Editor:
As one of the many grateful users of the new bridge across Spring Creek, I feel obligated to offer a response to last week’s correspondent who expressed her dismay and questioned the motives and environmental ethics of the bridge’s builder.
First of all, I suspect that many of us can empathize with the sincere frustration she expressed. Anyone who has ever lobbied to mitigate some activity that causes ecological harm has run into a wall of bureaucratic complexity and institutional complicity that sustains the dysfunctional status quo, no matter how strong the science, how vigorous the community support or how compelling the moral argument.
But I do question whether this bridge is quite as destructive as the writer suggests. Indeed, I think a compelling case could be made that by keeping people, dogs and bicycles out of the creek at this well-used fording spot, the bridge prevents potential contamination of the water – especially given its proximity to a large open building site.
I do agree that it does make it a less navigable waterway to boaters. But it’s not exactly the St. Lawrence Seaway, and given there is generally a makeshift bridge of rocks at that spot, most boaters would have to get out and walk there anyway. And by removing the rock barrier, it has enabled fish to freely move upstream – a meaningful act of environmental restoration.
The builder of the bridge turns out to be a knowledgeable and committed environmentalist who saw a community need and stepped in to meet it at his own expense and by the sweat of a few local brows. A rash act perhaps, but in an age where cash is king and volunteerism is on the wane, such a spirit of entrepreneurial and ingenious community service is surely to be welcomed.
And ironically, when the builder went to dismantle the bridge – in response to the feelings of an unhappy local resident – he was met by a clamor of dismay from local residents who insisted that the bridge stay.
Few human artifacts are as richly symbolic as the bridge. And for me this humble, handcrafted little bridge, and the surprising level of interest and energy that it has attracted, raises some small, lingering questions in our town.
What is truly the wisest course of ecological action? How are we to bridge division and to act ethically? Must we always wait for someone else to survey our opinions and then do it for us? Can the soul of a place thrive if we do not leave space for the unplanned, the emergent, the chaotic, the organic?
And above all, how are we to live well here in this place, in respectful harmony with our neighbours – human and non-human? It’s surely the burning question of our times and anything that gets us asking it in a more engaged and real way is to be welcomed.
Julian Norris,
Canmore
