving creature who might step casually off the sidewalk and into the flow of traffic.  Gone also to the average pedestiran is the ability to `see anything at all`, as one villager said to me recently, so overwhelmingly bright and tightly spaced together are these quaint blemishes on our decreasingly rural landscape.

Oh sure, failing the yellow spray paint brigade that could dampen it down with a series of well aimed spritzes at bare glass (hint hint), we will get used to it.  Turtles won`t.  They will creep off elsewhere to compete for safe haven as big city mentality, and hence, action, claims more and more of their wetland, dark sky, and quiet country roads.  In our quest to `beautify`and `civilize` have we humans forgotten the value of natural rhythms of light and dark, night and day?  Have we scrapped the romance of a low lit night stroll holding hands, or a quiet snowy walk home from the bar?  Walk down any dark road if you can find one, you will be suprised what tones of grey emerge out of the darkness, and what your non-visual senses will pick up on as they open to another kind of seeing;  and experience the activation of our natural motion detectors that don`t react with a terrified blast of police spotlight on anything that stirs.

It is my fantasy that citizens will put pressure on the powers-that-be to turn down the (light) noise on Main Street.  Its simply not necessary or appropriate to light up downtown Wakefield like Times Square. Even the Styrorail plant`s outdoor night lighting is more demure than our new lamp posts!  For over a decade light pollution has been a well known part of public discourse in planning and environmental circles.  Meanwhile our municipalities gun their engines for a rip-roar up new asphalt, lit up waterfronts, new condo developments, industrial zones and the like, and incredibly, turn a blind eye to the blinding light they are proposing.  If you can handle the resulting circadean madness, more power (sic) to you.  The rest of us may eventually have to crawl into the mud for a decent night`s sleep.

Mud is Not for Sissies

It’s fall in the Gatineau hills, and I’m shacked up in my friend’s loft in the top of a converted old barn. From the inside, it could be a spacious Soho studio, with its polished cement floor, high ceilings, picture windows, fairy paintings, sexy/artsy furniture, and, (god has blessed me,) a piano! I feel coddled, lucky to have temporary, comfortable refuge in a period of extreme homelessness and transition, and happy to not be sleeping in the car. As a matter of fact, it’s downright luxurious, in a way, although the furnace and the kitchen sink aren’t hooked up just yet, the mice keep nibbling at my supplies, and I’m still living out of suitcases because there’s no place, really, to put my things. But I digress. Luxury is relative, and I’m a happy camper with a roof over my head and a view of Gatineau foliage. Yes, I am home again.

Just outside the door, it’s another world. You see, my friend's husband has a brand new tractor, and he spends hours and hours driving back and forth, pushing dirt around, creating new piles and potholes and generally rearranging the earth— I’m sure with some plan in mind, but one that isn’t left to settle for very long before the strategy, or priority seems to change. We all have our way of working things out, and the sound his tractor going back and forth and around the loft/barn is a comforting one to me. It reminds me of my dad, who processed life in hay bales, not mud, but with a similar down-beat on the John Deere.

I’ve been slucking through the muck a lot myself lately, and not only in the squishy rubber-boot path from the studio to the car, where I keep a selection of shoes to slip into once I get out of the driveway. Great globs of bureaucracy are decorating my days and ruining my shoes. From complicated institutional procedures to parking tickets, insurance conundrums, financial woes, health care line-ups and loose ends of all sorts, my problems are the inevitable result of the mail having to follow a zigzag path across North America to find its way to me, which mostly, it doesn’t.

It’s hard to explain my transitional state, which some more annoying people have started to call my ‘lifestyle’. Bollocks. I guess they have never experienced the difficulty of finding a roost: the right roost, on the right tree, in the right forest, with the right companions. Maybe those people just take life as it comes to them, or never leave home in the first place. I find patience to be the only missing ingredient within myself, and the rest is just a matter of persistence. “I’m fine,” I say, with an evasive half-laugh and a shift of eyes to avoid the all too natural ‘interviews’ of the curious. (“How are you? Where have you been? What are you doing? Where are you now?”— Hand them a drink, point to a flock of geese, make a weather comment, run.)

Other people require no explanation. They take one look at me up to my knees in mud, and nod quietly in greeting. They know that mud is not for sissies. One of these friend-saints gave me some words the other night. He explained to me how the early English settlers to Canada (his ancestors), came over here and toughed it out for years, all the while groaning over the hardships and getting increasingly frustrated, until finally they managed to lurch free of the new world soil to return to the warm breast of the motherland. Once there, they realized mud was much sexier than the queen, and so they turned around and came back. “They called it the 10,000 pound cure,” he says. I have no idea exactly what that means but yes, it does feel that heavy, and yes, I think that it may have worked.

I’m tired. I show up with globs of wet dirt caked to my sneakers which are falling apart from walking so far, only to arrive back where I started. Not so unlike my friend’s husband on his tractor at the end of another day -- the terrain now both different, and yet essentially the same, as a result of his muditations.

So for those who still don’t understand, I’ll let Eminem speak for me, rather than attempting to explain any further. “A lot of people been asking me,” he says, “where the fuck I been at the last few years. Shit. I don’t know! … But I do know one thing… I’m back now… Ha ha!”

If I Were Running For Council

Kudos to future councilor Louis Rompre on the official announcement of his candidacy to represent Ward 6. It’s a tough job, but someone’s gotta do it. Up until recently, in the absence of any official or unofficial volunteers to replace Lynne Berthiaume, I’d considered it myself. Over a decade a resident of Wakefield, a former community organizer/developer, a writer, a poet, and a fool, I considered myself more than qualified for the job. Plus, in my new incarnation as budding urban planner, I was downright enthusiastic about the opportunity.

In fact, I’d imagined a clever campaign slogan for my walk-in (uncontested/acclaimed) candidacy—“Vote Horak: Better Than No-one!” I’d had fanciful visions of clever campaign tricks like slogan-stitched doggie sweaters and old sneakers hanging from trees with “Vote Horak” stenciled on the bottoms. But after a (top secret) official meeting with the Ward 6 incumbent, I realized that I was being swept away by funky artistic fantasies instead of casting a steady eye toward the real issues, and the real job at hand.

And there are real issues to be dealt with. And so, dear voters, here is my unofficial platform:

1. We need an Economic Development Plan that is based on us.

First of all, it is incontestable that we need an economic development plan, and I hope Councilor-candidate Rompre will see fit to promote that. The PPU makes only passing commentary on the subject and in fact should itself be drawn along the lines of economic planning, not in isolation from it. Additionally, our PPU, god bless it, articulates our economic base as primarily touristic and nature-recreational, which is mostly accurate. But we need an economic plan that recognizes and invests in the artistic and creative riches that makes our community worth visiting. After all, we are as much a part of the natural landscape as we are inspired by it, and the funkiness that we embody (I think this is the “spirit of Wakefield” to which Councilor-candidate Rompre refers) could also be seen as the untapped rescource of our “Social Capital”, to be developed and promoted. We have a tremendous opportunity to promote tourism around who we actually are and what we actually have to offer that is unique and different, beyond a train ride and a donut from the bakery.

As well, our Economic Development Plan must strongly articulate, in word and policy, the intent to support and encourage our already strong and growing local enterprises that provide essential goods and services and keep our dollars flowing locally, especially in the 100 mile food-shed.

2. Affordability and Gentrification

Wakefield, particularly the village ward, has changed for the better and for the worse, depending on what side of the dollar you sit on. For local businesses, increase in population, tourism, and an increase in general village activity has been a blessing that has aided the slow growth of a vibrant village core. Businesses may still struggle, but they no longer face inevitable shutdown after 5 or 6 months of the ‘wrong’ season.

But living on the other side of the coin has definitely gotten harder. Ask any youth, local worker (restaurant/café/storefront staff), single mom, artist, musician, farmer, or other person who works for an approximate minimum wage and they will tell you that affordable housing in or near the village has become nearly impossible to find. New funky Wakefielders who aren’t sporting professional salaries, as well as some more longstanding low income characters-around-town, are suffering. Disproportional increases in rent are forcing these people elsewhere—to Masham, Rupert, Alcove, Farrellton and Lascelles. Not that there’s anything wrong with living on the edge, but the cost of gas adds up, and community is less accessible.

For the truly local, buying food here costs 20-30% more at both grocery stores, making dumpster diving a lot less recreational than it used to be. Ironically, many of these particular Wakefielders contribute great riches in social capital and volunteer energy, but still struggle to meet their basic needs. Some longer-term working class residents are lucky, and own their own homes. But if you didn’t put your deposit down on your little village house, or cabin, or trailer before the boom, you can forget about it now.

So, you see, affordable housing is not only lacking for seniors. Municipal administrators, representatives, and community leaders need to take a comprehensive look at this. Now, not later, is the time to examine policy options, and come up with some creative solutions, or Wakefield will continue to become a place for the cash-rich, to the exclusion of the rest of us, despite our artistic, labor, entrepreneurial, and civic contributions.


3. East Meets West meets North meets South: Unity and Diversity

One of my favorite quotes by a PPU committee member reflects on the diversity of our community in a somewhat sardonic way. “Wakefield,” he says, “is not the kind of place you can really put your arms around.” Indeed, divisiveness is as much the norm here as diversity, and I’ve never once experienced an all-encompassing group hug here in the village, (although hugging is a popular past time). Our challenge is to turn all that difference into asset as opposed to obstacle.

While Mayor Bussiere has come to better understand and relate to the ‘other’ side of the municipality, the perception and reality of ‘parts’ still exists, culturally, linguistically, politically, and economically. The question is, how can we use this to our advantage? One thing is for sure, East and West will meet at the council roundtable and those differences and divisions will still play a role.

Proudly I can say, Wakefield may be a real opportunity for surmounting some of the francais-anglais divide, with strong leaders like River Echo Language School presenting opportunities for language exchange and education, as well as a generally side-by-side semi-integrated population. But the effort to learn and understand each other across a gulf of 250 years of standoff has to involve concerted efforts and congenial gestures on both sides. I, for one, observe the whole situation from a semi-outsiders’ perspective (being neither of French nor English Canadian descent) as do many other Wakefielders who, strung together, pretty much cover all regions of the globe. I have had many local days where I had the opportunity to speak all 5 languages I know and a few that I didn’t. I believe this, our diversity in a wider sense, may be a part of the solution. Events like the Harvest Festival forge a new bridge out of the richness of Aboriginal tradition into a future of multi-culti, earth-lovin’ fun. If unity, or at least peaceful coexistence, is a real possibility, I would expect a glimpse of it here, in a landscape that does hold its arms around all of us.

And so, dear readers, I am not actually running for Council. I am far too insecure to go up against the likes of a Rompre, and besides, I don’t really want the job. But I hope that public participation in our political process will be funky, fun, and growing rather than groaning, screeching, and lurching to a halt. Here’s my hat in the ring. Now its your turn.